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Montcalm and Wolfe by Francis Parkman

F >> Francis Parkman >> Montcalm and Wolfe




[Footnote 37: _Lieutenant Lindesay to Johnson, July, 1751._]

[Footnote 38: _Clinton to Lords of Trade, 30 July, 1750._]

[Footnote 39: _Journal of Conrad Weiser, 1750._]

Piquet kept his promise not to land at the English fort; but he
approached in his canoe, and closely observed it. The shores, now
covered by the city of Oswego, were then a desolation of bare hills and
fields, studded with the stumps of felled trees, and hedged about with a
grim border of forests. Near the strand, by the mouth of the Onondaga,
were the houses of some of the traders; and on the higher ground behind
them stood a huge blockhouse with a projecting upper story. This
building was surrounded by a rough wall of stone, with flankers at the
angles, forming what was called the fort.[40] Piquet reconnoitred it
from his canoe with the eye of a soldier. "It is commanded," he says,
"on almost every side; two batteries, of three twelve-pounders each,
would be more than enough to reduce it to ashes." And he enlarges on the
evils that arise from it. "It not only spoils our trade, but puts the
English into communication with a vast number of our Indians, far and
near. It is true that they like our brandy better than English rum; but
they prefer English goods to ours, and can buy for two beaver-skins at
Oswego a better silver bracelet than we sell at Niagara for ten."

[Footnote 40: Compare _Doc. Hist. N.Y._, I. 463.]

The burden of these reflections was lightened when he approached Fort
Frontenac. "Never was reception more solemn. The Nipissings and
Algonkins, who were going on a war-party with Monsieur Beletre, formed a
line of their own accord, and saluted us with three volleys of musketry,
and cries of joy without end. All our little bark vessels replied in the
same way. Monsieur de Vercheres and Monsieur de Valtry ordered the
cannon of the fort to be fired; and my Indians, transported with joy at
the honor done them, shot off their guns incessantly, with cries and
acclamations that delighted everybody." A goodly band of recruits joined
him, and he pursued his voyage to La Presentation, while the canoes of
his proselytes followed in a swarm to their new home; "that
establishment"--thus in a burst of enthusiasm he closes his
Journal--"that establishment which I began two years ago, in the midst
of opposition; that establishment which may be regarded as a key of the
colony; that establishment which officers, interpreters, and traders
thought a chamaera,--that establishment, I say, forms already a mission
of Iroquois savages whom I assembled at first to the number of only six,
increased last year to eighty-seven, and this year to three hundred and
ninety-six, without counting more than a hundred and fifty whom Monsieur
Chabert de Joncaire is to bring me this autumn. And I certify that thus
far I have received from His Majesty--for all favor, grace, and
assistance--no more than a half pound of bacon and two pounds of bread
for daily rations; and that he has not yet given a pin to the chapel,
which I have maintained out of my own pocket, for the greater glory of
my masters, God and the King."[41]

[Footnote 41: _Journal qui peut servir de Memoire et de Relation du
Voyage que j'ay fait sur le Lac Ontario pour attirer au nouvel
Etablissement de La Presentation les Sauvages Iroquois des Cinq Nations,
1751_. The last passage given above is condensed in the rendering, as
the original is extremely involved and ungrammatical.]

In his late journey he had made the entire circuit of Lake Ontario.
Beyond lay four other inland oceans, to which Fort Niagara was the key.
As that all-essential post controlled the passage from Ontario to Erie,
so did Fort Detroit control that from Erie to Huron, and Fort
Michillimackinac that from Huron to Michigan; while Fort Ste. Marie, at
the outlet of Lake Superior, had lately received a garrison, and changed
from a mission and trading-station to a post of war.[42] This immense
extent of inland navigation was safe in the hands of France so long as
she held Niagara. Niagara lost, not only the lakes, but also the Valley
of the Ohio was lost with it. Next in importance was Detroit. This was
not a military post alone, but also a settlement; and, except the
hamlets about Fort Chartres, the only settlement that France owned in
all the West. There were, it is true, but a few families; yet the hope
of growth seemed good; for to such as liked a wilderness home, no spot
in America had more attraction. Father Bonnecamp stopped here for a day
on his way back from the expedition of Celoron. "The situation," he
says, "is charming. A fine river flows at the foot of the
fortifications; vast meadows, asking only to be tilled, extend beyond
the sight. Nothing can be more agreeable than the climate. Winter lasts
hardly two months. European grains and fruits grow here far better than
in many parts of France. It is the Touraine and Beauce of Canada."[43]
The white flag of the Bourbons floated over the compact little
palisaded town, with its population of soldiers and fur-traders; and
from the blockhouses which served as bastions, one saw on either hand
the small solid dwellings of the _habitants_, ranged at intervals along
the margin of the water; while at a little distance three Indian
villages--Ottawa, Pottawattamie, and Wyandot--curled their wigwam smoke
into the pure summer air.[44]

[Footnote 42: _La Jonquiere au Ministre, 24 Aout, 1750_.]

