Buildings climbed the hill. Smoke rose from chimneys into the mist and low lying clouds.
“’Tis a beginning town much like those in our West Country,” Dawson remarked.
“Aye, ‘tis very pretty,” David thoughtfully answered, for he could smell opportunity. He recognized a fishery works, which would be a good business, but only if the seas were cleared of pirates and the world was free of wars.
“We will go there,” he pointed and Dawson nodded. “Seems there’s a protected harbour.”
As they sailed between a large island and a peninsula, the winds calmed. By the time they followed the long length of land and found themselves in a large pool, the waters were clear as a lake. The bells from fishing boats, and a tall ship dinged lazily in the still water.
People emerged from their dwellings of stone and from a longhouse built next to the water. They carried swords, cutlasses, Wheelocks and cudgels.
“Drop anchor,” Dawson ordered.
“I’m going ashore to see what this place is about.” David turned to see the other ships dropping their anchors. “Send messages to my brothers and bring about a pinnace.”
“Not sure it’s a good idea, sir,” Dawson calmly said as he gazed at the heavily armed throng on shore.
David grinned. “It’ll be fine and dandy, Dawson. Don’t fret. If there’s trouble, burn the place to the ground. After all, we’ve the letter of marque stamped with His Majesty’s broad seal, which allows us free rein to do as we please.”
He grabbed the rope and lowered himself to the pinnace. He gazed up at his first mate’s worried face and laughed.
As David and his brothers neared the dock, several men greeted them with scowls and threatening gestures. “Art thou filthy French pirates come to harass our good town?” A tall fellow shook his cudgel.
The pinnace bumped onto the pilings and a seaman jumped out to secure rope to a cleat. David climbed onto the stone wharf. “No French pirates, here. We are of God’s good England and we come in peace.” He would not crouch, and stood tall, even as those he walked up to looked menacing.
Shoulders relaxed. A disturbance rattled the group and people parted as an older gentleman stepped up to him. David was aware of his brothers climbing out of the boat and onto the wharf. With them beside him, nothing could go wrong.
The gentleman extended his hand. “George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, here. I welcome you to the Province of Avalon.”
Chapter Eleven
Lord Baltimore led the way, past a lone tree whose quest for survival astonished David. Most of its roots exposed, they clutched bare rock. Some had found a crack, the tentacles digging deep. A few tender leaves unfurled on stunted branches.
David and his brothers followed Baltimore on smooth, naturally formed rock that gave way to pebbles and gravel. They walked toward a two story mansion built of stone on the lee of a hill, the roof a combination of thatch and flags. Beyond the house rose grassy hills.
A cold wind soughed up the barren hill. There were no trees except those recently planted about the headland, and the lone one on shore.
Baltimore shivered and grasped his cloak tighter about him. “Methinks more trees would protect us from the cold. There’s an inland forest but then we’d be too far from the sea.”
As they strode along the path that took them further from the wharf, David turned around to study the land, storehouses, dwellings and the pool that made a wonderfully defended harbour. Whoever planned this had done very well, for the buildings had been constructed to last through years of harsh seasons. He saw a smith and a brewhouse. Not far from the mansion, chickens clucked in a henhouse. To the left, rows of a newly ploughed garden pointed to the crest of a steep hill.
People went slowly about their business. They were thin and wan, seemingly hungry. A child cried.
David motioned to shallow stonework with poles lying over the top of it. Smoke bubbled up from within. “What’s that?”
Baltimore’s gaze followed his finger. “’Tis the saltworks. The poles hold large cauldrons filled with seawater. Our men are fashioning a better one closer to the pool where we shall allow the water to evaporate rather than steam away. The end result is clean, white salt.”
“Seems a great deal of salt in the making. What do you use it for?” Lewis asked.
“To salt the fish and other beasts we hunt for food. With so much rock, we cannot store food underground.” Lord Baltimore turned back toward his house as if he were no longer interested in the business.
The plantation still in development, huts and cottages formed a small hamlet. Entwined fir branches set on legs, like a table, cozied between the cottages and littered the land.
David raised his arm. “What are those?”
“Fishing flakes. We dry salted cod on those,” Baltimore answered.
When they walked up the steps to the front porch, the door was opened by a feeble old gentleman fitted in the Baltimore colours. He bowed. “Milord.”
“Jenkins,” Baltimore replied.
Trunks and portmanteaux filled the small foyer. A lady’s black cloak had been draped over the tallest trunk. A servant dragged a heavy chest toward the others, arousing David’s curiosity. He gazed at Lewis, who shrugged.
Baltimore ignored the growing pile and took them into a large chamber. “Jenkins has been with us since I was a child,” he informed them when they entered a large parlour.
A servant girl with yellow hair falling from her cap followed with a platter of horn cups and a pitcher of ale which she set on a narrow table. She poured ale into the cups, curtsied, then left the chamber.
Footsteps thumped overhead. Children’s laughter rolled down the stairs. Lord Baltimore looked at the roughhewn beamed ceiling. “We’ve quite a lot of ‘em up there.” He smiled and languidly waved his hand. “Lost count, I have, but at least a dozen.”
