Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/842

782 unsatisfactory reply was that there was no more heresy in English rum than there was in French brandy. The real trouble was that the English sold rum openly to the Indians, while the trade in brandy was surreptitious because of the firm and in many respects fine opposition of Bishop Laval and the Jesuits. Moreover the English paid higher prices for otter-skins than were paid by the French. The troubles of the French increased when French coureurs des bois, tempted as were the Indians by the more liberal trading practices of the English, deserted and took refuge in New York. The French thought for a time that they might buy New York and be rid of their difficulties, but this idea was never seriously cherished. Callières, the Governor of Montreal, urged Louis to fit out a large expedition to capture New York, but the King was more concerned in attempting to aid James in Ireland. He could not spare the ships or the men or the money. He felt inclined, however, to deprive England of her American colonies, so he directed Frontenac to go out to his government with two ships, to take New York, imprisoning the rich anti-Catholics for a ransom, and transporting the poor to Pennsylvania or New England. It would have been a cruel project had it not become comical by reason of the failure of the wretchedly managed French marine to furnish the ships in time. Therefore the people of New England were not destroyed, while Protestants continued to live in New York.

Nevertheless, Frontenac began his petites guerres against the English settlers, and, in a series of border forays, killed and burned at Corlaer (Schenectady), at Salmon Falls in New Hampshire, at Pemaquid and at Casco Bay in Maine. He seems to have been forced to the bloody action by the situation in which he found Canada on his return. Not only had Denonville failed in his effort to punish the Iroquois and thus aroused their confidence in their own prowess, but he had excited the contempt of the allies of the French at Michilimackinac and the West. The Hurons, the Ottawas, the Sioux, the Illinois, and other tribes whose relations with the French had been the stay of missionary, of trader, and of explorer, had lost confidence in French courage and trust in the power of New France to defend them against the Iroquois. These had been the common enemy of the Frenchmen and of Western Indians, and now the diplomats of the Five Nations were endeavoring, by taking advantage of this hostile and contemptuous feeling of the Western tribes, to break up the alliance and to bring these Indians and their trade entirely in their power. To awaken the confidence of these savage allies, Frontenac committed savage deeds on the English frontiers. This brought on a war between the colonies. Acadia was taken and retaken. Iberville made his successful raids on the forts in Hudson's Bay. The fleet of Sir William Phips appeared before Quebec, to the great surprise of Frontenac. No more insolent demand for a surrender was ever made by one honorable enemy upon another than that which Phips made upon Frontenac.

The French Governor-General, conscious of the weakness of his capital, of the lack of soldiers promised but not sent, received the blindfolded messenger of Phips in full uniform and surrounded by a gorgeous staff large enough and brilliant enough to meet the demands of an army great enough for the soldierly merits of such a commander as was Frontenac. In answer to the demand for the surrender of Quebec, Frontenac replied, pointing to his cannon, "I have no response to make to him but by the mouth of the cannon." Phips was defeated, and Massachusetts was forced by the expenses of this little war to issue her first paper currency.

Characteristically, Louis, who had conceived and ordered a destructive war against New York and New England, and had then failed to provide Frontenac with the means for carrying on the war, decorated himself in celebration of the victory which, notwithstanding, Frontenac had won. The medal struck for the victory was to Louis XIV., and the King wrote to Frontenac a letter of congratulation—the veteran's only recompense. The war went on not so much for the glory of France as for the preservation of the little which Denonville had left, and for the rehabilitation