Glimpses of the Past Part 14

Sceine, jr., M. Boudrault and two families of Grangers.

Charles Belliveau, the hero of the adventure just related, was born at the Cape at Port Royal about 1696; he married in 1717 Marie Madeleine Granger and had eight children whose descendants today are numerous.

On the 8th of February, 1756, an English schooner entered the harbor of St. John, under French colors, having on board a party of Rangers disguised as French soldiers. Governor Lawrence writes to s.h.i.+rley: "I had hopes by such a deceit, not only to discover what was doing there but to bring off some of the St. John's Indians. The officer found there an English s.h.i.+p, one of our transports that sailed from Annapolis Royal with French Inhabitants aboard bound for the continent (America), but the inhabitants had risen upon the master and crew and carried the s.h.i.+p into that harbor; our people would have brought her off, but by an accident they discovered themselves too soon, upon which the French set fire to the s.h.i.+p."

We learn from French sources that on this occasion the captain of the English vessel made some French signals and sent his shallop on sh.o.r.e with four French deserters, who announced that they had come from Louisbourg with supplies and that other s.h.i.+ps were on their way with the design of re-establis.h.i.+ng the fort at the mouth of the river and so frustrating a similar design on the part of the English. The story seemed so plausible that an unlucky Acadian went on board the s.h.i.+p to pilot her to her anchorage, but no sooner was he on board than the captain hoisted his own proper flag and discharged his artillery upon the people collected on sh.o.r.e. Belliveau and the people who had lately escaped transportation to South Carolina were living in huts on sh.o.r.e and perceiving that the English were approaching with the design of carrying off the vessel in which they had escaped, they succeeded in landing some swivel guns and having placed them in a good position made so lively a fire upon the enemy that they soon abandoned the idea of a descent and returned to Annapolis Royal.

The sole result, of this bit of strategy seems to have been the capture of one poor Frenchman from whom the English learned that the Indians had gone, some to Pa.s.samaquoddy and others with Boishebert to Cocagne, also that there was "a French officer and about 20 men twenty-three miles up the River at a place called St. Anns."

The Indians who had gone to Pa.s.samaquoddy managed to surprise at night a large schooner lying at anchor in Harbor L'Elang, bound from Boston to Annapolis Royal with provisions for the garrison. The schooner carried six guns and had on board a crew of ten men besides her captain and an artillery officer of the Annapolis garrison. The vessel was carried to St. John and hidden on the lower part of the river. The savages pillaged her so completely that on her arrival there remained only a small quant.i.ty of bacon and a little rum. The prisoners were sent by Boishebert to Canada along with others captured on various occasions.

The Acadian refugees continued to come to the River St. John in increasing numbers, and Boishebert and the missionaries soon found themselves reduced to sore straits in their endeavors to supply them with the necessaries of life. The Marquis de Vaudreuil was determined to hold the St. John river country as long as possible. He wrote the French minister, June 1, 1756: "I shall not recall M. de Boishebert nor the missionaries, nor withdraw the Acadians into the heart of the colony until the last extremity, and when it shall be morally impossible to do better." It was his intention to send provisions and munitions of war to the Acadians and Indians.

Boishebert was endeavoring at this time, with the approval of the Marquis de Vaudreuil, to draw as many of the Acadians as possible to the River St. John and to induce them to oppose any advance on the part of the English. The French commander, however, soon found his position an exceedingly difficult one. After sending many families to Quebec and to the Island of St. John he had still six hundred people, besides the Indians, to provide for during the winter, and many refugees from Port Royal and elsewhere desired to come to the River St. John. The number of Acadians dependent on him received additions from time to time by the arrival of exiles returning from the south.

In the month of June five families numbering fifty persons, arrived from Carolina and told Boishebert that eighty others were yet to arrive.

The difficulties surmounted by these poor people in the pathetic endeavor to return to their old firesides seem almost incredible. A small party of Acadians of the district of Beauba.s.sin, at the head of the Bay of Fundy, were transported to South Carolina. They traveled thence on foot to Fort Du Quesne (now Pittsburg) from which place they were transported to Quebec. One might have thought they would have been well satisfied to have remained there, but no, so great was their attachment to their beloved Acadia that they would not rest content until they had arrived at the River St. John.

