Glimpses of the Past Part 12

"This post, so important to retain for France, has as commandant M. De Gaspe at Fort Menagoeck, built at the mouth of the river. The missionary on the river is Father Germain, Jesuit, who makes his residence at Ekauba (Aukpaque), distant about forty leagues from Fort Menagoeck.

"The savages of Father Germain's mission are Marechites, and he has in addition the care of some French families settled on the river.

"Since the month of August last, Father Audren has been sent as a.s.sistant to Father Germain, but his a.s.sistance will be much more hurtful than beneficial to the mission if, in accordance with the plan of the Jesuit provincial, it is decided to recall Father Germain to Quebec to fill the office of superior general of the house of the Jesuits in Canada. This is not merely a groundless surmise, for the destination and nomination to office of Father Germain are already determined, at least Father Germain himself so states in his last letter to the Abbe l'Isle-Dieu, and he adds that he has made every possible representation to at least delay his recall. The Abbe l'Isle-Dieu, who perceives all the consequences of his removal, has already endeavored to prevent its being effected by the Provincial, and it is thought that, under the present circ.u.mstances, the court should as far as possible employ its authority to hinder the retirement of Father Germain from his mission, where the esteem and confidence, the respect and authority, that he has acquired over the savages and the few French who are found in his mission, give him a power that a young missionary could not have. Besides Father Germain joins to a disinterestedness without example, to piety the most sincere, and to a zeal indefatigable, consummate experience. All this is necessary in connection with various operations that are now to be undertaken, in which a man of such qualifications can be of great a.s.sistance.

"At a distance of eighteen leagues from Father Germain's post of duty is another called Medoctek, which is dependent on the same mission and served by the Jesuit father Loverga, who has been there nine months, and who has the care of a band of Marechites; but, in addition to the fact that Father Loverga is on the point of leaving, he would be useless there on account of his great age and it would be better to send there next spring Father Audren, since this mission is daily becoming more important, especially to the savages whose chief occupation is beaver hunting.

"The French inhabitants of the River St. John have suffered much by different detachments of Canadians and Indians, to the number of 250 or 300 men, commanded by M. de Montesson, a Canadian officer, whom they have been obliged to subsist, and for that purpose to sacrifice the grain and cattle needed for the seeding and tillage of their own fields. In the helpless position in which these inhabitants find themselves, it is thought that in order to afford them sufficient relief it would be advisable that the Court should send them immediately at least 1,000 barrels of flour, and the same quant.i.ty annually for some time, both for their own subsistence and for that of the garrison and the Indians. It would be well also to send them each year about 250 barrels of bacon; this last sort of provision being limited to this quant.i.ty because it is supposed, or at least hoped, there will be sent from Quebec some Indian corn and peas as well as oil and fat for the savages."

The reference to the St. John river region in the doc.u.ment from which this extract is taken, concludes by strongly recommending that the supply of flour and bacon should be sent, not to the store houses at Quebec and Louisbourg, but directly to St. John, where it would arrive as safely as at any other port and with less expense to the king and much more expedition to the inhabitants.

It may be well now to pause in the narration of events to look a little more closely into the situation on the River St. John at the time of the negotiations between the rival powers with regard to the limits of Acadia.

The statement has been made in some of our school histories, "Acadia was ceded to the English by the treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, and has remained a British possession ever since." The statement is, to say the least, very misleading, so far as the St. John river country is concerned, for the French clung tenaciously to this territory as a part of the dominions of their monarch until New France pa.s.sed finally into the hands of their rivals by the treaty of Paris in 1763.

There was no part of Acadia that was more familiar to the French than the valley of the River St. John, and the importance attached to the retention of it by France is seen very clearly in a memorandum, prepared about this time for the use of the French commissioners on the limits of Acadia. There can be no doubt that the Abbes de L'Isle-Dieu and Le Loutre had a hand in the preparation of this doc.u.ment, which is an able statement of the case from the French point of view. They a.s.sert "that the British pretensions to owners.h.i.+p of the territory north of the Bay of Fundy have no foundation. That the French have made settlements at various places along the sh.o.r.es of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where they have always lived peaceably and quietly under the rule of the French king. This is also the state there at present, and the English desire to change it, without having acquired any new right of possession since the treaty of Utrecht, and after forty years of quiet and peaceable possession on the part of the French. It is the same with regard to the River St. John and that part of Canada which adjoins the Bay of Fundy. The French, who were settled there before the treaty of Utrecht, have continued to this day to hold possession under the jurisdiction and sovereignty of the King of France, enjoying meanwhile the fruit of their labors. It is not until more than forty years after the treaty of Utrecht that the English commissioners have attempted, by virtue of a new and arbitrary interpretation of the treaty, to change and overturn all the European possessions of America; to expel the French, to deprive them of their property and their homes, to sell the lands they have cultivated and made valuable and to expose Europe by such transactions to the danger of seeing the fires of war rekindled. Whatever sacrifices France might be disposed to make, in order to maintain public tranquility, it would be difficult indeed for her to allow herself to be deprived of the navigation of the River St. John by ceding to England the coast of the continent along the Bay of Fundy."

