The Great Company Part 18

Round about these unhappy savages, loudly lamenting the pa.s.sing of the English dominion when powder and shot was plenty, were the heaps of furs which to them were useless. They had journeyed to the fort in all good faith, across mountain and torrent, as was their custom, only to find their goods rejected by the white men of the fort, who told them to wait. When the French hunting party came to encamp near them, several of the younger braves amongst the Indians crept up to where they feasted, and returned with the news to their comrades. The tribe was fired with resentment. Exasperated by the cruelty of their fate, they hatched a plan of revenge and rapine. Two of their youngest and comeliest women entered the a.s.semblage of the white men, and by seductive wiles drew two of them away to their own lodges. The remaining six, having eaten and drunk their fill, and believing in their security, turned to slumber. Hardly had the two roysterers arrived at the Indian camp than instead of the cordial privacy they expected, they were confronted by two score famished men drawn up in front of the lodges, knives in hand and brandis.h.i.+ng hatchets. All unarmed as they were, they were unceremoniously seized and slain. As no trace was ever found of their bodies, they were, although denied by the eye-witness of the tragedy, a squaw, probably devoured on the spot. The younger men now stole again to the French camp and ma.s.sacred all the others in their sleep, save one, who being wounded feigned death, and afterwards managed to crawl off. But he, with his companions, had been stripped to the skin by the savages, and in this state, and half-covered with blood, he made his way back to the fort.

The distance being ten leagues, his survival is a matter of wonder, even to those hardy men of the wilderness.

The Governor naturally apprehended that the Indians would attempt to follow up their crime by an attack upon the fort.

As only nine men remained in the garrison, it was felt impossible to defend both of the French establishments. He therefore withdrew the men hastily from the little Fort Philipeaux near by, and none too quickly, for the Indians came immediately before it. Finding n.o.body in charge they wrought a speedy and vigorous pillage, taking many pounds of powder which Jeremie had not had time to transfer to Bourbon.

The condition of the French during the winter of 1708-9 was pitiable in the extreme. Surrounded by starving, blood-thirsty savages, with insufficient provisions, and hardly ever daring to venture out, they may well have received the tidings with joy that the indomitable English Company had re-established a Factory some leagues distant, and were driving a brisk trade with the eager tribes.

It was not until 1713 that the French Fur Company succeeded in relieving its post of Fort Bourbon. It had twice sent s.h.i.+ps, but these had been intercepted on the high seas by the English and pillaged or destroyed. The _Providence_ arrived the very year of the Treaty of Utrecht.

[Sidenote: Starvation amongst the Indians.]

But wretched as was the case of the French, that of the Indians was lamentable indeed. A few more years of French occupation and the forests and rivers of the Bay would know its race of hunters no more.

Many hundreds lay dead within a radius of twenty leagues from the fort, the flesh devoured from their bones. They had lost the use of the bow and arrow since the advent of the Europeans, and they had no resource as cultivators of the soil; besides their errant life forbade this. Pressed by a long hunger, parents had killed their children for food; the strong had devoured the weak. One of these unhappy victims of civilization and commercial rivalries, confessed to the commandant that he had eaten his wife and six children. He had, he declared, not experienced the pangs of tenderness until the time came for him to sacrifice his last child, whom he loved more than the others, and that he had gone away weeping, leaving a portion of the body buried in the earth.

FOOTNOTES:

[37] "Six or seven times over," the Company say in their reply.

[38] After the battle of Port Nelson, Iberville had returned to France leaving Martigny in command of the Fort. His subsequent career may be read elsewhere; the Bay was no longer to be the theatre of his exploits. He perished in 1707 at Havana.

[39] At Albany they were surrounded by the French on every side, a circ.u.mstance which greatly sapped their commerce. Yet, even at this period, the importation of beaver and other peltries from the single fort remaining to them was above thirty thousand annually.

CHAPTER XVI.

1697-1712.

Company Seriously Damaged by Loss of Port Nelson -- Send an Account of their Claims to Lords of Trade -- Definite Boundary Propositions of Trade -- Lewis anxious to Create Boundaries -- Company look to Outbreak of War -- War of Spanish Succession breaks out -- Period of Adversity for the Company -- Employment of Orkneymen -- Attack on Fort Albany -- Desperate Condition of the French at York Fort -- Pet.i.tion to Anne.

The Treaty of Ryswick[40] had aimed a severe blow at the prosperity of the Company,[41] in depriving them of that important quarter of the Bay known as Port Nelson.

Although now on the threshold of a long period of adversity, the Merchants-Adventurers, losing neither hope nor courage, continued to raise their voice for rest.i.tution and justice. Pet.i.tion after pet.i.tion found its way to King, Commons, and the Lords of Trade and Plantations.

[Sidenote: The Company's claims.]

In May, 1700, the Company were requested by the Lord of Trade and Plantations to send an account of the encroachments of the French on Her Majesty's Dominion in America within the limits of the Company's charter; to which the Company replied, setting forth their right and t.i.tle, and praying rest.i.tution.

It has been stated, and urged as a ground against the later pretensions of the Hudson's Bay Company, that at this time they were willing to contract their limits. While willing to do this for the purpose of effecting a settlement, it was only on condition of their not being able to obtain "the whole Straits and Bay which of right belongs to them."

"This," remarked a counsel for the Company in a later day, "is like a man who has a suit of ejectment, who, in order to avoid the expense and trouble of a law suit, says, 'I will be willing to allow you certain bounds, but if you do not accept that I will insist on getting all my rights and all that I am ent.i.tled to.'"

The Company's propositions soon began to take a definite form.

THE COMPANY'S CLAIMS AFTER THE TREATY OF RYSWICK.