[Footnote 43: _Relation du Voiage de la Belle Riviere, 1749_.]

[Footnote 44: A plan of Detroit is before me, made about this time by
the engineer Lery.]

When Celoron de Bienville returned from the Ohio, he went, with a royal
commission, sent him a year before, to command at Detroit.[45] His late
chaplain, the very intelligent Father Bonnecamp, speaks of him as
fearless, energetic, and full of resource; but the Governor calls him
haughty and insubordinate. Great efforts were made, at the same time, to
build up Detroit as a centre of French power in the West. The methods
employed were of the debilitating, paternal character long familiar to
Canada. All emigrants with families were to be carried thither at the
King's expense; and every settler was to receive in free gift a gun, a
hoe, an axe, a ploughshare, a scythe, a sickle, two augers, large and
small, a sow, six hens, a cock, six pounds of powder, and twelve pounds
of lead; while to these favors were added many others. The result was
that twelve families were persuaded to go, or about a twentieth part of
the number wanted.[46] Detroit was expected to furnish supplies to the
other posts for five hundred miles around, control the neighboring
Indians, thwart English machinations, and drive off English interlopers.

[Footnote 45: _Le Ministre a la Jonquiere et Bigot, 14 Mai, 1749. Le
Ministre a Celoron, 23 Mai, 1749_.]

[Footnote 46: _Ordonnance du 2 Jan. 1750. La Jonquiere et Bigot au
Ministre, 1750_. Forty-six persons of all ages and both sexes had been
induced by La Galissoniere to go the year before. _Lettres communes de
la Jonquiere et Bigot, 1749_. The total fixed population of Detroit and
its neighborhood in 1750 is stated at four hundred and eighty-three
souls. In the following two years, a considerable number of young men
came of their own accord, and Celoron wrote to Montreal to ask for girls
to marry them.]

La Galissoniere no longer governed Canada. He had been honorably
recalled, and the Marquis de la Jonquiere sent in his stead.[47] La
Jonquiere, like his predecessor, was a naval officer of high repute; he
was tall and imposing in person, and of undoubted capacity and courage;
but old and, according to his enemies, very avaricious.[48] The Colonial
Minister gave him special instructions regarding that thorn in the side
of Canada, Oswego. To attack it openly would be indiscreet, as the two
nations were at peace; but there was a way of dealing with it less
hazardous, if not more lawful. This was to attack it vicariously by
means of the Iroquois. "If Abbe Piquet succeeds in his mission," wrote
the Minister to the new Governor, "we can easily persuade these savages
to destroy Oswego. This is of the utmost importance; but act with great
caution."[49] In the next year the Minister wrote again: "The only means
that can be used for such an operation in time of peace are those of the
Iroquois. If by making these savages regard such an establishment
[_Oswego_] as opposed to their liberty, and, so to speak, a usurpation
by which the English mean to get possession of their lands, they could
be induced to undertake its destruction, an operation of the sort is not
to be neglected; but M. le Marquis de la Jonquiere should feel with what
circumspection such an affair should be conducted, and he should labor
to accomplish it in a manner not to commit himself."[50] To this La
Jonquiere replies that it will need time; but that he will gradually
bring the Iroquois to attack and destroy the English post. He received
stringent orders to use every means to prevent the English from
encroaching, but to act towards them at the same time "with the greatest
politeness."[51] This last injunction was scarcely fulfilled in a
correspondence which he had with Clinton, governor of New York, who had
written to complain of the new post at the Niagara portage as an
invasion of English territory, and also of the arrest of four English
traders in the country of the Miamis. Niagara, like Oswego, was in the
country of the Five Nations, whom the treaty of Utrecht declared
"subject to the dominion of Great Britain."[52] This declaration,
preposterous in itself, was binding on France, whose plenipotentiaries
had signed the treaty. The treaty also provided that the subjects of the
two Crowns "shall enjoy full liberty of going and coming on account of
trade," and Clinton therefore demanded that La Jonquiere should disavow
the arrest of the four traders and punish its authors. The French
Governor replied with great asperity, spurned the claim that the Five
Nations were British subjects, and justified the arrest.[53] He
presently went further. Rewards were offered by his officers for the
scalps of Croghan and of another trader named Lowry.[54] When this
reached the ears of William Johnson, on the Mohawk, he wrote to Clinton
in evident anxiety for his own scalp: "If the French go on so, there is
no man can be safe in his own house; for I can at any time get an Indian
to kill any man for a small matter. Their going on in that manner is
worse than open war."

