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-1763]

Colonies as strategic posts

109

British were dependent on the influx of "indented servants." There was "seducing" and "spiriting away," kidnapping and crimping for the colonies in England, but on no such scale as the legalised despatch of three engagés for every 60 tons of shipping, six for 100, and so on in proportion.

The absolute government of France does not show itself in all respects at its worst in the colonies. Absolute power lodged in the wise hands of a Colbert, even of a Seignelay or a Pontchartrain, gave scope for ideas undreamed of in England. In Burke's opinion "obedience to a wise government serves the French colonists for personal wisdom"; and the dangers involved in such exchange were not at first obvious. Absolute power had faith in the future, passed over questions of profit and loss, silenced or ignored the old grumble that the colonies did not enrich France. Policy, not commerce, dictated the retention of the St Lawrence, the Lakes, and the Mississippi; they were strategic posts in the defence of a military empire. While Spain cared for her colonies as an all-important source of wealth, and her colonies depended upon her as their protection; while England hindered hers where she feared commercial rivalry, and at the same time secured an oceanic power surpassing that of France and Spain combined; France grasped the idea that colonies are an expansion of the empire, at least in its military sense. The seventeenthcentury hope of a possible colonial neutrality was very soon finally laid aside. French colonial history is so coloured by the artistic and dramatic sense of its creators that the facts seem to lose their true relative importance. In the minds of the French, distance, severance such as we now can hardly realise, poverty, the scantiness of the population, the internal dissensions, all counted for nothing. There were elements of disunion in the jealousies of Montreal and Quebec, of Church and State, of the small and the large planters, of the dependent islands and Martinique, of French officials and the Creole population, of French and colonial soldiers, of the trappers and the settled colonists; but these prosy realities seemed trifles that would fade away and be forgotten in the beautiful vision of a world-wide and united empire.

New France, while it gave promise of gigantic empire, was to the government a part of France, and could therefore risk its fate in the international contest, regardless of the fear of pressing the divided British colonies into union, regardless of European diversions, of the want of oceanic defence. But that this sense of unity was rather sentimental than substantial, became manifest when the moment of loss arrived. The loss of Acadia, Canada, Louisiana, was no dismemberment of the French empire; such losses merely marked certain stages in a wider contest. Yet it is the clear, if premature, perception of one aspect of the modern colonial idea that serves to glorify for all time the story of the French in America.

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The settlement of Acadia

[1605-32

ACADIA, CAPE BRETON, AND THE ÎLE DE SAINT JEAN

The French settlement on the Bay of Fundy has been briefly referred to, in so far as it displays certain main characters in French colonial policy; but for many reasons the story of Acadia and the two adjacent islands calls for separate treatment. French maritime colonies in the neighbourhood of New England were called upon to play a part politically that was even more disproportionate to their material development than the part played by French Canada. The hapless Acadia was the shuttlecock to French and English battledores. Thrice in the wars of the seventeenth century it fell to England; thrice it was restored by treaty to France. It stands apart from the other French colonies, inasmuch as it was scarcely touched, for good or ill, by the commercial companies. Unlike the French Canadians, the Acadian colonists laid no disproportionate stress on military organisation, but, on the contrary, repeatedly allowed themselves to fall a prey to English raids for want of sufficient armament. But though time after time the little posts were ruined, the fields laid waste, the cattle destroyed, there seemed to be an indestructible vitality in this, the least carefully fostered of all the French colonies. As compared with Canada, Acadia received little or no help from the home government. Its officials, too often men who had failed in Canada, produced the censuses and "memoirs" that were required of them; and the colony flourished rather in spite than because of their efforts, which were mainly directed to their own enrichment. The widely scattered population, settled in hamlets of some twenty persons each, found a congenial climate and soil, and, in their dependence on their own initiative, resembled rather an English colony in its early stages than a colony of New France. With few exceptions the 2500 Acadians of 1714 were the descendants of forty families sent out between 1633 and 1638, and of some sixty colonists sent in 1671. The 2500 French of 1714 increased nearly six-fold in the next forty years of English government.

