Canada by Sir John George Bourinot (e ink ebook reader TXT) 📖

Penobscot--in Acadian history a prominent place, as often in possession of the English as the French.

{94} Biencourt and his companions appear to have had some accessions to their number during the years that followed the Virginian's visit. They built rude cabins on the banks of the Annapolis, and cultivated patches of ground after a fashion, beside raising a fort of logs and earth near Cape Sable, called indifferently Fort Louis or Lomeron. It has been generally believed that Biencourt died in Acadia about 1623, after making over all his rights to Charles La Tour, who was his personal friend and follower from his boyhood. Recently, however, the discovery of some old documents in Paris throws some doubt on the generally accepted statement of the place of his death.[1]

It is quite certain, however, whether Biencourt died in France or Acadia, young La Tour assumed after 1623 the control of Fort St. Louis and all other property previously held by the former. In 1626 the elder La Tour was driven from the Penobscot by English traders from Plymouth who took possession of the fort and held it for some years. He now recognised the urgent necessity of having his position in Acadia ratified and strengthened by the French king, and consequently went on a mission to France in 1627.

About this time the attention of prominent men in England was called to the fact that the French had settlements in Acadia. Sir William Alexander, afterwards the Earl of Stirling, a favourite of King James the Fourth of Scotland and First of England, and an author of several poetical tragedies, wished {95} to follow the example of Sir Frederick Gorges, one of the promoters of the colonisation of New England. He had no difficulty in obtaining from James, as great a pedant as himself, a grant of Acadia, which he named Nova Scotia. When Charles the First became king, he renewed the patent, and also, at the persuasion of the ambitious poet, created an order of Nova Scotia baronets, who were obliged to assist in the settlement of the country, which was thereafter to be divided into "baronies." Sir William Alexander, however, did not succeed in making any settlement in Nova Scotia, and did not take any definite measures to drive the French from his princely, though savage, domain until about the time Claude de la Tour was engaged in advocating the claims of his son in Europe, where we must follow him.

The elder La Tour arrived at an opportune time in France. Cardinal Richelieu had just formed the Company of the Hundred Associates, and it was agreed that aid should at once be sent to Charles de la Tour, who was to be the King's lieutenant in Acadia. Men and supplies for the Acadian settlement were on board the squadron, commanded by Roquemont, who was captured by Kirk in the summer of 1628. On board one of the prizes was Claude de la Tour, who was carried to London as prisoner. Then to make the position for Charles de la Tour still more hazardous, Sir William Alexander's son arrived at Port Royal in the same year, and established on the Granville side a small Scotch colony as the commencement of a larger settlement in the {96} future. Charles de la Tour does not appear to have remained in Port Royal, but to have retired to the protection of his own fort at Cape Sable, which the English did not attempt to attack at that time.

In the meantime the elder La Tour was in high favour at London. He won the affections of one of the Queen's maids of honour, and was easily persuaded by Alexander and others interested in American colonisation, to pledge his allegiance to the English king. He and his son were made baronets of Nova Scotia, and received large grants of land or "baronies" in the new province. As Alexander was sending an expedition in 1630 with additional colonists and supplies for his colony in Nova Scotia, Claude de la Tour agreed to go there for the purpose of persuading his son to accept the honours and advantages which the King of England had conferred upon him. The ambitious Scotch poet, it was clear, still hoped that his arguments in favour of retaining Acadia, despite the treaty of Susa, made on the 24th of April, 1629, would prevail with the King. It was urged that as Port Royal was on soil belonging to England by right of Cabot's discovery, and the French had not formally claimed the sovereignty of Acadia since the destruction of their settlement by Argall, it did not fall within the actual provisions of a treaty which referred only to conquests made after its ratification.

Charles de la Tour would not yield to the appeals of his father to give up the fort at Cape Sable, and obliged the English vessels belonging to Alexander to retire to the Scotch settlement by the Annapolis {97} basin. The elder La Tour went on to the same place, where he remained until his son persuaded him to join the French at Fort St. Louis, where the news had come that the King of France was determined on the restoration of Port Royal as well as Quebec. It was now decided to build a new fort on the River St. John, which would answer the double purpose of strengthening the French in Acadia, and driving the British out of Port Royal. Whilst this work was in course of construction, another vessel arrived from France with the welcome news that the loyalty of Charles de la Tour was appreciated by the King, who had appointed him as his lieutenant-governor over Fort Louis, Port La Tour, and dependencies.