He sank onto a straight backed chair. “Make yourselves at ease. How’s England? Warmer than here, I’d wager. What can I do for thee?”
David and Lewis found straight-backed chairs, and with cups in hand, sat across from their host.
“It was a wet winter,” Lewis offered and sipped his beer.
David harrumphed. Thomas did not partake in the discourse or take a cup but wandered to the window. He stood there like a damned stick, his back to the chamber.
Baltimore’s head sagged toward his chest. “Our winter past has been woeful sad and colder than a witch’s mark.” He shivered. “I’m still cold to the bones. Can’t get warm even with me backside pressed near the hearth fire.
“During the darkest months, this here was more a hospital than a house. Too many sickened and died. Our cow stopped providing milk and she’s too narrow across the back strap to slaughter.” He frowned, his face drooping more than David had ever seen anyone do. “Lost a good bit of me wealth last summer, too, fighting that damned French pirate by the name of de la Rade.” He raised his unhappy gaze to David. “Have you heard of him?”
Lewis shook his head. Thomas said nothing.
The revelation came as a surprise. Last summer, his fleet had been all over the area, provisioned up the coast at St. John’s and they’d never seen the pirate. He almost laughed. The pirate had done the same things to the English as David had done to the French.
He could only shake his head. “Nay, I have not.”
“Fishermen will be coming here, soon, and will more than like stay all summer,” Baltimore continued without pause. “We’ve the beginnings of a nice fishery here, with train vats for cod-liver oil. Apothecaries in London and Paris pay dear for the first oil.” He sighed. “’Tis considered good medicine.”
David finished his ale, a sweet brew without hops or malt but flavoured with unknown herbs.
Baltimore frowned. “You noticed the portmanteaux at the door.” He scratched the side of his long nose. “Me wife’s leaving, taking all the children to a warmer clime.” Again, he languidly waved his hand. “Thinkin’ of Chesapeake, we are. I shall join
her later.” He sat forward. “Do you know if those folks will accept Catholics?”
David suppressed a grimace. He was not fond of Catholics and less of Jesuits, who were a bloody plague in the world. “I know not,” he answered but expected they would not accept him. If the Chesapeake folk were Protestant, they’d force Baltimore—king’s man or not—to take the oath of allegiance, signifying he followed His Majesty’s Church of England.
Footsteps thundered downstairs. Something dropped; the crash rattled and banged to the floor.
David jumped to his feet.
Baltimore cringed. “Another calamity, I’m afraid.” He waved his hand. “Sit down. Jenkins will assist.”
“I dropped the hornbooks,” wailed a young lad. “They’re all broken.”
David hoped not to witness a death so soon after coming ashore, for the ancient gentleman could easily collapse as he staggered toward the stairs. He certainly did not look strong enough to pick up broken objects.
“Are you sure?” David asked.
“Quite sure,” Baltimore replied. He seemed tired and rested his head on the back of the chair. “I could do with a drink of wine but we have none. Gone, it is. Drained the barrel to the dregs whilst recovering from when my nose nearly froze off me face. It was a few months ago, now.” He stroked the side and tip of it. “There’s still no feeling along here.”
The man’s melancholy started to vex David. Setbacks happened. He must stand on his own two legs and get it done, carry on. Baltimore’s whimpering degraded his manhood. He turned a troubled regard to Lewis. What should we do?
His brother shrugged.
“We need provisioning,” he said to Baltimore. “Do you have any?”
The man snorted. “We have nothing. As it is, we’re barely subsisting on what we could ration through winter.” He slapped his knees and stood. “I tell thee, it has been a hell of a time and we’ll not spend another moment in this dreary place. When we leave here, many of our folk will come with us which will diminish the number of craftsmen. The house will be empty, the garden made fallow.”
He stepped up to David; his sagging eyes dripped with sadness. “I shall never return.”
Baltimore swept out his arm and gave him a strange regard. “I leave this place to you, sirrah. Mayhap, you will do better.”
* * *
The fleet drifted out of Ferryland Pool and headed to the Atlantic. David stood against the rail and considered their meeting with Lord Baltimore had been exceedingly strange. It soundly rattled him what Lord Baltimore had implied, that he should take over the plantation in his stead but David did not think the man could hand it over so easily. The king had bestowed the charter of Avalon to Baltimore. It was in His Majesty’s power to continue in this design or transfer the charter to another.
David watched the diminishing shoreline and thought he could do better than Lord Baltimore. He considered himself young and vibrant. He would implement new and decisive ways to improve the colony and make a good home for Sara and their children, should Twig be able to survive the bearing of them. He shook his head to rid his brain of those dire thoughts.
“Where to, Captain?” Dawson inquired.
“St. John’s. We’ll provision there.”
“Seems this wild country had a harsh winter. Hopefully, that fishing camp will be able to help us.”
David nodded, not unduly concerned. Below decks still had food and beer. There was plenty of fresh water in this new land and beasts to hunt, fish to catch. Then, he reckoned they could do with fewer stores. It would make room for the goods they acquired from the settlements and they needed space for hostages.
