Old Times in the Colonies. Charles Carleton Coffin
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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 they never before have seen— a strange being with the sunlight glistening on his breast. They see a lightning-flash, and hear a roar. A chief and a warrior are weltering in their blood. Another flash, more warriors going down. The warwhoop changes to a despairing cry on the one side, and victory on the other. In an instant the Iroquois are gone, and the victory is with the Algonquins. Champlain is their great chief. They rend the air with shouts. Now they will ever be victorious. Champlain rejoices with them. He has bound them to himself forever. Ah! if he could but lift the veil that hides the future, he would see that in the flash of his gun there was more than the securing of the friendship of the Algonquins; that there was, in addition, the undying hatred of the Iroquois toward the French; that for a century and a half the Iroquois would never forget that defeat.
How strangely things come about! Champlain was laying foundation of empire in Canada; but if he had gone southward from that battle-field two days’ journey, he would have beheld a vessel from Holland — the Half-Moon — commanded by Henry Hudson, through whom the Dutch were to gain a foothold in America. He would have seen the Indians flocking around the Half-Moon, in their canoes, the chiefs feasting Hudson on baked dog, pigeons, pumpkins, and grapes, filling the vessel with fur in exchange for trinkets — the opening of trade on a river along whose peaceful waters the commerce of an empire is now borne to the sea. It was the beginning of Dutch influence in America, hostile to France and the Pope, antagonistic to the designs of Champlain and the Jesuits, the subsequent enlisting of the Iroquois as their allies, re-enforced by the power of undying hatred of the French.
CHAPTER IV
The Wise Fool of England and His Times
How quickly we can learn to hate! If anybody wrongs us, we do not soon forget it. How little do we understand that what we sow that we shall also reap! We know that if we sow thistles we shall have a crop of thistles; but it has taken the human race many hundred years to comprehend that if they sow Bigotry they will reap a harvest of the same.
When “Bloody Mary,”‘ as she was called, burnt hundreds of men and women at the stake because they were Protestants, she did not stop to think of what might come of it; that it would set in motion a train of events that would sweep the Roman Catholic Church out of England; that the people would come to regard the Pope as the embodiment of all wickedness.
Queen Mary was daughter of the King of Spain, and that country was the great champion of the Church of Rome. The Spaniards were hard-hearted, treacherous, vindictive. The Jesuits had the consciences of the Spaniards in keeping, teaching them to do any evil