F

CHAPTER IX

FRONTENAC TO THE RESCUE

ROM the moment that Prince William of

Orange, the one unconquerable foe of Louis XIV, was called to the throne of England, war between England and France was a foregone conclusion. It was not declared, however, in France till the 25th June 1689. Frontenac sailed from Rochelle on the 5th August following, the very day of the Lachine massacre. The king in an interview with him is reported to have said: "I am sending you back to Canada, where I am sure that you will serve me as well as you did before; I ask nothing more of you." His Majesty also intimated, we are told, that he believed the charges made against him were without foundation. During the intervals between his two terms of office, Frontenac had been living for the most part at court, in rather reduced circumstances. The king once at least came to his relief with a gratuity of three thousand five hundred francs, and possibly other liberalities may have flowed to him from the same royal source, though Mr. Ernest Myrand, after careful research, has not been able to discover trace of any.1

1 Frontenac et ses Amis, p. 93.

The mission which was tendered to the aged count-he was now in his seventieth year-was one which a younger man might have felt some hesitation in accepting. The last accounts from Canada showed the country to be in a deplorable condition, equally unable to make an enduring peace or to wage a successful war; and the worst was yet to be told on the governor's arrival. The situation was rendered decidedly more critical by the fact of the war with England. True, a treaty had been made by Louis XIV with James II, providing that, should war break out between France and England, it should not extend to their American possessions; but Louis, who did not recognize William III as a legitimate sovereign, probably felt under no obligation to observe a treaty made with his predecessor. We know, at least, that a scheme for the conquest of the English colonies was arranged before Frontenac's departure. Callières, Governor of Montreal, had been sent to France by Denonville in the fall of 1688 to represent the perilous situation of the colony, and to urge the king to adopt a system of reprisals against the English for the misdeeds of the Iroquois. Callières and Frontenac had some friends in common, and were thus brought together at court, and the plan that was adopted was probably one that they had jointly suggested to the court. It was, briefly, that two or three war vessels should accompany Frontenac to Canada; that the count should disembark at some point on

WAR PLANS

the coast of Acadia, and proceed by the first private vessel he could secure to Quebec; that on arrival there he should organize a force of sixteen hundred men, one thousand regulars, and six hundred militia, to march on New York by way of Albany; and that when he was ready to move, he should notify the commander of the squadron, so that the latter might advance to New York, and be prepared to co-operate in the capture and occupation of the place. Meantime, the naval force was to employ itself in picking up any English trading vessels that might fall in its

way.

Not only were plans thus formed for invading and seizing the English colonies, but the French king made complete arrangements as to the treatment of the inhabitants when conquered. Those who either were Catholics, or were prepared to embrace the Catholic faith, might be allowed to remain in possession of their property and civil rights; the citizens of means were to be imprisoned and held for ransom, the rest of the population, numbering about eighteen thousand, were to forfeit everything and be driven penniless out of the country. It was proposed to deport them, in the first place, to New England, pending the ulterior conquest of that region. M. Lorin truly observes that Louis XIV, having just deprived his own subjects of religious liberty by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, could not possibly be expected to tolerate it in any country of which he might

acquire control. A more ruthless policy could scarcely have been devised, nor, it may be added, a more senseless one. The deportation of so large a body of inhabitants, mainly of Dutch origin, and all accustomed to the use of arms, was a task ridiculously beyond the ability of the forces he was proposing to employ for the purpose.

The plan was followed, so far as the sending out of a small squadron with the new governorgeneral was concerned. Sailing, as already mentioned, on the 5th August, Frontenac arrived at Chedabucto (Guysborough), near the Straits of Canso, on the 12th September, and there embarked in a small vessel, the François Xavier, for Quebec. On the way he stopped at Percé, where the Récollet missionaries informed him of the massacre of Lachine. His vessel must have been detained by contrary winds, for it was the 12th October before he arrived at Quebec. Here he was received by the citizens with the liveliest manifestations of joy. The ecclesiastics associated themselves, bon gré mal gré, with the popular feeling. The town was illuminated by night and hung with banners by day; a Te Deum was sung; and a Jesuit father delivered what is recorded to have been a most pathetic discourse. On all hands the count was acclaimed as the man the country needed to restore its fallen fortunes and stay the hand of the destroyer. Denonville and Champigny did not grace the rejoicings; they were at Montreal.

1 Comte de Frontenac, p. 358.

FORT FRONTENAC BLOWN UP

Quebec, however, was not the point of danger, nor that at which the governor's services were most required. Still he remained there eight days before proceeding to Montreal, where he arrived on the 27th October. At that place he learnt from Denonville of the instructions he had given for the abandonment and destruction of Fort Frontenac. The indignation of the old warrior, to whom the fort called after his name was a spot of peculiar predilection, can better be imagined than described. He could hardly believe that a French governor could perform so craven an act. If we may trust the Baron La Hontan, who does not in this case tax very seriously our powers of belief, the interview between the two dignitaries was a decidedly stormy one.1 There was no time to waste, however, in useless debate. Something possibly had happened to delay or prevent the carrying out of the orders, and the fort might perhaps yet be saved. An expedition was hastily organized to proceed to the spot and ascertain the facts, but scarcely had it well started before it encountered the entire garrison of the fort, minus six men, whom they had lost in the rapids on the way down, returning to Montreal. The deed had therefore been done. Valrennes, the commandant,

1 Far from yielding to Frontenac's view of the matter, Denonville doggedly adhered to his own opinion that the fort ought to be entirely abandoned; and, when it was found that it had only been partly destroyed, he wrote to the king advising that Frontenac should be ordered to send up three hundred men with instructions to demolish it utterly.