The idea that dominated the Marquis de Vaudreuil in providing these unfortunates with the necessaries of life seems to have been to utilize their services for the defence of Canada. "It would not be proper," he says, "that they should be at the charges of the King without giving tangible proof of their zeal for the service of his majesty." The governor not being able to provide for all the refugees at the River St. John, on account of the difficulty of transporting supplies by way of Temiscouata, gave directions to the Sieur de Boishebert to send to Miramichi the families he could not subsist on the St. John. The number of Acadians at Miramichi soon amounted to 3,500 persons.

The ensuing winter proved most trying to the dest.i.tute Acadians. The harvest had been extremely poor. In some cases the old inhabitants had nothing to live upon but the grain needed for seeding in the spring time. The conditions at Miramichi were probably not more wretched than on the River St. John. Of the former the Marquis de Vaudreuil writes in the following plaintive terms:----

"This part of Acadia holds out for the King although reduced to the most wretched state. Although ourselves in want, M. Bigot has sent a vessel with provisions to Miramichi, but she has unfortunately been delayed on the way by head winds. The misery of the Acadians there is so great that Boishebert has been compelled to reduce their allowance to ten pounds of peas and twelve pounds of meat per month, and it would have been further reduced had not forty bullocks been brought from Pet.i.tcodiac. This was the allowance for the month of January and, the fishery being exhausted, he could not hope to have the same resource the months following. In a word the Acadian mothers see their babes die at the breast not having wherewith to nourish them. The majority of the people cannot appear abroad for want of clothes to cover their nakedness. Many have died. The number of the sick is considerable, and those convalescent cannot regain their strength on account of the wretched quality of their food, being often under the necessity of eating horse meat extremely lean, sea-cow, and skins of oxen. Such is the state of the Acadians.

"The intendant, M. Bigot, is going to send a s.h.i.+p, as soon as the ice breaks, to carry such supplies as we can furnish them. Unless some a.s.sistance is sent by sea, the lands, cattle, and effects hidden in the woods must all be sacrificed, and the Acadians obliged to go elsewhere."

At the beginning of the year 1756, the governors of Ma.s.sachusetts and Nova Scotia discussed the situation of affairs on the St. John river, and agreed that steps must be taken as soon as possible to dislodge the French.

In one of his letters to Governor Lawrence, s.h.i.+rley observes, "I look upon dispossessing the French of the St. John River, and fortifying it, to be necessary for securing the Bay of Fundy and the Peninsula against attempts from Canada. * * * If I am rightly informed, nothing hath yet been done towards it, except making a visit up the River as far as the lower Fort, near the mouth of it, upon which the French abandoned it, having first destroyed the stores and burst the cannon, and there still remain the settlements they have above that Fort, by means of which they keep the Indians inhabiting it in a dependence upon them, and have a pa.s.sage across a carrying place into the River Patcotyeak (Pet.i.tcodiac) whereby a communication may be maintained between St. John's River and Cape Breton across the Gulf of St.

Lawrence." In another letter s.h.i.+rley wrote that it was essential the French should be dislodged from the St. John and their settlements broken up, since, if suffered to remain, they would soon be very strong and able to maintain communication by the river with Canada, depriving the English of the fur trade upon it and maintaining absolute control of the Indians.

The Indians were at this time decidedly hostile to the English and Lawrence determined to wage against them a merciless warfare.

Accordingly, with the advice and approval of his council, he issued a proclamation offering a reward of 30 for every Indian warrior brought in alive, a reward of 25 for the scalp of every male Indian above the age of sixteen years, and for every woman or child brought in alive the sum of 25; these rewards to be paid by the commanding officer at any of His Majesty's Forts in the Province on receiving the prisoners or scalps.

