France in America, 1497-1763

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Contents

CHAP. PAGB

Editor's Introduction xv

Author's Preface xix

Author's Preface

THE story of the rise and fall of New France is the most dramatic chapter in American history. It has been so admirably related by Francis Parkman that to follow in his footsteps may seem a daring venture. But the work of Parkman runs through twelve octavo volumes, and in this busy world comparatively few are willing to undertake the task of reading them all, despite the fact that France and England in North America is qmte as entertaining as the best of fiction, and possesses the additional charm of verity. There would seem to be needed a one-volume history of New France, from the stand-point of relationship with her English neighbors to the south. Indeed, so intimate were these relations, and so far-reaching their consequences, that no history of the American nation can be considered complete that does not, as fully as space will permit, outline the remarkable career of Canada under the French regime.

One cannot treat of this subject without constantly acknowledging indebtedness to Parkman, and rising from the task with a keen appreciation of the many-sidedness of that great master,

xix

XX AUTHOR'S PREFACE

Yet it must be remembered that the word of no historian is final. Much has been learned since the Pioneers of France in the New World went to press in 1865, and not a little since the series was completed in 1892 with A Half -Century of Conflict. On both sides of the international boundary, more particularly among the French writers of Canada, there has for over a quarter of a century past been an unceasing search into the "deeper deeps" of the history of New France. New stores of material have been brought to light and published, scores of trained historical students have each had a turn at these fresh sources, old theories have been critically re - examined ; and not unnaturally many scholars have come to entertain opinions differing in some respects from those held by the older writers.

So far as space and the aim of the series allow, an attempt has been made in the present volume to give the story of New France as it appears to modern investigators. Had this book been intended to stand alone, more attention would of course have been paid to English colonial institutions and events, as contrasted with and influencing those of the French; but as these matters are sufficiently treated in other volumes of the series, repetition of facts was undesirable. Some of the characteristics of New France and its people, and certain features of its history, are susceptible of much more liberal treatment than is herein given ; but it is neces-

AUTHOR'S PREFACE xxi

sary to fashion the garment to the wearer's need, and the faithful reader of the series will doubtless find contained in other volumes most if not all of that which he may miss in this. It has been customary to close the history of New France with the treaty of Paris, or in any event the conspiracy of Pontiac ; the present writer has, however, in the interest of dramatic continuity, thought it desirable in the concluding chapter briefly to follow the subsequent fortunes of the French in Louisiana, until their absorption into the American nation.

Reuben Gold Thwaites.

Chapter I The Planting Of New France (1497-1632)

THIS year [1497] on St. John the Baptist's Day," did "our well-beloved John Cabot, citizen of Venice," bravely set forth from Bristol in The Matthew, a little lug-sailed vessel of fifty tons manned by less than twenty West-of- England sailors. The veteran mariner and his associates had been commissioned by Henry VII. to "set up our banner on any new-found land . . . upon their own costs and charges, to seek out and discover whatsoever isles ... of the heathen and infidels, which before the time have been unknown to all Christians . . . [and] to pay to us the fifth part of the capital gain so gotten for every then voyage." Fifty-three days out, Cabot sighted land somewhere within or bordering the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The location cannot be stated with definiteness ; an animated controversy has been waged over the question for several years, Cape Breton Island, Newfotindland, Prince Edward's Island, and Labrador having each had its champions. The opinion of Dawson, that the landfall is in the neighborhood of North Cape, on Cape Breton, is, however, growing in favor. ^ Of more immediate consequence to American history was the fact that Cabot carried back to England news of the rich possibilities of the cod -fishery thereabout, especially off the cliff -girt bays of Newfoundland . ^

Ever since the middle of the fourteenth century, and perhaps before, Englishmen, chiefly from the port of Bristol, had been catching cod off the shores of Iceland, if, indeed, the Labrador coast were not included in the range of their activities.' But Cabot's report turned the attention of Bristol men to Newfoundland, and thenceforth the Icelandic catch held but second place. When, the following year, the discoverer departed upon his second

' Harrisse, "Outcome of the Cabot Quarter-Centenary," in Am. Hist. Review, IV., 38-61, would place it in Labrador. Dawson, in Can. Royal Soc, Transactions, XII., § 2, pp. 51-112; 2d series, II., § 2, pp. 3-30; and 2d series, III., § 2, pp. 139-268, prefers North Cape, as above. See summing up in Winship, Cabot Bibliography, Introd., -who thinks Dawson's theory probable but not proven; and that on the return Cabot's vessel skirted Newfoundland as far as Cape Race.