[Footnote 47: _Le Ministre a la Galissoniere, 14 Mai, 1749_.]

[Footnote 48: _Memoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760_. The charges made here
and elsewhere are denied, somewhat faintly, by a descendant of La
Jonquiere in his elaborate _Notice biographique_ of his ancestor.]

[Footnote 49: _Le Ministre a La Jonquiere, Mai, 1749_. The instructions
given to La Jonquiere before leaving France also urge the necessity of
destroying Oswego.]

[Footnote 50: _Ordres du Roy et Depeches des Ministres; a MM. de la
Jonquiere et Bigot, 15 Avril, 1750_. See Appendix A. for original.]

[Footnote 51: _Ordres du Roy et Depeches des Ministres, 1750_.]

[Footnote 52: Chalmers, _Collection of Treaties_, I. 382.]

[Footnote 53: _La Jonquiere a Clinton, 10 Aout, 1751_.]

[Footnote 54: Deposition of Morris Turner and Ralph Kilgore, in
_Colonial Records of Pa._, V. 482. The deponents had been prisoners at
Detroit.]

The French on their side made counter-accusations. The captive traders
were examined on oath before La Jonquiere, and one of them, John Patton,
is reported to have said that Croghan had instigated Indians to kill
Frenchmen.[55] French officials declared that other English traders were
guilty of the same practices; and there is very little doubt that the
charge was true.

[Footnote 55: _Precis des Faits, avec leurs Pieces justificatives_,
100.]

The dispute with the English was not the only source of trouble to the
Governor. His superiors at Versailles would not adopt his views, and
looked on him with distrust. He advised the building of forts near Lake
Erie, and his advice was rejected. "Niagara and Detroit," he was told,
"will secure forever our communications with Louisiana."[56] "His
Majesty," again wrote the Colonial Minister, "thought that expenses
would diminish after the peace; but, on the contrary, they have
increased. There must be great abuses. You and the Intendant must look
to it."[57] Great abuses there were; and of the money sent to Canada for
the service of the King the larger part found its way into the pockets
of peculators. The colony was eaten to the heart with official
corruption; and the centre of it was Francois Bigot, the intendant. The
Minister directed La Jonquiere's attention to certain malpractices
which had been reported to him; and the old man, deeply touched,
replied: "I have reached the age of sixty-six years, and there is not a
drop of blood in my veins that does not thrill for the service of my
King. I will not conceal from you that the slightest suspicion on your
part against me would cut the thread of my days."[58]

[Footnote 56: _Ordres du Roy et Depeches des Ministres_, 1750.]

[Footnote 57: _Ibid., 6 Juin_, 1751.]

[Footnote 58: _La Jonquiere au Ministre, 19 Oct_. 1751.]

Perplexities increased; affairs in the West grew worse and worse. La
Jonquiere ordered Celoron to attack the English at Pickawillany; and
Celoron could not or would not obey. "I cannot express," writes the
Governor, "how much this business troubles me; it robs me of sleep; it
makes me ill." Another letter of rebuke presently came from Versailles.
"Last year you wrote that you would soon drive the English from the
Ohio; but private letters say that you have done nothing. This is
deplorable. If not expelled, they will seem to acquire a right against
us. Send force enough at once to drive them off, and cure them of all
wish to return."[59] La Jonquiere answered with bitter complaints
against Celoron, and then begged to be recalled. His health, already
shattered, was ruined by fatigue and vexation; and he took to his bed.
Before spring he was near his end.[60] It is said that, though very
rich, his habits of thrift so possessed his last hours that, seeing
wax-candles burning in his chamber, he ordered others of tallow to be
brought instead, as being good enough to die by. Thus frugally lighted
on its way, his spirit fled; and the Baron de Longueuil took his place
till a new governor should arrive.

[Footnote 59: _Ordres du Roy et Depeches des Ministres_, 1751.]

[Footnote 60: He died on the sixth of March, 1752 (_Bigot au Ministre, 6
Mai_); not on the seventeeth of May, as stated in the _Memoires sur le
Canada_, 1749-1760.]

