Читать книгу The rise of Canada, from barbarism to wealth and civilisation онлайн

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It was in 1689 that the Count de Frontenac returned to Canada a second time, as Viceroy, to succeed the incompetent Denonville. He took out the captured chiefs, and attempted to conciliate the Iroquois. But the Indians had been too frequently deceived by his immediate predecessors. They would have nothing to do with him, unless he restored, without stipulation, their captured chiefs. De Frontenac complied. He complied the more readily because he feared an alliance between the Ottawas and the Iroquois. The Ottawas were quite indifferent to French friendship, because the gain, in their estimation, was altogether in favor of the French, whose protectors the Ottawas considered themselves to be. So far from provocation being now given to the Indians, a policy extremely opposite was pursued. The English and Dutch of the New England settlements coveted the Indian trade in furs, and the Indians were more favorably disposed towards the English and Dutch traders than towards the French, because from the former a larger consideration was received. It was De Frontenac's policy to prevent such a union, which would, as he conceived, have injured the trade of the St. Lawrence, and have injured the revenue of the Fur Company. De Frontenac induced the Ottawas to assist him against the English of New England, whom he had resolved to attack, France and England being then at war. He fitted out three expeditions, one against New York, a second against New Hampshire, and a third against the Province of Maine. The party against New York fell upon Schenectady, in February, 1690. The weather was exceedingly cold, and the ground deeply covered with snow. It was never even suspected, that, at such a season, a campaign would be begun. Yet, at the dead of night, while the inhabitants of Schenectady were asleep, and not a sentinel was awake to announce the danger, the war-whoop was raised, every house in the village was simultaneously attacked, buildings were broken into and set on fire, men and women were dragged from their beds, and even mothers, with their sleeping infants at their breasts, were inhumanly murdered. Sixty persons were massacred; thirty were made prisoners, and such as escaped, almost naked, fled through the deep snow, many perishing with the extreme cold, and the most fortunate being terribly frost bitten. At Salmon Falls, the party sent by Frontenac against New Hampshire, killed thirty of the inhabitants, took fifty-four prisoners, and burned the village. At Casco, in Maine, the third party killed and captured one hundred persons. Such was the business of colonists in those days. In Canada the majority had no voice in popular affairs. Governors, Intendants, Seigniors, and Priests, controlled the colonists as they willed. However much the Governor may have despised the Intendant, the Intendant the Seignior, or the Priest all put together, the merchant, artisan, and peasant were of no account. Wealth without title was only a bait for extortion. The peasantry were serfs, and the nobles uneducated despots. Education was in the hands of the clergy, while power was solely vested in the Heads of Military Departments. But if ignorance was particularly characteristic of the Canadians, the New Englanders could lay little claim to superior enlightenment. Harvard's College, in Massachusetts, had apparently done no more for the New Englanders, in 1692, than the Seminary of Quebec, in the way of diffusing a knowledge of letters among the people, from which the desire for freedom invariably springs, had done for Canada. The people of Salem, Andover, Ipswich, Gloucester, and even Boston, were accusing each other of witchcraft. A "contagious" malady, which affected children of ten, twelve or fifteen years of age, it was, oddly enough, said by the learned physicians of the period, was the result of witchcraft. A respectable merchant of Salem, and his wife, were accused of bewitching children; the sons of Governor Bradstreet were implicated in the divinations; and the wife of Sir William Phipps was not above suspicion. One man, for refusing to put himself on trial by jury, was pressed to death. Nor was Giles Correy the only sufferer:—nineteen persons, "members of the Church", were executed, and one hundred and fifty persons were put in prison. It was sometime before the conviction began to spread, that even men of sense, education, and fervent piety could entertain the madness and infatuation of the weak, illiterate, and unprincipled. A disbeliever in witchcraft was an 'obdurate sadducee.' That conviction did at last possess men. The disease which affected the supposed bewitched children somewhat resembled St. Vitus' Dance. It was an involuntary motion of the muscles. The affected were sometimes deaf, sometimes dumb, sometimes blind. Oftentimes, they were at once deaf, dumb, and blind. Their tongues were drawn down their throats, and then pulled out upon their chins to a prodigious length. Their mouths were forced open to such a wideness, that their jaws went out of joint, only to clap again together, with a force like that of a spring lock. Shoulder-blades, elbows, wrists, and knees were similarly affected. Sometimes the sufferer was benumbed, or drawn violently together, and immediately afterwards stretched out and drawn back.