' Cabot's charter, dated March 5, 1496, cited in Weare, Cabot's Discovery, 96; Prowse, Newfoundland, 8. For a more detailed discussion of Cabot, see Bourne, Spain in America (.4m. Nation, III.), chap. v.

' Prowse, Newfoundland, 24-29, summarizes the data concerning early Icelandic fisheries.

voyage, Devonshire fishermen and traders — moved by the lusty ambitions of a decade wherein the habitable portion of the globe had suddenly been doubled by the discoveries of maritime adventurers — joined forces and sent "out of Bristow [Bristol] three or four small ships fraught with sleight and grosse wares, as coarse cloth, caps, laces, points, and such other," their purpose being to make hauls of fish and to barter with the savages of the "new isle" and the neighboring American littoral.*

It is not unlikely that Norsemen were at Newfoundland early in the eleventh century; but they do not appear to have made any settlement upon this new coast, which with its dense forests of conifers and almost countless fiords and island fringes so closely resembles Norway itself. Claims are made, also, that Spanish Basques, who were among the most venturesome of deep-sea fishers, had in their large, bulky craft preceded Cabot by a hundred years ; but it is doubtful whether they went in force much before 1545. Portuguese fishermen appear to have arrived in 1501, and Normans and Bretons three years later. ^ Thereafter, for a century and a half, hundreds of fishing-vessels annually resorted to the rugged fiords of Newfoundland, their " winter crews" of boat -builders and scaffold-men settling themselves in small longshore colonies according to

* Stowe, Annates, 482.

nations — English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish. Enormous hauls of cod were made, the fish being flayed and dried upon great stagings which lined the shores, in much the same manner as to-day ; ' while many vessels searched in northern waters for seals and whales. Throughout this long period, although the French fisheries were for several generations greater than their own, the fierce and hardy men of Devon remained in chief control at the stormy island outpost — but only as the result of frequent bloody struggles with still ruder Basques and Bretons — fit training for the destruction of the Spanish Armada and the ousting of France from the American main-land nearly two centuries later. After the dispersal of the Armada in 1588, against which many a Newfoundland fishing - craft was pitted, England was recognized as mistress of the seas, and Spanish ships became almost unknown on the Grand Banks, where for forty years they had mustered fully two hundred sail and six thousand seamen.^

Upon this enormous traffic in dried fish, much of which was, and still is, marketed in Mediterranean ports, and upon the accompanying trade for furs with neighboring savages, several towns in northern France and western England greatly prospered. The numerous landlocked harbors of Newfoundland were, in those early days, also centres of a

* Prowse, Newfoundland, 21, 59, 61, etc. ' Ibid., 51, 60, 81.

very considerable international barter — the cloths, hats, hosiery, and cordage of west England being carried thither in square-bowed fishing-craft, and exchanged for oils, wines, and prints brought by the larger vessels of Spain and Portugal.

St, John's was, as well, a port of call for most maritime adventurers to North America, of which Newfoundland was early recognized as the portal. Verrazzano (1524), Cartier (1534, 1535, 1541), Roberval (1541), Hawkins (1565), Parkhurst (1578), and Gilbert (1578, 1583) were but a few of the earliest in the long procession which sought water, provisions, and recruits in a harbor which by this time was almost as familiar to the seamen of western Europe as any of their own. Later, the first settlers of both Virginia and New England foimd it necessary occasionally to resort for succor to their Newfoundland compatriots, whose island colony — oldest of England's plantations beyond seas — had preceded their own by a well-rounded century.

What acquaintance European seamen who frequented Newfoundland had made with the river St, Lawrence before the arrival of Jacques Cartier is now unknown ;^ but it is not unreasonable to suppose that in their wide range for fish and furs — during which Labrador was commonly visited-^ they must not infrequently have entered the great estuary and found its coasts narrowing to the banks of a tidal stream. Hakluyt makes such a claim for

^Discussion in Winsor, Cartier to Frontenac, 10-15.

English sea-rovers early in the sixteenth century. But voyages of this character were seldom recorded, and tradition is an uncertain guide.