This cold-blooded and deliberately issued proclamation of the chief magistrate of Nova Scotia and his council can scarcely be excused on the plea that the Abbe Le Loutre and other French leaders had at various times rewarded their savage allies for bringing in the scalps of Englishmen. As for the savages, they had, at least, the apology that they made war in accordance with the manner of their race, whereas the proclamation of the Governor of Nova Scotia was unworthy of an enlightened people. Nothing could be better calculated to lower and brutalize the character of a soldier than the offer of 25 for a human scalp.

About this time, two of the New England regiments were disbanded and returned to their homes, their period of enlistment having expired, and the difficulty of obtaining other troops prevented anything being attempted on the St. John for a year or two. Lawrence and s.h.i.+rley, however, continued to discuss the details of the proposed expedition.

Both governors seem to have had rather vague ideas of the number of the Acadians on the river and the situation of their settlements.

s.h.i.+rley says he learned from the eastern Indians and New England traders that their princ.i.p.al settlement was about ninety miles up the river at a place called St. Annes, six miles below the old Indian town of Aukpaque. He thought that 800 or 1,000 men would be a force sufficient to clear the river of the enemy and that after they were driven from their haunts the English would do well to establish a garrison of 150 men at St. Annes, in order to prevent the return of the French and to overawe the Indians. He also recommended that the fort at the mouth of the river, lately abandoned by Boishebert, should be rebuilt and a garrison of 50 men placed there.

During the years that followed the expulsion of the Acadians occasional parties of the exiles, returning from the south, arrived at the River St. John, where they waited to see what the course of events might be. Their condition was truly pitiable. Some had journeyed on foot or by canoe through an unexplored wilderness; others, from the far away Carolinas, having procured small vessels, succeeded in creeping furtively along the Atlantic coast from one colony to another until they reached the Bay of Fundy; and thus the number of the Acadians continued to increase until Boishebert had more than a thousand people under his care. Some of them he sent to Canada, for his forces were insufficient for their protection, and his supplies were scanty.

The locations of the French settlements on the river at this period are described in detail in Dr. Ganong's "Historic Sites in New Brunswick." The largest settlement, and that farthest up the St. John, was at St. Annes Point, where the City of Fredericton stands today.

Here the Acadians had cleared 600 or 700 acres of land and built a thriving village with a little chapel (near the site of Government House) and probably there was a sprinkling of houses along the river as far up as the Indian village of Aukpaque, six miles above. Their next settlement was at the mouth of the Oromocto, where 300 acres of land had been cleared. A very old settlement existed near the abandoned fort at the mouth of the Jemseg, but its growth had been r.e.t.a.r.ded by the annoyances of the spring freshets and many of the inhabitants had been obliged to remove. There was an important settlement on the site now occupied by the village of Gagetown and houses were scattered along the river for several miles below. Another small settlement existed above the mouth of the Bellisle, and there may have been a few inhabitants at the mouth of the Nerepis where stood Fort Boishebert. At St. John the French had cleared some land on the west side of the harbor, and in Bruce's map of 1761 the places cleared are marked as "gardens," but it is probable that the inhabitants abandoned them and fled up the river in 1755 when their fort, "Menagoueche," was destroyed by Captain Rous.

In the year 1756 England declared war against France and the capture of Louisbourg was proposed. The governor of Canada ordered Boishebert to hold himself in readiness to aid in its defence, and he accordingly proceeded to Cape Breton with a force of 100 Acadians and Canadians and about 250 Indians, many of them Maliseets of the River St. John.

The latter did not go very willingly, for they had been reduced to so great a state of misery in consequence of not receiving the supplies they had expected from the French that they had entered into peace negotiations with the English. However by means of harangues and promises Boishebert contrived to bring them with him.

The Chevalier de Drucour, the commander at Louisbourg, urged the French minister to send at once presents and supplies for the savages.

"These people," he observes, "are very useful in the kind of warfare we are making, but unless we act towards them as they have been led to expect I will not answer that we shall have them with us next year."

He urges the French minister to send him some medals for distribution.

The distinction of possessing one was very highly prized and often retained the fidelity of a whole village of the savages.

The expected a.s.sault of Louisbourg did not take place until 1758 and Boishebert, who had retired to Canada, was ordered to repair thither.