Continuing their argument, the writers of the doc.u.ment state: "That it is by the River St. John that Quebec maintains her communication with Isle Royal and Isle St. Jean, [Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island], and also with Old France, during the season that the navigation of the River St. Lawrence is impracticable; and as this is the only way of communication for a considerable part of the year, possession of the route is indispensably necessary to France. All who have any special knowledge of Canada agree on this head, and their testimony finds confirmation in an English publication that lately appeared in London, ent.i.tled 'The Present State of North America,' in which the writer sounds the tocsin of war against France and, although partiality, inspired by love of country, has led him into many errors, he does not seek to disguise how important it is to deprive France of the right of navigation of the River St. John, which affords the only means of communication with Quebec during the winter. 'The French,' says the English author, 'have often sent supplies and merchandise from Old France to Quebec, both in time of peace and of war, by the River St.

John, so as to avoid the difficulties and risks of navigation by the River St. Lawrence. * * If we suffer them to remain in possession of that river they will always have an open communication between France and Canada during the winter, which they could have only from May to October by the River St. Lawrence.'

"This testimony makes us feel more and more how essential it is for France to keep possession of the River St. John so as to have communication with Quebec and the rest of Canada during the seven months of the year that the St. Lawrence is not navigable. The communication which the English pretend they require by land between New England and Nova Scotia, along the coast of the Etchemins[29] and the Bay of Fundy, is only a vain pretext to mask their real motive, which is to deprive France of a necessary route of communication.

[29] The country of the Etchemins, or Maliseets, included eastern Maine, and the western part of New Brunswick.

"Considering the length of the road by land from New England to Port Royal and Acadia, the obstacles to be encountered in the rivers that fall into the sea along the coast, which will be more difficult to cross near the mouth; all these circ.u.mstances render the communication by land a veritable chimera; the more so that the way by sea from the remotest part of New England to Port Royal is so short and so easy, while that by land would be long, painful and difficult. We may be perfectly sure that if the English were masters of all the territory they claim they would never journey over it, and the only advantage they would find would be to deprive the French of a necessary route of communication. We do not fear to say that the object of the English is not confined to the country they claim under the name of Acadia. Their object is to make a general invasion of Canada and thus to pave the way to universal empire in America."

It is little to be wondered at that the French nation should have been very reluctant to part with their control of the St. John river. From the days of its discovery by Champlain it had become of increasing importance to them as a means of communication between the widely separated portions of New France. But more than this the river was in many of its features unrivelled in their estimation. Its remarkable falls near the sea, its ma.s.sive walls of limestone at "the narrows"

just above--which the French called "cliffs of marble"--its broad lake-like expansions, its fertile intervals and islands, the fish that swarmed in its waters and the game that abounded in its forests, its towering pines and n.o.ble elms were all known to them and had been noted by their early explorers. Champlain, L'Escarbot, Denys, Biard, La Hontan, Cadillac and Charlevoix had described in glowing words the wealth of its attractions. It is worth while in this connection to quote the description which Lamothe Cadillac penned in 1693--just two hundred and ten years ago:

_River St. John._--"The entrance of this river is very large. Two little islands are seen to the left hand, one called l'Ile Menagoniz (Mahogany Island) and the other l'Ile aux Perdrix (Partridge Island), and on the right hand there is a cape of which the earth is as red as a red Poppy. The harbor is good; there is no rock and it has five or six fathoms of water.

_Fort._--There is a fort of four bastions here, which needs to be repaired. It is very well situated and could not be attacked by land for it is surrounded by water at half tide. Less than an eighth of a league above there are two large rocks, perpendicular, and so near that they leave only s.p.a.ce sufficient for a s.h.i.+p cleverly to pa.s.s.

_Gouffre._ Just here there is a fall, or abyss (gouffre), which extends seven or eight hundred paces to the foot of two rocks.