In 1534, Cartier, a master-pilot of St. Malo — a port which for thirty years had annually despatched many vessels to the American fisheries — set out under the commands of his royal master, Francis I., with the definite purpose of formally extending the bounds of France. After touching at Newfoundland, he explored the St. Lawrence "until land could be seen on either side." The next year he repeated his voyage, and, ascending to Lachine Rapids, the head of navigation from the sea, named the island mountain at their foot Mont-Royal. His report* of a winter's experience (1535-1536) in this inhospitable climate, near the gray cliff of Quebec, gave pause to Frenchmen in their western colonizing schemes; further, the king was now engaged at home in serious difficulties with Spain, and had neither thought, time, nor money for continuing the exploration of North America.

When at last a truce had been declared between France and Spain, Cartier was made captain-general and pilot of a new fleet of five vessels which was to bear to America the king's viceroy, Jean Frangois de la Roche, better known as Roberv^al, from his estates in Picardy. A month later than the time set, Roberval having failed to arrive, Cartier set sail

• Brief Ricit, printed at Paris in 1545 and since included in Pinkerton, Voyages, and other collections.

with three ships (May, 1541), and in August was again at Quebec, where he built a post which he abandoned in the spring, thence returning to France. It is said that in the Gulf of St. Lawrence he met the belated Roberval coming with supplies, and with colonists who had for this purpose been liberated from French jails. The Picard remained for a year at Quebec, whose crude fortifications he restored and bettered, and he attempted some interior exploration; but his community was one requiring a liberal use of the lash and the gibbet, and gave him little peace. There are reports that Cartier was sent to bring him home in 1543. After the king's settlement of the accounts of the joint expedition (April 3, 1544), both Cartier and Roberval pass from our view.^

France was now in the throes of civil war; the Huguenots, struggling bitterly against the domination of a hierarchy which rigidly controlled the state, engaged all of the king's means of repression. Seeking a refuge for his persecuted countrymen, the great Huguenot leader. Admiral Coligny, attempted to establish a colony of French Protestants in America. His Port Royal, planted in 1562 on the river Broad, proved a failure; and a settlement of two years later, on St. John's River, was razed by jealous Spaniards sallying from St. Augustine.^

' Winsor, Cartier to Frontenac, 23-47; Tyler, England in America (Ant. Nation, IV.), 284-286.

' Bourne, Spain in America (Am. Nation, III.), chap. xii. VOL vn. — 3 lo FRANCE IN AMERICA [1598

It was not until 1598* that another attempt was made by France, this time to found a colony on the St. Lawrence. In that year Troilus du Mesgonez, Marquis de la Roche, headed two ships laden with the usual crowd of degenerates — for in that day the sweepings of jails and gutters were commonly thought to furnish proper material for colonization over -seas. Landing his unmanageable vagabonds on lonely Sable Island, he essayed to search for a site on the main-land, far beyond ; but storms drove his ships back to France, where he at once fell into political difficulties which resulted in his imprisonment. It was not until five years later that a chance rescue came to the abandoned colonists, who had had a pitiful experience, dallying with death upon this sandy reef which lies in a region of almost perpetual mists and chilling blasts.

In 1600 a commercial partnership was formed between Francois Grave, the Sieur du Pont (commonly called Pontgrave), a St. Malo trading mariner who had been upon the St. Lawrence as far up as Three Rivers; a wealthy Honfleur merchant, Pierre Chauvin, who was a Calvinist friend of Henry IV. ; and another rich Calvinist named Pierre du Guast, Sieur de Monts. Despite the vigorous protests of St. Malo merchants, who asserted that their long protection of French rights in that quarter gave them a claim to the American trade, to these three men was granted a royal monopoly of the fur-trade

'Possibly 1578; Winsor, Cartier to Frontenac, 76, gives 1590.

i6o3] NEW FRANCE ii

in the New World.* They made two successful voyages to Tadoussac, but the majority of the men left behind to btiild a fort met death from cold and starvation.

Chauvin dying, he was succeeded by Amyar de Chastes, a prominent friend of the king, who contracted a partnership with Pontgrave and several Rouen and St. Malo traders. In 1603, Pontgrave took out with him Samuel de Champlain, commissioned by the king as pilot and chronicler of the expedition, which proceeded as far as Lachine Rapids, and returned with large cargoes of furs. Champlain was an experienced seaman who had commanded a vessel in West Indian waters, and now entered upon a career which has made him perhaps the most famous figure, as he certainly is one of the most picturesque, in the romantic history of New France.^

Upon reaching Honfleur they learned that De Chastes had died, thus leaving without a head the colonization scheme on which Pontgrave and Champlain were to report. By permission of the king, however, his place was taken by that equally distinguished nobleman the Sieur de Monts — "a gentleman of great respectability, zeal, and honesty," declares Champlain — whose voyage to Tadoussac

* Biggar, Early Trading Companies of New France, "traces the birth and growth of commerce down to the year 1632."

