Francis Parkman - France and England in N America, Part VII, Vol 1 - A Half-Century of Conflict

There were those among the French to whom this barbarous warfare was repugnant. The minister, Ponchartrain, by no means a person of tender scruples, also condemned it for a time. After the attack on Wells and other places under Beaubassin in 1703, he wrote: "It would have been well if this expedition had not taken place. I have certain knowledge that the English want only peace, knowing that war is contrary to the interests of all the colonies. Hostilities in Canada have always been begun by the French." 83Afterwards, when these bloody raids had produced their natural effect and spurred the sufferers to attempt the ending of their woes once for all by the conquest of Canada, Ponchartrain changed his mind and encouraged the sending out of war-parties, to keep the English busy at home.

The schemes of a radical cure date from the attack on Deerfield and the murders of the following summer. In the autumn we find Governor Dudley urging the capture of Quebec. "In the last two years," he says, "the Assembly of Massachusetts has spent about £50,000 in defending the Province, whereas three or four of the Queen's ships and fifteen hundred New England men would rid us of the French and make further outlay needless,"—a view, it must be admitted, sufficiently sanguine. 84

But before seeking peace with the sword, Dudley tried less strenuous methods. It may be remembered that in 1705 Captain Vetch and Samuel Hill, together with the governor's young son William, went to Quebec to procure an exchange of prisoners. Their mission had also another object. Vetch carried a letter from Dudley to Vaudreuil, proposing a treaty of neutrality between their respective colonies, and Vaudreuil seems to have welcomed the proposal. Notwithstanding the pacific relations between Canada and New York, he was in constant fear that Dutch and English influence might turn the Five Nations into open enemies of the French; and he therefore declared himself ready to accept the proposals of Dudley, on condition that New York and the other English colonies should be included in the treaty, and that the English should be excluded from fishing in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Acadian seas. The first condition was difficult, and the second impracticable; for nothing could have induced the people of New England to accept it. Vaudreuil, moreover, would not promise to give up prisoners in the hands of the Indians, but only to do what he could to persuade their owners to give them up. The negotiations dragged on for several years. For the first three or four months Vaudreuil stopped his war-parties; but he let them loose again in the spring, and the New England borders were tormented as before.

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Premier Projet pour L'Expédition contre la Nouvelle Angleterre, 1701. Second Projet , etc. Compare N. Y. Col. Docs. , ix. 725.

Mémoire du Sieur d'Iberville sur Boston et ses Dépendances , 1700 (1701?). Baron de Saint-Castin also drew up a plan for attacking Boston in 1702 with lists of necessary munitions and other supplies.

Brouillan à Bellomont, 10 Août, 1701. Conseil de Baston à Brouillan, 22 Août, 1701. Brouillan acted under royal orders, having been told, in case of war being declared, to propose a treaty with New England, unless he should find that he can "se garantir des insultes des Anglais" and do considerable harm to their trade, in which case he is to make no treaty. Mémoire du Roy au Sieur de Brouillan, 23 Mars, 1700.

Schuyler, Colonial New York , i. 431, 432.

Colonel Quary to the Lords of Trade, 16 June, 1703.

Cornbury to the Lords of Trade, 9 September, 1703.

Bellomont to the Lords of Trade, 28 February, 1700.

Ibid.

Schuyler, Colonial New York , i. 488.

N. Y. Col. Docs. , iv. 658.

Bellomont to the Lords of Trade, 17 October, 1700.

Conference of Bellomont with the Indians, 26 August, 1700.

Journal of Bleeker and Schuyler on their visit to Onondaga, August, September, 1701.

The foregoing chapter rests on numerous documents in the Public Record Office, Archives de la Marine, Archives Nationales, N. Y. Colonial Documents , vols. iv. v. ix., and the Second and Third Series of the Correspondance Officielle at Ottawa.

See "Old Régime in Canada," 383.

Relation de La Mothe-Cadillac , in Margry, v. 75.

He wrote his name as above. It is often written La Motte, which has the advantage of conveying the pronunciation unequivocally to an unaccustomed English ear. La Mothe-Cadillac came of a good family of Languedoc. His father, Jean de La Mothe, seigneur de Cadillac et de Launay, or Laumet, was a counsellor in the Parliament of Toulouse. The date of young Cadillac's birth is uncertain. The register of his marriage places it in 1661, and that of his death in 1657. Another record, cited by Farmer in his History of Detroit , makes it 1658. In 1703 he himself declared that he was forty-seven years old. After serving as lieutenant in the regiment of Clairembault, he went to Canada about the year 1683. He became skilled in managing Indians, made himself well acquainted with the coasts of New England, and strongly urged an attack by sea on New York and Boston, as the only sure means of securing French ascendency. He was always in opposition to the clerical party.

See La Mothe-Cadillac à –, 3 Août, 1695 .

La Mothe-Cadillac à –, 3 Août, 1695.

"Il me dit que je me donnois des airs qui ne m'appartenoient pas, en me portant le poing au nez. Je vous avoue, Monsieur, que je pensai oublier qu'il étoit prêtre, et que je vis le moment où j'allois luy démonter la mâchoire; mais, Dieu merci, je me contentai de le prendre par le bras et de le pousser dehors, avec ordre de n'y plus rentrer." Margry, v. (author's edition), Introduction, civ. This introduction, with other editorial matter, is omitted in the edition of M. Margry's valuable collection, printed under a vote of the American Congress.

See "Count Frontenac," 440.

Robert Livingston urged the occupation of Detroit as early as 1700. N. Y. Col. Docs. , iv. 650.

Denonville à Du Lhut, 6 Juin, 1686. Count Frontenac, 133.