The first era of attempted French settlement (1605-32) bequeathed to its successor (1632-70) nothing but an inheritance of disputed claims, which the fertility of the La Tour family, representing the first grantee, passed on from generation to generation. Argall's raid (1613), and Sir William Alexander's ill-supported attempt (1621) to found a "Nova Scotia" that should be to Scotland as New France and New England to their parent stems, did not make things easier for Razilly, sent as governor to make a fresh start when Acadia had been restored to France by the Treaty of Saint Germain-en-Laye (1632). The story of the relations of the governor, and his deputy D'Aulnay, with Nicholas Denys, one of the grantees and the historian of the colony in this

1632-97]

The capital of Acadia

111

period, and with the La Tours, father and son, whose interests Alexander had divided, dramatic as it is in all the details that Denys has left us, cannot be told here; it need be noticed only because it was the disputes of these rival gentlemen-adventurers that gave the colony a bad beginning, and led to that want of concentration which was throughout a main source of its weakness.

Now, as in the next period, the governors could not decide whether to fix their centre at the sheltered Port Royal, or on one of the rivers which might be made a means of communication with Quebec, or on the Atlantic shore of the peninsula, which offered most advantage for the fishery. The Rochellais, whom Razilly and D'Aulnay brought with them, found at Port Royal conditions of which they had had experience at home; and by dyking the marsh-lands a promising agricultural settlement was made. But Port Royal was no centre. From Pentagouet

on the Penobscot, by river and portages, it seemed possible to establish a connexion with Quebec; and accordingly Pentagouet looked the more promising to those who had ambitious schemes. The drawback was that it was nearer to New England, and certain to be an object of attack. La Hève, which offered advantages rather like those of the present capital of Nova Scotia, could be made a convenient port for sea-communication with Quebec, whilst the river was free of ice. All these were tried in turn, now and later.

Had any one of these ports been strongly defended, the colony would not have fallen again to the English in 1654, when Sidgwick took Port Royal for the Protector. Between 1654 and 1667, the story of the period 1613-32 was repeated, Sir Thomas Temple playing the part of Sir William Alexander, and the Treaty of Breda (1667) that of the Treaty of Saint Germain-en-Laye. France having recovered Acadia, there seemed hope that Colbert might promote settlement here as he had in Canada. But a renewed effort on the Penobscot was checked by the Dutch; and the creation of a way to Quebec, by what was known as the chemin de Kennebec, could not proceed. So far as this western district came under French influence at all, it was left to the indianised Baron St Castein, who had married the daughter of an Abenaki chief in 1680. Through him, and later through his son, the French in Acadia were assured of Indian friendship. In 1685 the intendant of Canada was sent to study the needs of the colony. At that time the population numbered only 885, of whom 600 were at or near Port Royal. The intendant advised more military protection; and the ease with which Port Royal was destroyed in every filibustering raid, and its speedy fall before Phipps in 1690, proved the wisdom of his view.

At the third restoration of Acadia to France, by the Peace of Ryswick (1697), the choice of a capital again lay open. The new governor, Villebon, a capable military commander, decided on a sight on the most eastward of the great rivers that might form a frontier, the

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Cape Breton and Île de Saint Jean [1629-1713

St John, furthest from New England, and, facing Port Royal, the most suitable for the defence of the Bay of Fundy. Unfortunately a special commissioner, sent from France, decreed its abandonment. In 1704 Port Royal, once more a fairly prosperous colony, was again cruelly wasted by the English. Again it was built up, and in 1710, with about eight hundred inhabitants, could make a brave defence against Nicholson, and only surrendered with the honours of war, on a promise that the inhabitants should be transported to France.