^ Slafter, memoir in Prince Soc. ed of Champlain' s Voyages; Gravier, Champlain.

we have already chronicled. De Monts was given the viceroyalty and trade monopoly of all of North America between the fortieth and forty-sixth degrees of latitude, with directions to found a settlement. It was specified in his commission that Huguenot colonists were to be granted religious freedom ; but the savages must be instructed in the faith of Rome.

De Monts, Champlain, Pontgrave, and a friend of De Monts, the Baron de Poutrincourt, set forth in three ships, accompanied by some six score of artisans, both Catholics and Protestants, who were respectively served by "a priest and a minister." Touching in the neighborhood of what is now Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia — at Lower Granville, on the northwest shore of Annapolis Basin — Poutrincourt concluded to settle there, and, styling the place Port Royal, returned home for his family. The others proceeded to St. Croix Island (June, 1605), at the head of Passamaquoddy Bay, near the present boimdary between Maine and New Brunswick ; but the following spring, after a winter of rare suffering and death-dealing scurvy, moved to Port Royal, which thus was the first enduring French settlement planted on the main-land of North America. An entertaining and spirited account of life at this lonely outpost has come down to us from the pen of Lescarbot,* a lawyer-poet who was of the gay company whom De Monts and his colleagues had gathered

' Lescarbot, Histoire de la Nouvelle France.

i6i2] NEW FRANCE 13

about them. But an alleged wholesale conversion of natives by the priest of the party, widely heralded at the time, appears to have been a clever pretence to win the favor of the Catholic court. ^

The superior defensiveness of Quebec was early appreciated; nevertheless, the Bay of Fundy, and particularly the isolated eastern peninsula, early called Acadia, was strategically of immense importance to the coast of New France. Hence, Acadia was firmly held against English claims and suffered the usual hard fate of a buffer colony.

England claimed North America by virtue of the discoveries of the two Cabots (1497-1498), France by that of Verrazzano (1524), and the Spanish by Columbus's voyages, quickly followed by internal exploration. The sixteenth century witnessed abortive colonizing efforts north of the Gulf of Mexico by all three nations ; but it was not until the opening of the seventeenth that the contest seriously commenced. Eight years after Henry IV. of France had given to De Monts the country between the fortieth and forty-sixth parallels, Louis XHL, disregarding this grant, conveyed (161 2) the region between Florida and the St. Lawrence to Madame de Guercheville and the Jesuits. Early in the century James I. of England began also to parcel out the continent, his first beneficiaries being (1606) the combined London and Plymouth companies.

* See Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, I., for details and for Lescarbot's memoir on the event.

In 1613, Samuel Argall, "a Virginia sea-captain of piratical tastes," who was later to be governor of that province, without warning swooped down upon the French colonies at Port Royal and on Mount Desert Island — the latter a Jesuit outpost on the firing-line — ^burned the buildings, and expelled the inhabitants.^ Nine years after this outrage (1622), and while the former residents were gradually repeopling the shores of Annapolis Basin, James I . conveyed to Sir William Alexander, Earl of Stirling, the Acadian peninsula which the French held by right of occupation, but which the English king now claimed and rechristened Nova Scotia. In addition to Nova Scotia, Sir William was granted a generous strip three hundred miles wide, up the gulf and river of St. Lawrence. The new owner of Acadia brought over a few Scotch and English, who settled at and refortified old Port Royal, the French habitants having several years previously removed to the site of the present Annapolis Royal, some twelve miles farther up the basin. But it was impossible to make headway against their French neighbors. The latter soon absorbed the fresh arrivals, whose descendants, Gallicized both in name and blood, in the following century took sides against Great Britain.