There is a depth of eighteen fathoms of water here. I think that I am the only one who has ever sounded at this place. The falls are no sooner pa.s.sed than the river suddenly expands to nearly half a league. It is still very deep and a vessel of fifty or sixty tons could ascend thirty leagues, but it would be necessary to take care to pa.s.s the falls when the sea is level, or one would certainly be lost there. It must be conceded that this is the most beautiful, the most navigable and the most highly favored river of Acadia. The most beautiful, on account of the variety of trees to be found, such as b.u.t.ternut, cherry, hazel, elms, oaks, maples and vines.

_Masts._--There is a grove of pine on the boarders of a lake near Gemseq (Jemseg), fifteen leagues from the sea, where there might be made the finest masts, and they could be conducted into the St.

John by a little river which falls in there.

_Pewter mine._--Near the same lake there in a mine of pewter. I have seen the Indians melt and manufacture from it b.a.l.l.s for their hunting.

It is most navigable, by reason of its size and depth and the number of lakes and rivers that empty themselves into it. The most highly favored, by reason of its greater depth of fertile soil, of its unrivalled salmon fis.h.i.+ng, and of its reaching into the country to a depth of eighty leagues. The ba.s.s, the trout, the gaspereau, the eel, the sturgeon and a hundred other kinds of fishes are found in abundance. The most highly favored, also, because it furnishes in abundance beavers and other fur-bearing animals. I have ascended this river nearly one hundred and fifty leagues in a bark canoe. I pa.s.s in silence other attractions that it possesses for I must not be too long.

One single thing is to be regretted, which is that in the most beautiful places, where the land and meadows are low, they are inundated every spring time after the snow melts. The continuance of this inundation (or freshet) is because the waters cannot flow out sufficiently fast on account of those two rocks, of which I have spoken, which contract the outlet of the river. It would not be very difficult to facilitate the flow of the waters. It would only be necessary to mine the rock that is to the right hand on entering, and which seems to want to tumble of itself. It is undeniable that the waters would flow forth more freely, and the falls would be levelled, or at least diminished, and all this flat country protected from inundation.

_Forts of the Micmacs and Maliseets._--Thirty leagues up the river there is a fort of the Micmacs,[30] at a place called Naxouak, and at thirty leagues further up there is one of the Maliseets. This latter nation is fairly warlike. They are well made and good hunters. They attend to the cultivation of the soil and have some fine fields of Indian corn and pumpkins. Their fort is at Medoctek.

At forty leagues still farther up there is another fort which is the common retreat of the Kanibas, or Abenakis, when they are afraid of something in their country. It is on the bank of a little river which flows into the St. John, and which comes from a lake called Madagouasca, twelve leagues long and one wide. It is a good country for moose hunting."

[30] Cadillac seems to have so termed Villebon's fort because the Micmacs of eastern New Brunswick and Nova Scotia often made it a rendezvous; perhaps also it was a fanciful distinction by way of comparison with the Maliseet fort at Medoctec.

In another edition of his narrative Cadillac says that Madawaska lake and river turn northward so those who journey from Acadia to Quebec go across the portage from the lake to the River St. Lawrence, opposite Tadoussac. This route was from very early times considered by the French as the easiest and best and was greatly valued by them as a means of communication both in time of war and in time of peace.

Cadillac's idea of protecting the low lying lands of the St. John river from inundation during the spring freshet, by enlarging the outlet at the falls, has been revived on more than one occasion. For example, sixty years later we find the following note in the statement prepared by the missionaries Le Loutre and de L'Isle-Dieu for the use of the commissioners engaged in the attempt to settle the boundaries of Acadia--:

"The River St. John is very extensive and the soil is excellent, easily cultivated, capable of supporting at least 1,000 families, but there exists an inconvenience which up to the present prevents the place from being inhabited as it should be. This inconvenience is due to the frequency of the floods occasioned by a fall where the waters do not discharge themselves fast enough and in consequence flow back upon the lands above, which they inundate. But if the proposed colony be established at this place it would be possible to give vent to the flood by removing a small obstruction [portage][31] less than an eighth of a league wide; this would certainly prevent the inundations, dry up the lands and render cultivation practicable."

[31] It would be interesting to know the exact location of the "portage" referred to above. Was it the rocky neck between Marble Cove at Indiantown and the Straight Sh.o.r.e? Or was it the comparatively slight obstruction at Drury's Cove that prevents the river finding an outlet by way of the Marsh Creek into Courtenay Bay? See on this head Dr. George F. Matthew's interesting paper on "The Outlets of the St. John River:" Nat.