The Marquis de Montcalm wrote from Montreal to the French minister, April 10th, "Monsieur Boishebert, captain of troops of the colony, leaves in the course of a few days, if the navigation of the St.

Lawrence is open, to proceed to the River St. John and thence to Louisbourg with a party of 600 men, including Canadians, Acadians and savages of Acadia."

The governor and other officials at Quebec seem to have placed every confidence in the courage and capacity of Boishebert, who, it may be here mentioned received this year the Cross of St. Louis in recognition of his services in Acadia. "It is certain," writes the Marquis de Vaudreuil, "that if, when the former siege of Louisbourg took place, the governor there had agreed to the proposal to send Marin thither with a force of Canadians and Indians the place would not have fallen, and if Boishebert were now to collect 200 Acadians and 200 St. John river Indians and the Micmacs he would be able to form a camp of 600 or 700 men, and Drucour could frequently place the besiegers between two fires."

The expectations of Montcalm and de Vaudreuil as to the usefulness of Boishebert's detachment in the defence of Louisbourg were doomed to disappointment, for Boishebert did not arrive at Louisbourg until near the end of the siege and with forces not one-third of the number that Drucour had been led to expect. Two depots of provisions had been placed in the woods for the use of the detachment, but the fact that Boishebert had only about 120 Acadians and a few Indians in addition to a handful of regulars, entirely frustrated Drucour's design of harra.s.sing the attacking English by a strong demonstration in their rear. About twenty of Boishebert's Indians were engaged in a skirmish with the English and two of their chiefs having fallen the rest were so discouraged that they returned to their villages. Boishebert himself had a few unimportant skirmishes with outlying parties of the English, and then came the news of the surrender of Louisbourg. He immediately sent away the sick of his detachment, set fire to a thousand cords of wood and a quant.i.ty of coal to prevent its falling into the hands of the enemy, and on the 29th July set out on his return to the St. John river. The English made a lively but fruitless pursuit.

Boishebert left his sick at Miramichi, and having sent sixty prisoners, whom he had taken on various occasions, to Quebec, he then took part in an expedition against Fort George, on the coast of Maine, where he gained more honor than at the seige of Louisbourg.[36] He returned to Quebec in November, and about the same time there was an exodus from the River St. John, both of Acadians and Indians, the reason for which the next chapter will explain. From this time the Sieur de Boishebert ceases to be an actor in the events on the St.

John, and becomes merely an on-looker.

[36] The Chevalier Johnson writes, "Boishebert came early in the Spring to Louisbourg with several hundred men, 12 Canadian Officers and 6 others from the garrison of Louisbourg; and he kept his detachment with such prudence so concealed at Miry during the siege, five leagues from Louisbourg, that neither the English nor the garrison had ever any news of them."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAJOR GENERAL ROBERT MONCKTON.]

CHAPTER XIII.

THE ENGLISH TAKE POSSESSION OF THE RIVER ST. JOHN.

The territory north of the Bay of Fundy, which now forms the Province of New Brunswick, was for nearly half a century a bone of contention between the French and their English rivals. It might indeed be said that from the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 to the Treaty of Paris in 1763 the controversy continued to disturb the peace of Europe. Sometimes the points at issue were warmly debated at the council board, where the representatives of either nation vainly tried to settle the limits of Acadia, and sometimes they were yet more fiercely disputed amidst the clash of arms and b.l.o.o.d.y scenes of the battle field.

But as years pa.s.sed on, and the growing power of the English colonies began to overshadow that of "La Nouvelle France," it seemed that the Anglo-Saxon race must in the end prevail. The policy of the governors of Nova Scotia and New England became more and more aggressive. In vain did the valiant Montcalm, as late as the year 1758, represent to his country that in fixing the limits of New France it was essential to retain possession of what the English claimed as Acadia as far as the Isthmus of Chignecto, and to retake Beausejour; also that France should keep possession of the River St. John or, at least, leave the territory there undivided and in the possession of its native inhabitants: no such compromise as this would now satisfy the English.