Although stronger than Sir William's handful of immigrants, the French colony in Acadia was still feeble. Few of the settlers were adept at agricult-

• Tyler, England in America {Am. Nation, IV.), 72, 289.

i6so] NEW FRANCE 15

ure; the native population was small, and the hunting-ground was limited, with consequent restriction of the fur -trade. The original seigneur, Poutrincourt, had lacked sufficient resources, and owing to the fickleness of the Versailles court was able to give slight assistance. His son and successor, Biencourt, became a coureur de bois, and long lived on much the same scale as his aboriginal companions; while his successors, the La Tours and d'Aulnay, rival fur-trade chiefs and corsairs, fought a bloody feud that lasted until the death of the latter in 1650.^ This internecine war, abounding in piratical raids of the most furious character, kept the shores of the Bay of Fundy in a constant and improfitable turmoil throughout nearly half a century; the imfortunate habitants — fishers, trappers, hunters, and roving adventurers, many of them half-breeds, but none of them paying much more attention to their fields than did the Indians — being ranged like feudal retainers in the service of their respective lords. "They belonged to an epoch that is lost in the mists of antiquity. Biencourt, d'Aulnay, the two de la Tours, Saint-Castin, Denys, Subercasse, Marpain, are so many legendary heroes whose names are still re-echoed by forest

'See detailed narrative by Parkman, "The Feudal Chiefs of Acadia," in Atlantic Monthly, LXXI., 25, 201; Mass. Hist. Soc, Collections, 3d series, VII., 90-121; Quebec Hist. Soc, Transactions, III., 236-241; Hazard, Hist. Collections, I., 307- 309, 541-544; Charlevoix, New France (Shea's ed.), III., 124- 138.

and rock from New Hampshire to the inmost recesses of the Bay of Fundy." ^

Sir WilHam Alexander was able to maintain a nominal hold upon the country only by spasmodically coming to terms with whichever fur-trade faction chanced at the moment to be uppermost — a feat of opportunist diplomacy imitated by the French court, whose authority the prevailing chieftain also privately acknowledged. Throughout all the nominal changes in political mastery, this little theatre of discord witnessed the same play of miserable international intrigue, reprehensible to all concerned, which was to end in the ruin of the unhappy Acadians.

Convinced that the rock of Quebec was far better suited than Port Royal for the needs of a stronghold of French power, Champlain induced De Monts to authorize a colony there. The latter thereupon secured for his friend the governorship of New France, and sent him out with Pontgrav^ in two well-equipped ships to found (July, 1608) the capital of the king's western possessions. It was a fortunate site, not only far removed from the meddlesome English, who were now established at Jamestown (1607), ^^^ were freely examining the Atlantic coast with a disposition to regard the French as intruders, but advantageously situated for commanding the Indian traffic of an immense

'Richard, Acadia, I, 28; Tyler, England in America {Am. Nation, IV.), 289. 306-310.

drainage basin, and for despatching exploring expeditions to the interior. The cHff overtowering the Httle settlement on the strand of Quebec was under ordinary conditions practically impregnable, and seemed an ideal situation for a fortress guarding the door of a vast continent.

Various motives contributed to the establishment and maintenance of New France. The king very naturally was moved by a passion for territorial expansion; the church was eager to convert the heathen savages of the New World; the fur-trade, although abounding in great risks, was at times so profitable as to stimulate the cupidity of merchants ; the hope of finding deposits of precious metals was predominant in the minds of speculators ; the army and the navy were ambitious for gallant exploits; and the French people in general were in that eventful period imbued with a generous yearning for adventure in strange lands. Conquest, exploration, missionary zeal, and the fur-trade were, therefore, for a hundred and fifty years the controlling and often warring interests of New France.

Champlain, who loved to roam, in person conducted several exploring parties, chiefly up the Saguenay and the Ottawa, and into the country around Lake Champlain. In 161 5 he was upon the shores of Lake Huron, vainly searching for a westering waterway through the heart of the continent. In 1634 one of his agents, Jean Nicolet, penetrated as far as Wisconsin and made trading compacts with the tribesmen of that distant land.* The year following (December 25, 1635), the adventurous, pious, and tactful governor departed from this Hfe. With its back to the wall, the hamlet of Quebec had under his guidance defied savage enemies, the forbidding climate, the meagre soil, and all the numerous train of obstacles which at first beset European colonization in the North American wilderness. From a political point of view, Champlain had laid deep the foundations of New France ; he had spread the sphere of French influence northward to the barren lands of Labrador and Lake St. John, westward as far as the interlocking streams which in Wisconsin form the principal canoe route to the Mississippi, and southward to the banks of the Mohawk and the Hudson ; while through the active vehicle of intertribal barter Paris -made weapons and utensils had penetrated into the most distant tribes of the continental interior.^

In another important particular, however, Champlain's dreams had not been realized. He earnestly sought to make of New France an agricultural colony ; but we have seen that the enterprise originated with a commercial monopoly which, while

• Butterfield, Discovery of tlie Northwest; Wis. Hist. Collections, XL, 1-25.