Hist. Society bulletin No. xii., p. 42.

A bill was once introduced into the House of a.s.sembly for the purpose of enabling the promoters to remove, by blasting, the rocks that obstruct the mouth of the river and thus allow the waters to flow more freely. It was claimed that many benefits would follow, chiefly that the lumbermen would be able to get their logs and deals to market more expeditiously and at less cost, and that the farmers, of Maugerville, Grand Falls and Sheffield would be saved the serious inconveniences occasioned by the annual freshet. However, popular sentiment was strongly opposed to the project. People speedily realized that not only would the beauty of the river be destroyed but that navigation would be rendered precarious and uncertain. The project, in fact, would have changed our n.o.ble St. John into a tidal river, unsightly mud flats alternating with rus.h.i.+ng currents of turbid waters, while so far as protection of the low-lying lands goes the remedy would in all probability have proved worse than the disease, for instead of an annual inundation there would have been an inundation at every high tide. Moreover the harbor at St. John would have been ruined. There can be no secure harbor at the mouth of a great tidal river where swirling tides pour in and out twice in the course of every twenty-four hours.

Cadillac mentions the convenient route to Quebec via the River St.

John. The Indians had used it from time immemorial and the French followed their example, as at a later period did the English. The missionaries Le Loutre and de L'Isle-Dieu in the statement prepared by them in 1753, already mentioned, say:--

"It is very easy to maintain communication with Quebec, winter and summer alike, by the River St. John, and the route is especially convenient for detachments of troops needed either for attack or defence. This is the route to be taken and followed:--

"From Quebec to the River du Loup.

From the River du Loup by a portage of 18 leagues to Lake Temiscouata.

From Lake Temiscouata to Madaoechka [Madawaska.]

From Madaoechka to Grand Falls.

From Grand Falls to Medoctek.

From Medoctek to Ecouba [Aukpaque], post of the Indians of the Jesuit missionary, Father Germain.

From Ecouba to Jemsec.

From Jemsec, leaving the River St. John and traversing Dagidemoech [Washa demoak] lake ascending by the river of the same name, thence by a portage of 6 leagues to the River Petkoudiak.

From Petkoudiak to Memeramcouk descending the river which bears that name.

From Memeramcouk by a portage of three leagues to Nechkak [Westc.o.c.k].

From Nechkak to Beausejour."

By this route the troops commanded by the French officers Marin and Montesson arrived at Beausejour in less than a month from the time of their departure from Quebec, the distance being about 500 miles.

In the war of 1812 the 104th regiment, raised in this province, left St. John on the 11th day of February and on the 27th of the same month crossed the St. Lawrence on the ice and entered Quebec 1,000 strong, having accomplished a march of 435 miles in midwinter in sixteen days and, says Col. Playfair, without the loss of a man.

In the year 1837 the 43d Light Infantry marched from this province to Quebec in the month of December in almost precisely the same time, but the conditions were distinctly more favorable; the season was not nearly so rigorous, roads and bridges had been constructed over the greater portion of the route and supplies could be obtained to better advantage. Yet it is said the great Duke of Wellington observed of this march of the 43d Light Infantry, "It is the only achievement performed by a British officer that I really envy." How much greater a feat was the march of the gallant hundred-and-fourth whose men, poorly fed and insufficiently clad, pa.s.sed over the same route on snowshoes in the middle of a most inclement winter, a quarter of a century before, to defend Canadian homes from a foreign invader?

During the negotiations between the French and English commissioners on the boundaries of Acadia, the suggestion was made by the Abbes de L'Isle-Dieu and Le Loutre, that if it should be found impossible to hold all the lands north of the Bay of Fundy for France the St. John river region should be left undivided and in possession of its native inhabitants. As early as the year 1716 the Marquis de Vaudreuil had stated to the French government: "The English wish to seize upon the lands that the Abenakis and Indians of the River St. John occupy, under the pretext that this land forms part of Acadia ceded to them by the king. The Indians so far from withdrawing on this account have answered that this land has always belonged to them, and that they do not consider themselves subjects of the French, but only their allies."

Vaudreuil admits that he encouraged this idea, and that his proposal to build a church for the Maliseets at Medoctec had as one of its princ.i.p.al objects the cementing of their alliance with the French and providing them with another inducement to cling to the locality where their church stood, and not by any means to abandon their old fort and village.