Louisbourg surrendered to General Amherst on the 26th July, 1758, and a few weeks later Colonel Monckton was sent with a body of troops, flushed with their success, to drive the hapless Acadians from their settlements on the River St. John. The particulars connected with this expedition are found in an unpublished doc.u.ment, of which the original is in the Public Record Office in London, ent.i.tled "Report of the Proceedings of the Troops on the Expedition up St. John's River in the Bay of Fundy under the command of Colonel Monckton."[37]

[37] For a copy of this valuable paper I am indebted to Dr. W. F.

Ganong. The name of Monckton is preserved in that of the second largest town of the province.

As Monckton was the princ.i.p.al agent in an event of such historic importance to us as the permanent occupation of the St. John river, a few words may very properly be devoted to him.

Robert Monckton was the second son of John, first Viscount Galway, by his wife Lady Elizabeth Manners, youngest daughter of the Duke of Rutland. He began his military career in Flanders in 1742, where he fought in several battles. Later he came out to America, and in 1752 we find him in charge of the garrison of Fort Lawrence, keeping watch over the French stronghold of Beausejour, across the Misseguash. A little later he was commandant of the garrison of Annapolis Royal. He commanded the English forces at the reduction of Beausejour, in June, 1755. The year following he was appointed Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia. He commanded the 4th battalion of the 60th regiment, or "Royal Americans," at the siege of Louisbourg, and in 1759 served as second in command to Wolfe at the taking of Quebec, on which occasion he was conspicuous for his bravery and was severely wounded. A year or two later he was Governor of New York. In the course of time he attained the rank of lieutenant-general in the army, and at his death, in 1782, was a member for Portsmouth in the British Parliament.

Among those who, in a subordinate capacity, rendered essential service in the expedition to the River St. John none was more conspicuous than our old friend, Captain Cobb, of the Province sloop "York;" a few words may fittingly be devoted to him.

Sylva.n.u.s Cobb was born in Plymouth, New England, in 1709. Shortly before the capture of Louisbourg by Sir Wm. Pepperrell, in 1745, he raised a company in his native town for Colonel Gorham's regiment and served with credit during the operations of the seige. He was subsequently in command of a small armed vessel employed by Government to cruise in the Bay of Fundy. After Halifax was founded, in 1749, he was employed by Governor Cornwallis and his successors for nearly ten years as master of the Provincial armed sloop "York."

When at Louisbourg in 1758 he was selected by Monckton to conduct Wolfe to reconnoitre the fortress previous to an a.s.sault. As they sailed up the harbor no one was allowed to stand on deck but Wolfe at the fore-sheet and Cobb at the helm. The shot flew thickly around them, and Wolfe at length signified that they had approached as near to the fortifications as was necessary, but Cobb made yet another tack, eliciting Wolfe's admiration and the remark, "Well, Cobb! I shall never again doubt but you will carry me near enough." Capt. Cobb lived for some years at Liverpool, N. S. He died of fever in 1762 while serving in an expedition against Havana, and is said to have expressed his regret that he had not met a soldier's death at the cannon's mouth. His descendants in Queens county, N. S., are numerous.

The troops that accompanied Colonel Monckton to the River St. John included several New England companies of Rangers under captains McCurdy, Brewer, Goreham and Stark, a detachment of artillery, the 2nd battalion of the Royal American Regiment[38] and the 35th regiment of light infantry. The troops embarked on board the transport s.h.i.+ps "Isabella," "Wade," "Alexander the Second," "Viscount Falmouth," "Lord Bleakeney," the sloops "York" and "Ulysses" and other vessels, under convoy of the "Squirrel" man-of-war. Vessels and troops had lately returned from the siege of Louisbourg.

[38] The Royal American Regiment, or 60th Regiment of Foot, was raised in America about 1756 or 1757. It was commanded by Maj.

Gen. James Abercrombie, who was succeeded by Gen. Sir Jeffrey Amherst in February, 1758. The corps included four battalions each of 1,000 men. Robert Monckton was appointed colonel in the regiment Sept. 28, 1757. (See Murdoch's Hist. Nova Scotia, Vol. 2, p. 329.)