“Let us go there and see what they have.” He paused a moment then added, “Although, we could go to Gaspé and raid their stores.” He grinned. “They don’t hate us there. Yet.”
They sailed north to St. John’s, a diverse colony of fishermen sired from several European countries, the primary language being English and French. Basques had settled in St. John’s along with Portuguese and Spanish. The thought of so many popish persons in the world troubled him exceedingly. His father must have been stark mad to move from a proper Protestant country to a Catholic one.
Of course he could not object to Father’s reasoning. One night after several dishes of wine, he’d confided to David that as a poor apprentice in London, then a poorer master, Dieppe had provided better ways to make a fortune.
David shook his head. Religion was an important aspect in life. It took a lot of courage to leave England and settle in a foreign land filled with papists; then David suddenly realized he might do the same. Newfoundland was predominately Catholic. If somehow he could take over the Avalon Colony, he’d improve upon it and make Protestantism the main religion. It was something to think about.
A month later, the fleet sailed into the Gulf of St. Lawrence near the Île d’Anticosti. On the first night, David ordered his brothers and the other captains to join him in his main chamber on the Abigail where they stood around the table and studied a map of the area. He jabbed his finger onto the parchment. “We will make our headquarters at Tadoussac.
“They don’t like us, there,” Thomas stated. “They could do malicious mischief to our fleet.”
“We will settle in the sheltered cove we chose last year, the one that lies at the mouth of the Saguenay River. We’ll post guards on all ships, day and night.”
Grunts of approval bounced about the chamber.
“Once there, Lewis and Thomas, you will sail up the St. Lawrence to Québec where you will prevail upon Monsieur de Champlain to surrender his fort to us.”
Chapter Twelve
Québec July 19, 1629
Samuel de Champlain stood on the edge of the cliff overlooking the St. Lawrence River. Breezes filled with the smells of dense undergrowth and pine swept up the escarpment as he watched a pinnace sail toward him. Half relieved, half sorrowful, he was sure it was the English, returning to finish what they failed to complete last year. This time, he did not have the strength to deceive them. Their incessant torment of survival was finally at an end.
He and his family were starving, their clothes in rags. His wife, Helene, regarded him with haunted eyes. His Aboriginal daughter, Espérance, was rail thin and lethargic, while Charité could no longer rise from her bed. Champlain feared if the circumstances did not soon change, he’d lose one or both of his daughters. He’d already lost one and could not face it, again.
Then, when the situation was at its most desperate, more trouble had brewed last autumn. The religious disturbance in France between the Huguenots and Catholics had extended across the Atlantic to New France and fighting broke out between the colonists.
No longer interested in the Dutch, the savages took advantage. They sided with the Protestants which further depleted his stores. He and the other colonists were unable to hunt or fish without the fear of being caught in the crossfire. All winter, his wife and daughters had been bound to their quarters.
Québec had been reduced to extremes. With the last two winters harsh and last summer cool and rainy, many of his men had succumbed to disease brought on by starvation. With so few men to hold the fort, their impregnability was now for naught.
Champlain allowed the Englishmen to disembark and find their way up the steep hill to their fort. To keep his wife and daughters alive, he would surrender.
Claude Brucette walked up to him. “Mon Dieu, they come. In truth, I am relieved.” He thumbed his chest. “This body is weak from hunger and cannot go ten paces without having to sit down.”
“We have nothing to fight with. We will soon see what they intend to do,” Champlain stated and they returned to his lodgings. He’d lost Michel, his aide, to the ravages of scurvy earlier this month. Now, he worked alone but there was little to do.
Heavy footfalls thudded on the wooden planks outside. Champlain could hear the heavy breathing of the Englishman before Claude opened the door.
“Oui, come in.”
�
�Steep climb.” The Englishman staggered across the threshold and removed his hat. “I am Dawson,” he said with a small bow. “Captain Kirke’s first mate.”
Champlain nodded. The man smelled of tobacco, the briny sea and fresh air. He clutched a sealed letter. “What do you have for me?”
Dawson handed the folded paper to him.
Champlain cracked the seal and took the letter to the light of the window. Again, these English wrote to him in French. He should be pleased by this, but only anguish filled his heart.
His good eye failing, he raised the missive nearly to his nose. Reading always gave him a headache. He did not know if it was hunger or old age that caused this. “Your Monsieur Kirke repeats himself,” he mused aloud in French, for the man again promised to take his fort and make it English. “What will he call this place once we are gone from here?”
Kirke’s first mate stared at him as if he did not understand French.
“What else does he say?” Claude asked.
“He understands how desperate we are,” Champlain muttered. “We are to surrender our fort and the settlement to them.” He cleared his throat to remove the lump that had formed. His whole life, everything he had worked for, gone. “He assures us of all courtesies.”
Dawson must have seen his emotion for the man studied his feet.
Champlain rattled the leaf. In broken English, he said, “Your interception of our supplies last year pinched us desperate. We can no longer defend Québec. I will tell you tomorrow what our terms of surrender will be.”
The Englishman seemed to understand. He nodded.
“Please withdraw beyond cannon range and do not try to land on our shores,” he pleaded. “We do not want you to terrify our women and children.”
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