[_To the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations._]

The limits which the Hudson's Bay Company conceive to be necessary as boundaries between the French and them in case of an exchange of places, and that the Company cannot obtain the whole Streights and Bay, which of right belongs to them, viz.:--

1. That the French be limited not to trade by wood-runners, or otherwise, nor build any House, Factory, or Fort, beyond the bounds of 53 degrees, or Albany River, vulgarly called Chechewan, to the northward, on the west or main coast.

2. That the French be likewise limited not to trade by wood-runners, or otherwise, nor build any House, Factory, or Fort, beyond Rupert's River, to the northward, on the east or main coast.

3. On the contrary, the English shall be obliged not to trade by wood-runners, or otherwise, nor build any House, Factory, or Fort, beyond the aforesaid lat.i.tude of 53 degrees, or Albany River, vulgarly called Chechewan, south-east towards Canada, on any land which belongs to the Hudson's Bay Company.

4. As also the English be likewise obliged not to trade by wood-runners, or otherwise, nor build any House, Factory, or Fort, beyond Rupert's River, to the south-east, towards Canada, on any land which belongs to the Hudson's Bay Company.

5. As likewise, that neither the French or English shall at any time hereafter extend their bounds contrary to the aforesaid limitations, nor instigate the natives to make war, or join with either, in any acts of hostility to the disturbance or detriment of the trade of either nation, which the French may very reasonably comply with, for that they by such limitations will have all the country south-eastward betwixt Albany Fort and Canada to themselves, which is not only the best and most fertile part, but also a much larger tract of land than can be supposed to be to the northward, and the Company deprived of that which was always their undoubted right.

And unless the Company can be secured according to these propositions, they think it will be impossible for them to continue long at York Fort (should they exchange with the French), nor will the trade answer their charge; and therefore if your lords.h.i.+ps cannot obtain these so reasonable propositions from the French, but that they insist to have the limits settled between [Albany and] York and Albany Fort, as in the lat.i.tude of 55 degrees or thereabouts, the Company can by no means agree thereto, for they by such an agreement will be the instruments of their own ruin, never to be retrieved.

By order of the General Court,

WM. POTTER, _Secretary_.

Confirmed by the General Court of } the said Company, 10th July, 1700.}

The adventurers were, they said, not indisposed to listen to reason.

They proposed limits to be observed by the two nations in their trade and possessions in the Bay. But should the French be so foolish as to refuse their offer, then they would not be bound by that or any former concession, but would then, as they had always theretofore done, "insist upon the prior and undoubted right to the whole of the Bay and straits."

[Sidenote: Lewis proposes boundaries.]

The Court of Versailles was now most anxious to delimit the boundaries of the respective possessions of the two countries in the Bay. To this end, proposals were exchanged between the two crown governments. One alternative proposed by the French Amba.s.sador was that the Weemish River, which was exactly half way between Fort Bourbon and Fort Albany, should mark the respective limits of the French on the east, while the limits of New France on the side of Acadia should be restricted to the River St. George.

This proposition having been referred to them, the Board of Trade and Plantations discouraged the scheme. The Hudson's Bay Adventurers it said, challenged an undoubted right to the whole Bay, antecedent to any pretence of the French. It was, therefore, requisite that they should be consulted before any concession of territories could be made to the Most Christian King or his subjects.

The Company pinned their hopes to an outbreak of hostilities,[42]

which would enable them to attempt to regain what they had lost. A protracted peace was hardly looked for by the nation. In answer to Governor Knight's continual complaints, to which were added those of the dispossessed Geyer, the Company begged its servants to bide their time; and to exert themselves to the utmost to increase the trade at Albany, and Moose, and Rupert's River.

"England," says the historian Green, "was still clinging desperately to the hope of peace, when Lewis, by a sudden act, forced it into war.

He had acknowledged William as King in the Peace of Ryswick, and pledged himself to oppose all the attacks on his throne. He now entered the bed-chamber at St. Germain, where James was breathing his last, and promised to acknowledge his son at his death as King of England, Scotland and Ireland."

[Sidenote: Outbreak of the war between England and France.]

Such a promise was tantamount to a declaration of war, and in a moment England sprang to arms. None were so eager for the approaching strife as the Honourable Merchants-Adventurers. They expressed their opinion that, while their interests had undoubtedly suffered at the peace of 1697, they were far from attributing it to any want of care on the part of his Majesty. Their rights and claims, they said, were then "overweighed by matters of higher consequence depending in that juncture for the glory and honour of the King."

Yet a dozen more years were to elapse before they were to come into their own again; and during that critical period much was to happen to affect their whole internal economy. The value of the shares fell; the original Adventurers were all since deceased, and many of their heirs had disposed of their interests. A new set of shareholders appeared on the scene; not simultaneously, but one by one, until almost the entire personnel of the Company had yielded place to a new, by no means of the same weight or calibre.[43]

Mention has already been made of the manner in which the Company devoted its thought and energy to its weekly meetings. Not even in the gravest crises to which the East India Company was subjected, was there a statute more inconvenient or severe, than the following: "Resolved and ordered by the Committee, to prevent the Company's business from being delayed or neglected, that for the future if any member do not appear by one hour after the time mentioned in the summons and the gla.s.s run out, or shall depart without leave of the Committee, such member shall have no part in the moneys to be divided by the Committee, and that the time aforesaid be determined by the going of the clock in the Court-room, which the Secretary is to set as he can to the Exchange clock; and that no leave shall be given until one hour after the gla.s.s is run out."

But out of their adversity sprung a proposition which, although not put into effect upon a large scale until many years afterwards, yet well deserves to be recorded here. To stem the tide of desertions from the Company's service, caused by the war, and the low rate of wages, it was in 1710 first suggested that youthful Scotchmen be employed.[44]

[Sidenote: Employment of Scotchmen in the service.]