The Greatest Works of Charles Carleton Coffin. Charles Carleton Coffin
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was better than tramping through the forest all day in pursuit of game — they would always be friends of the French.
A vessel sailed into the harbor, bringing a letter for Sieur de Monts: “Your enemies have persuaded the king to deprive you of the sole privilege of trading with the Indians,” was the message.
Everything was abandoned — houses, furniture, all — and with a sad heart Sieur de Monts sailed away; so the second attempt of France to get a foothold in Canada ended in failure.
The vessel which carried the disappointed Frenchmen back to France almost came in contact, in mid-ocean, with three ships from London, which were bearing to Virginia the men who were to make the first permanent English settlement in America at Jamestown.
In April, 1607, Captain Newport, Bartholomew Gosnold, Captain John Smith, and a party of colonists sailed into the peaceful waters of Chesapeake Bay, dropping anchor off a point of land where everything around was so pleasant: after tossing so many weeks on ship-board, they named it Point Comfort. The vessels sailed up a noble river, which Captain Newport named the James, in honor of the king. He made a settlement on an island, to which he gave the name of Jamestown.
The expedition had been fitted out by the London Company of merchants. The colonists consisted of four carpenters, a few laborers, and forty-eight “gentlemen,” sons of noblemen, who had wasted their fortunes, and who expected to find gold lying in heaps. They had vague ideas of a life of exciting adventure in the wilderness. How different the reality! They found no gold; the sun blazed in the heavens like a fiery ball, and they wilted beneath the heat; fever set in; death began to pick them off; provisions failed; and had not Captain Smith obtained corn from the Indians, all would have perished. Instead of gold and adventures, sickness, death, and disappointment!
While this was transpiring in Virginia, William Brewster, William Bradford, and the farmers of Scrooby and Austerfield, in obedience to their convictions of duty and obligation, were fleeing from England to Holland — the country which the sturdy, patient, plodding Dutchmen had banked in from the sea, pumped dry with their windmills, and converted it into farms and gardens— the only country on the face of the earth where they would be wholly free to think for themselves.
‘What land is this, that seems to be
A mingling of the land and sea?
This land of sluices, dikes, and dunes?
This water-net that tessellates
The landscape? this unending maze
Of gardens, through whose latticed gates
The imprisoned pinks and tulips gaze;
Where in long summer afternoons
The sunshine, softened by the haze.
Comes streaming down as through a screen;
Where over fields and pastures green
The painted ships float high in air,
And over all and everywhere
The sails of windmills sink and soar
Like wings of sea-gulls on the shore?”
Sir Fernando Gorges, Governor of Plymouth, who took so much interest in the Indians which Captain Weymouth carried to England, enlisted his friend, Chief-justice Lord John Popham, in American affairs. Lord John had been wild in his youth, but having an ambition to get on in the world, became sober-minded, and worked his way into Parliament, and had been appointed chief-justice of the realm. He was harsh and cruel, and sent so many men to the gallows, that people called him “Hangman Popham.” He joined Sir Fernando Gorges in fitting out an expedition to make a settlement in Maine, but made a fatal mistake. Thinking that anybody would count one, he emptied the jails, and sent a pack of criminals to establish a colony.
To build a State we must have mew, not the riffraff of society.
The spot selected for a settlement was at the mouth of the Sagadahock, or Kennebec, River, in Maine. Trees were cut down, and houses, church, and a log fort erected.
Though the Indians had not forgotten the treachery of Captain Weymouth, they held friendly intercourse with the new-comers, who, in return, loaded a cannon to the muzzle with bullets, and induced the Indians to take hold of the drag-ropes and help them draw it. When all were in a line, one of Sir John’s villains touched a live coal to the priming; there was a flash, a cloud, a roar, and the ground was strewn with corpses. The Indians, indignant at such treachery, fell upon the villains with their tomahawks. The cowards fled to their ships, and the Indians rushed into the fort. Suddenly there was an explosion, and the fort and the Indians went up into the air. The savages had touched off the magazine, and blown up the fort and themselves. Those who had been sent out by Sir John to manage affairs, saw that after such an affair it would be impossible to establish the colony. They returned to England, and Sir John, who had hoped to add to his wealth, found himself out of pocket.
Although the King of France had taken the monopoly of the fur-trade away from Sieur de Monts, that gentleman was ready for new enterprises, and fitted out two vessels, appointing Samuel Champlain and a merchant of St. Malo — Pontgrave — commanders. The cargoes were trinkets, knives, blankets, and other knickknacks for the Indians.
On the 5th of April, 1608, Poutgrave, Champlain, and the sailors attended mass in the old church of St. Malo, bade good-bye to their friends, and sailed out upon the ocean. Pontgrave entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence, reached Tadousac, on the northern shore, where he found a party of Spaniards trading with the Indians.
“This is French territory; you have no right here,” said Pontgrave, running out his cannon and opening fire upon the Spanish vessel; but the Spaniards were strongest, and the French were getting the worst of it, when Champlain fortunately arrived and conquered the Spaniards, allowing them to go home to Spain, but holding on to their furs.
Up the river St. Lawrence sailed Champlain to the spot where, in 1535, stood the Indian town of Stadacone; but the wigwams were no longer there — all had disappeared.
“It is a good place for a town,” said Champlain, and set the men to work erecting houses, surrounding them with a palisade, planting his cannon, clearing a bit of ground for a garden, and giving the name of Quebec to the settlement.
It was the first permanent planting of the civilization, language, and literature of France in America.
The English are in Virginia, the French in Canada. Feeble both the plantings. Which will have the most vigorous growth? What are the forces lying behind to give them strength? One is of the Magna Charta — the right of the many; the other of the Feudal ages — the privilege of the few, and the right of none. In England the people are questioning the privileges of the king; in France the king is absolute, and no one asks any questions. England rejects the supreme authority of the Pope; France accepts it. In the great struggle between these two diverse civilizations, which will most likely go down? which, for the well-being, happiness and advancement of the human race, ought to go down?
Samuel Champlain, of Brittany, is ever looking into the future of this Western World. He is dreaming of the time when there shall be a new empire, under the dominion of France and the sway of the Pope. He will make the Indians his allies; will conquer them by kindly acts, attach them forever to France by making them his friends, and use them to obtain territory and power. With the aid of the Jesuits he will convert them to Christianity, and so extend the dominion of the Church. Daring the winter he feeds them, and the simple-hearted red men are ready to lay down their lives for such a benefactor.
Spring opens. The Indians of Canada are at war with the Iroquois, and Champlain resolves to take part in the struggle. They ascend the St. Lawrence, enter the Richelieu, carry their canoes past the falls, launch them once more, and glide along the peaceful waters of Lake Champlain. On the western shore, as the sun is setting, July 29th, 1609, the Algonquins discover a war party of their enemies. Morning comes, Champlain loads his gun, puts on his breastplate of glittering steel, and in his cap a plume.
The Iroquois have won many victories over the Algonquins, and expect an easy triumph. The warwhoop resounds through the forest; the arrows fly. The Iroquois behold what