' Specifically, Sagard, Hisioire du Canada (ed. of 1866), 193, 194; Marquette, in Jesuit Relations (Thwaites's ed.j, LIX., 127; La Chesnaye (1697), in Margry, Decouvertes et Etablissentents des Franfais, VL, 3. On the whole subject, Parkman, Pioneers of New France, 230; Turner, Indian Trade in Wisconsin {Johns Hopkins University Studies, IX., Nos. 11, 12).

pleasing the court with a pretence of concern for Christianizing the heathen, doubtless had no further desire than to extract from the country its full measure of profit in trading with the natives for furs. Until 1663 the colony on the St. Lawrence maintained a precarious existence under the baneful management of a succession of self-seeking corporations. The winning of a sustenance from the reluctant soil of eastern Canada required greater toil and thrift than mercantile adventurers were willing to bestow; the far-stretching rivers were a continual invitation to explore and exploit the wilderness and its strange inhabitants; the fur trade was the only apparent source of wealth — just as cod - fisheries were accounted the one valuable asset of Newfoundland and of the maritime colonies on the shores of Acadia, where Poutrincourt and his successors and rivals were leading factious but picturesque careers.

The trading and colonizing charter granted to De Monts had been cancelled in 1609. For two years Champlain kept the plantation alive mainly by the aid of merchant adventurers in Rouen ; when they withdrew (161 1) he secured the formation of a new company, composed of merchants in Rouen, Havre, St. Malo, and La Rochelle. This concern finally went to pieces through jealousy, and amid a storm of complaints that certain members were selling arms and ammunition to the savages and thus endangering the Quebec settlement. The Company of Associates was thereupon organized, with Champlain and De Monts as the most prominent members ; but religious and commercial differences arose, and in the midst of the quarrels Champlain for a time stood in danger of losing his command. In 1620 the corporation was dissolved, its successor being what is known as the Company of De Caen. Seven years later Richelieu secured the dissolution of the latter and the substitution of his own monopoly, commonly called the Company of the Hundred Associates. This powerful organization was granted almost sovereign jurisdiction throughout the vast transatlantic claims of the French, extending from Florida to the arctic circle, and from Newfoundland to the "great fresh lake" of Huron.^

Previous monopolies had included Protestants in their membership, and much of the trouble originated from religious dissension, for it was a time when men could not peacefully agree to disagree in such matters. The Hundred Associates,^ however, admitted none but Catholics. Huguenots and foreigners were not permitted to enter New France, and for fifteen years the company was to maintain and equip priests at each settlement or station. While internal harmony was thus secured, the result was most unfortunate; for among the Hugue-

' See analysis and references upon this charter in Cheyney, European Background {Am. Nation, I.), 156-160.

* Actually one hundred and seven. See list in Du Creux, Historia Canadensis, sig. b; the charter and other interesting particulars in Suite, Htsioire des Canadiens-Franfats , II., 27-33.

nots now being harried from France were some of the best material in the nation; and, forbidden to enter Canada, these vigorous people were soon employed in developing rival English colonies to the south.

From the first, the court, largely influenced by the church, was much concerned with the conversion of the Indians. The Calvinist De Monts had been allowed to take out Huguenot ministers for those of his companions who wished them; but missions to the natives must be conducted solely by Catholic clergy. Jesuits had been ordered to New France by King Henry IV. as early as 16 10; but their experiences were not happy, for at Port Royal Poutrincourt's son opposed them, and we have seen that at Mount Desert English sea - rovers from Virginia demolished their settlement (16 13). In 161 5 Champlain introduced to Quebec four members of the fraternity of Recollects, the most austere of the three Franciscan orders. For ten years these gray friars practised the rites of the church in the Canadian woods, all the way from the fishing and trading-post of Tadoussac, at the mouth of the Saguenay, to the western lake of the Nipissings, on the road to Lake Huron. But when Richelieu began to assume control, the argument was advanced that ministrations of a sterner order were needed for this work. The Recollects were therefore induced to invite the aid of the powerful Jesuits, who just then were conducting suecessful missions in Asia, Africa, and South America. In 1625 three of the "black gowns" appeared at Quebec, and immediately the field of operations broadened, although it was soon seen that the successful promulgation of the peaceful doctrines of Christianity was to be no holiday task among the warlike tribes of the great Algonquian family/