By the treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye the French regained Acadia and were inclined to pay more attention to the work of colonisation. Richelieu sent out an expedition to take formal possession of New France, and Isaac de Launoy de Razilly, a military man of distinction, a Knight of Malta, and a friend of the great minister, was appointed governor of all Acadia. He brought with him a select colony, composed of artisans, farmers, several Capuchin friars, and some gentlemen, among whom were two whose names occupy a prominent place in the annals of Acadia and Cape Breton. One of them was Nicholas Denys, who became in later years the first governor of Cape Breton, where he made settlements at Saint Anne's and Saint Peter's, and also wrote an historical and descriptive account of the French Atlantic possessions. The most prominent {98} Frenchman after Razilly himself, was Charles de Menou, Chevalier d'Aunay and son of Rene de Menou, lord of Charnizay, who was of noble family, and became one of the members of the King's council of state at the time the disputes between his son and Charles de la Tour were at their height. Charles de Menou, or d'Aunay, as I shall generally name him, was made Razilly's deputy, and consequently at the outset of his career assumed a prominence in the country that must have deeply irritated young La Tour, who still remained one of the King's lieutenants and probably expected, until Razilly's arrival, to be the head of the colony.

Captain Forrester, in command of the Scotch colony at Port Royal, gave up the post to Razilly in accordance with the orders of the English king, who had acted with much duplicity throughout the negotiations. The fort was razed to the ground, and the majority of the Scotch, who had greatly suffered from disease and death, left Acadia, though several remained and married among the French colonists. This was the end of Alexander's experiment in colonising Acadia and founding a colonial _noblesse_.

Razilly made his settlement at La Heve, on the Atlantic shore of Nova Scotia, and Denys had a mill and trading establishment in the vicinity. Port Royal was improved and the post at Penobscot occupied. D'Aunay was given charge of the division west of the St. Croix, and during the summer of 1632 he came by sea to the Plymouth House on the Penobscot, and took forcible possession of the post with all its contents. A year later La Tour {99} also seized the "trading wigwam" at Machias, in the present State of Maine, but not before two of the English occupants were killed. La Tour had by this time removed from Cape Sable to the mouth of the River St. John, where he had built a strong fort on, probably, Portland Point, on the east side of the harbour of the present city of St. John, and was engaged in a lucrative trade in furs until a quarrel broke out between him and D'Aunay.

Soon after Razilly's death in the autumn of 1635, D'Aunay asserted his right, as lieutenant-governor of Acadia and his late chief's deputy, to command in the colony. He obtained from Claude de Razilly, brother of the governor, all his rights in Acadia, and removed the seat of government from La Heve to Port Royal, where he built a fort on the site of the present town of Annapolis. It was not long before he and La Tour became bitter enemies.

La Tour considered, with much reason, that he had superior rights on account of his long services in the province that ought to have been acknowledged, and that D'Aunay was all the while working to injure him in France. D'Aunay had certainly a great advantage over his opponent, as he had powerful influence at the French Court, while La Tour was not personally known and was regarded with some suspicion on account of his father being a Huguenot, and friendly to England. As a matter of fact, the younger La Tour was no Protestant, but a luke-warm Catholic, who considered creed subservient to his personal interests. This fact explains why the Capuchin friars always had a good word to say for {100} his rival who was a zealous Catholic and did much to promote their mission.

The French Government attempted at first to decide between the two claimants and settle the dispute, but all in vain. La Tour made an attempt in 1640 to surprise D'Aunay at Port Royal, but the result was that he as well as his bride, who had just come from France, were themselves taken prisoners. The Capuchin friars induced D'Aunay to set them all at liberty on condition that La Tour should keep the peace in future. The only result was an aggravation of the difficulty and the reference of the disputes to France, where D'Aunay won the day both in the courts and with the royal authorities. La Tour's commission was revoked and D'Aunay eventually received an order to seize the property and person of his rival, when he proved contumacious and refused to obey the royal command, on the ground that it had been obtained by false representations. He retired to his fort on the St. John, where, with his resolute wife and a number of faithful Frenchmen and Indians, he set D'Aunay at defiance. In this crisis La Tour resolved to appeal to the government of Massachusetts for assistance. In 1630, the town of Boston was commenced on the peninsula of Shawmut, and was already a place of considerable commercial importance. Harvard College was already open, schools were established, town meetings were frequent, and a system of representative government was in existence. Not only so, the colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Haven, and Plymouth had formed themselves into {101} a confederacy "for preserving and propagating the truth and liberties of the Gospel, and for their own mutual safety and welfare."