France and England in North America, Part V: Count Frontenac, New France, Louis XIVParkman, Francis
History
France and England in North America, Part V: Count Frontenac, New France, Louis XIV
Parkman, Francis
Canada -- History -- To 1763 (New France); Frontenac, Louis de Buade, comte de, 1620-1698
On the capture of Fort Loyal, compare Monseignat and La Potherie with
Mather, Magnalia, II. 603, and the Declaration of Sylvanus Davis, in 3
Mass. Hist. Coll., I. 101. Davis makes curious mistakes in regard to
French names, his rustic ear not being accustomed to the accents of the
Gallic tongue. He calls Courtemanche, Monsieur Corte de March, and
Portneuf, Monsieur Burniffe or Burneffe. To these contemporary
authorities may be added the account given by Le Clercq, Établissement
de la Foy, II. 393, and a letter from Governor Bradstreet of
Massachusetts to Jacob Leisler in Doc. Hist. N. Y., II. 259. The French
writers of course say nothing of any violation of faith on the part of
the victors, but they admit that the Indians kept most of the prisoners.
Scarcely was the fort taken, when four English vessels appeared in the
harbor, too late to save it. Willis, in his History of Portland (ed.
1865), gives a map of Fort Loyal and the neighboring country. In the
Massachusetts archives is a letter from Davis, written a few days before
the attack, complaining that his fort is in wretched condition.
Davis with three or four others, more fortunate than their companions,
was kept by the French, and carried to Canada. "They were kind to me,"
he says, "on my travels through the country. I arrived at Quebeck the
14th of June, where I was civilly treated by the gentry, and soon
carried to the fort before the governour, the Earl of Frontenack."
Frontenac told him that the governor and people of New York were the
cause of the war, since they had stirred up the Iroquois against Canada,
and prompted them to torture French prisoners. [19] Davis replied that
New York and New England were distinct and separate governments, each of
which must answer for its own deeds; and that New England would gladly
have remained at peace with the French, if they had not set on the
Indians to attack her peaceful settlers. Frontenac admitted that the
people of New England were not to be regarded in the same light with
those who had stirred up the Indians against Canada; but he added that
they were all rebels to their king, and that if they had been good
subjects there would have been no war. "I do believe," observes the
captive Puritan, "that there was a popish design against the Protestant
interest in New England as in other parts of the world." He told
Frontenac of the pledge given by his conqueror, and the violation of it.
"We were promised good quarter," he reports himself to have said, "and a
guard to conduct us to our English; but now we are made captives and
slaves in the hands of the heathen. I thought I had to do with
Christians that would have been careful of their engagements, and not to
violate and break their oaths. Whereupon the governour shaked his head,
and, as I was told, was very angry with Burniffe (Portneuf)."
[19] I am unable to discover the foundation of this last charge.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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