In 1707 the census gave to the whole of Acadia a population of 1838, with some 7500 head of live-stock. By the Treaty of Utrecht, 1713, all "Nova Scotia, formerly called Acadia, with its ancient boundaries, together with the city of Port Royal," was ceded to England. What the ancient boundaries were nobody knew; but of course the French now wished Acadia to mean a small tract, not a large, while the English had equal reason to make a volte-face in the opposite direction. The English commissioners of 1755 assumed that the right bank of the St Lawrence was their northern boundary- certainly an extravagant claim; and the French, with as little show of reason, said that the treaty ceded only a part of the peninsula now called Nova Scotia and none of the mainland. But as La Gallissonière had succeeded in planting French forts on the neck of the peninsula, it seemed possible that they might by force make their claim good, for the Acadian population was purely French till 1749; and the strong French colonies in Cape Breton and the Île de Saint Jean offered plenty of support.

The two large islands off the coasts of Acadia, originally called Cape Breton and Île de Saint Jean (now Prince Edward Island), naturally formed part of the Acadian dominion. Cape Breton is severed from the mainland only by a narrow gut, and the Île de Saint Jean lies along the shores of the neck of land which attaches Nova Scotia to New Brunswick. Both were important centres for the fishery, but neither had offered much attraction to colonists so long as there was space in lands of milder climate and happier conditions.

At the outset, here as elsewhere, it was the old story of rival pretensions based on flimsy pretexts, and of the ultimate success of the most patient competitor. At the time of Sir William Alexander's grant, which included Cape Breton, it had seemed possible that the Scotch might make a lasting settlement, for in 1629 Lord Ochiltree built a fort on the island. But a Frenchman destroyed it and built another, to be deserted in its turn. When in 1632 the way lay open for France, Nicholas Denys, into whose hands this part of the Acadian dominion fell, did no more than establish trading-posts and quarrel with rival adventurers. No permanent settlement was made until by the Treaty of Utrecht this island, with its neighbour Saint Jean, acquired a wholly new importance, as the only sea-board from Florida to Hudson's

1713-63]

Cape Breton and Île de Saint Jean

113

Bay that was definitely acknowledged to belong to France. At once the whole energy of the French government was concentrated on the development of these islands. Cape Breton was rechristened Île Royale, by way of marking its new destiny; and all the French settlers from Newfoundland were transferred to its shores, and put under their old Newfoundland governor. In the two islands homes were offered to any Acadians who chose to come; but the English were loth to lose the French colonists and their property, and, in the early years after the Treaty of Utrecht, placed difficulties in the way of such emigration, a fact that made the deportation of 1755 the less justifiable. The fortification of Louisbourg began in 1720, after Vauban's plan. The population in the neighbourhood of the fort was over 2000, the garrison itself 1000; but the population of the rest of the island amounted to little more than another thousand. The constitution was of the Canadian pattern, with the same elements of strength and weakness. The export of fish, oil, and coal was good; and the colony could boast a fine military road, a hospital, and a nuns' school for girls. But the concentration of the inhabitants round Louisbourg, where the soil was poor, hindered tillage, so that the island depended on its neighbour Saint Jean for food.

As the government of Cape Breton was subordinate to Canada, so Saint Jean was subordinate to Cape Breton. In Saint Jean there had been fishing-ports in the seventeenth century, but no agriculture till 1713. In 1735 the population was only 542; but in the next twenty years the numbers increased rapidly, and at the time of the expulsion of the Acadians there was another great rise. When Saint Jean passed with Cape Breton to England by the Treaty of Paris (1763), both lost their population, which had been kept up by artificial causes; and its place was but slowly filled up with Scotch settlers.

The late development of New Brunswick, Novia Scotia, Cape Breton, and Prince Edward Island in English hands, under perfectly peaceful conditions, is the best testimony to the merit of the French efforts made at a remoter time under conditions of chronic warfare. The vitality of Port Royal, rising ever, phoenix-like, from its ashes; the solidarity of the little Acadian people, who after forty years of English rule had to be deported, only to make their way back to their old homes again; the creative power repeatedly shown in making something out of the least promising material — these things set Acadia apart as deserving a special place in the history of French colonisation. But here, as elsewhere, the main source of strength was the successful manipulation of the Indians. By their skill in this particular the French multiplied their forces many times over. It was this that made the impenetrable backwoods which cut off Acadia from Canada, and to a less degree from New England, seem to be really French, and which gave an apparent justification to the claims of the French commissioners of 1755.

C. M. H. VII.

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