Sinister tidings came thick from the West. Raymond, commandant at the
French fort on the Maumee, close to the centre of intrigue, wrote: "My
people are leaving me for Detroit. Nobody wants to stay here and have
his throat cut. All the tribes who go to the English at Pickawillany
come back loaded with gifts. I am too weak to meet the danger. Instead
of twenty men, I need five hundred.... We have made peace with the
English, yet they try continually to make war on us by means of the
Indians; they intend to be masters of all this upper country. The tribes
here are leaguing together to kill all the French, that they may have
nobody on their lands but their English brothers. This I am told by
Coldfoot, a great Miami chief, whom I think an honest man, if there is
any such thing among Indians.... If the English stay in this country we
are lost. We must attack, and drive them out." And he tells of war-belts
sent from tribe to tribe, and rumors of plots and conspiracies far and
near.

Without doubt, the English traders spared no pains to gain over the
Indians by fair means or foul; sold them goods at low rates, made ample
gifts, and gave gunpowder for the asking. Saint-Ange, who commanded at
Vincennes, wrote that a storm would soon burst on the heads of the
French. Joncaire reported that all the Ohio Indians sided with the
English. Longueuil informed the Minister that the Miamis had scalped two
soldiers; that the Piankishaws had killed seven Frenchmen; and that a
squaw who had lived with one of the slain declared that the tribes of
the Wabash and Illinois were leaguing with the Osages for a combined
insurrection. Every letter brought news of murder. Small-pox had broken
out at Detroit. "It is to be wished," says Longueuil, "that it would
spread among our rebels; it would be fully as good as an army.... We are
menaced with a general outbreak, and even Toronto is in danger....
Before long the English on the Miami will gain over all the surrounding
tribes, get possession of Fort Chartres, and cut our communications with
Louisiana."[61]

[Footnote 61: _Depeches de Longueuil; Lettres de Raymond; Benoit de
Saint-Clere a la Jonquiere, Oct. 1751._]

The moving spirit of disaffection was the chief called Old Britain, or
the Demoiselle, and its focus was his town of Pickawillany, on the
Miami. At this place it is said that English traders sometimes mustered
to the number of fifty or more. "It is they," wrote Longueuil, "who are
the instigators of revolt and the source of all our woes."[62] Whereupon
the Colonial Minister reiterated his instructions to drive them off and
plunder them, which he thought would "effectually disgust them," and
bring all trouble to an end.[63]

[Footnote 62: _Longueuil au Ministre, 21 Avril, 1752._]

[Footnote 63: _Le Ministre a la Jonquiere, 1752. Le Ministre a Duquesne,
9 Juillet, 1752._]

La Jonquiere's remedy had been more heroic, for he had ordered Celeron
to attack the English and their red allies alike; and he charged that
officer with arrogance and disobedience because he had not done so. It
is not certain that obedience was easy; for though, besides the garrison
of regulars, a strong body of militia was sent up to Detroit to aid the
stroke,[64] the Indians of that post, whose co-operation was thought
necessary, proved half-hearted, intractable, and even touched with
disaffection. Thus the enterprise languished till, in June, aid came
from another quarter. Charles Langlade, a young French trader married to
a squaw at Green Bay, and strong in influence with the tribes of that
region, came down the lakes from Michillimackinac with a fleet of canoes
manned by two hundred and fifty Ottawa and Ojibwa warriors; stopped a
while at Detroit; then embarked again, paddled up the Maumee to
Raymond's fort at the portage, and led his greased and painted rabble
through the forest to attack the Demoiselle and his English friends.
They approached Pickawillany at about nine o'clock on the morning of the
twenty-first. The scared squaws fled from the cornfields into the town,
where the wigwams of the Indians clustered about the fortified warehouse
of the traders. Of these there were at the time only eight in the place.
Most of the Indians also were gone on their summer hunt, though the
Demoiselle remained with a band of his tribesmen. Great was the
screeching of war-whoops and clatter of guns. Three of the traders were
caught outside the fort. The remaining five closed the gate, and stood
on their defence. The fight was soon over. Fourteen Miamis were shot
down, the Demoiselle among the rest. The five white men held out till
the afternoon, when three of them surrendered, and two, Thomas Burney
and Andrew McBryer, made their escape. One of the English prisoners
being wounded, the victors stabbed him to death. Seventy years of
missionaries had not weaned them from cannibalism, and they boiled and
eat the Demoiselle.[65]

[Footnote 64: _La Jonquiere a Celeron, 1 Oct. 1751._]

[Footnote 65: On the attack of Pickawillany, _Longueuil au Ministre, 18
Aout, 1752; Duquesne au Ministre, 25 Oct. 1752; Colonial Records of
Pa._, V. 599; _Journal of William Trent_, 1752. Trent was on the spot a
few days after the affair.]

The captive traders, plundered to the skin, were carried by Langlade to
Duquesne, the new governor, who highly praised the bold leader of the
enterprise, and recommended him to the Minister for such reward as
befitted one of his station. "As he is not in the King's service, and
has married a squaw, I will ask for him only a pension of two hundred
francs, which will flatter him infinitely."

The Marquis Duquesne, sprung from the race of the great naval commander
of that name, had arrived towards midsummer; and he began his rule by a
general review of troops and militia. His lofty bearing offended the
Canadians; but he compelled their respect, and, according to a writer of
the time, showed from the first that he was born to command. He
presently took in hand an enterprise which his predecessor would
probably have accomplished, had the Home Government encouraged him.
Duquesne, profiting by the infatuated neglect of the British provincial
assemblies, prepared to occupy the upper waters of the Ohio, and secure
the passes with forts and garrisons. Thus the Virginian and
Pennsylvanian traders would be debarred all access to the West, and the
tribes of that region, bereft henceforth of English guns, knives,
hatchets, and blankets, English gifts and English cajoleries, would be
thrown back to complete dependence on the French. The moral influence,
too, of such a movement would be incalculable; for the Indian respects
nothing so much as a display of vigor and daring, backed by force. In
short, the intended enterprise was a master-stroke, and laid the axe to
the very root of disaffection. It is true that, under the treaty,
commissioners had been long in session at Paris to settle the question
of American boundaries; but there was no likelihood that they would come
to agreement; and if France would make good her Western claims, it
behooved her, while there was yet time, to prevent her rival from
fastening a firm grasp on the countries in dispute.

Yet the Colonial Minister regarded the plan with distrust. "Be on your
guard," he wrote to Duquesne, "against new undertakings; private
interests are generally at the bottom of them. It is through these that
new posts are established. Keep only such as are indispensable, and
suppress the others. The expenses of the colony are enormous; and they
have doubled since the peace." Again, a little later: "Build on the Ohio
such forts as are absolutely necessary, but no more. Remember that His
Majesty suspects your advisers of interested views."[66]

[Footnote 66: _Ordres du Roy et Depeches des Ministres_, 1753.]

No doubt there was justice in the suspicion. Every military movement,
and above all the establishment of every new post, was an opportunity to
the official thieves with whom the colony swarmed. Some band of favored
knaves grew rich; while a much greater number, excluded from sharing the
illicit profits, clamored against the undertaking, and wrote charges of
corruption to Versailles. Thus the Minister was kept tolerably well
informed; but was scarcely the less helpless, for with the Atlantic
between, the disorders of Canada defied his control. Duquesne was
exasperated by the opposition that met him on all hands, and wrote to
the Minister: "There are so many rascals in this country that one is
forever the butt of their attacks."[67]

[Footnote 67: _Duquesne au Ministre, 29 Sept._ 1754.]

It seems that unlawful gain was not the only secret spring of the
movement. An officer of repute says that the Intendant, Bigot,
enterprising in his pleasures as in his greed, was engaged in an
intrigue with the wife of Chevalier Pean; and wishing at once to console
the husband and to get rid of him, sought for him a high command at a
distance from the colony. Therefore while Marin, an able officer, was
made first in rank, Pean was made second. The same writer hints that
Duquesne himself was influenced by similar motives in his appointment of
leaders.[68]

[Footnote 68: Pouchot, _Memoire sur la derniere Guerre de l'Amerique
septentrionale (ed._ 1781), I. 8.]

He mustered the colony troops, and ordered out the Canadians. With the
former he was but half satisfied; with the latter he was delighted; and
he praises highly their obedience and alacrity. "I had not the least
trouble in getting them to march. They came on the minute, bringing
their own guns, though many people tried to excite them to revolt; for
the whole colony opposes my operations." The expedition set out early in
the spring of 1753. The whole force was not much above a thousand men,
increased by subsequent detachments to fifteen hundred; but to the
Indians it seemed a mighty host; and one of their orators declared that
the lakes and rivers were covered with boats and soldiers from Montreal
to Presquisle.[69] Some Mohawk hunters by the St. Lawrence saw them as
they passed, and hastened home to tell the news to Johnson, whom they
wakened at midnight, "whooping and hollowing in a frightful manner."[70]
Lieutenant Holland at Oswego saw a fleet of canoes upon the lake, and
was told by a roving Frenchman that they belonged to an army of six
thousand men going to the Ohio, "to cause all the English to quit those
parts."[71]

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