Champlain's Dream

by David Hackett Fischer

  Four Frenchmen joined the Kirkes, and their conduct was very different. Le Baillif, a former clerk of the Company de Caëns who had been dismissed for bad conduct, turned his coat and joined the British. Champlain wrote that he was “without either faith or morals, though he calls himself a Catholic…. We had every kind of courtesy from the English, but from this wretch only injury.”67 Another turncoat was Pierre Raye, a wagon maker of Paris and “one of the most perfidious traitors and scoundrels of the lot.” And two interpreters, Étienne Brûlé and Nicolas Marsolet, also went to work for the British, much to Champlain’s fury.68

  The next day Louis Kirke ordered his drummers to beat assembly for his men. He went to the fort and hoisted the flag of England. The scarlet cross of St. George on its white field caught the wind on the river and flew above the ramparts of Quebec. The English fired salutes from the ships in the river and from the ramparts about the town.69

  Some of the French habitants did not want to leave Quebec. The Héberts and the Couillards, who had land, wished to stay in America, even under English rule. Champlain wrote: “Louis Kirke was courteous, and, although the son of a Scot who had married in Dieppe, he was French in disposition and always had a liking for the French nation. He wished as much as possible to help the French families and others from France to remain, liking their conversation and finding their manners “more agreeable than those of the English, to whom his nature seemed averse.”70

  Kirke promised the French habitants that they could keep their land and houses and remain in them, and would be “as free to do so as they had been under the French.” He promised that they could trade with the Indians, and if they were not happy they could return to France.71 “They asked my advice,” Champlain wrote. He told them that he hoped that the French would resume possession “through the grace of God,” and advised them to stay for a year. They responded that they would do as he suggested. With that decision a strong French presence continued in Quebec, even as the English took control.72

  Champlain was treated with courtesy by Louis Kirke, and he was allowed to live undisturbed in his quarters at the fort. But it was an agony for him to watch the English conquest of Canada.73 Finally he could bear it no longer, and he asked Louis Kirke: “Let me go down to [Tadoussac], and await there the departure of the vessels, passing my time with the General [David Kirke] who was there.” It was agreed. Champlain’s personal belongings were put aboard the English flyboat.74

  In Tadoussac, Champlain found that the Kirkes were present in great strength, far beyond the resources that the French had been able to muster in America. In addition to the three small vessels that had come up the river to Quebec, the Kirkes had five large ships of 300 or 400 tons, “very well equipped with cannon, powder, balls and devices for throwing fire,” and about six hundred men.75

  Thomas Kirke turned him over to David Kirke, who gave the French commander “a very kind reception.” They reviewed the surrender that had been negotiated in Quebec. There was trouble on only one point. To Champlain’s surprise he was again refused permission to take his Indian wards to France. One of them, Faith, had chosen to stay with her people in America and that had been arranged. The other two, Hope and Charity, wanted very much to visit France. But Nicolas Marsolet tried to stop them. He wanted to have the girls for himself and told David Kirke that the Montagnais people did not wish them to leave for France. Champlain and the girls themselves called Marsolet a liar.

  It came to a head when the Kirkes invited the British captains, Champlain, Marsolet, and the girls all to dine at the same table. The girls were so unhappy that they refused to eat or drink. Hope attacked Marsolet, calling him a traitor, and accused him of trying to seduce her. She turned toward him and said, “If you come near me again, I shall plunge a knife into your breast, though I should die for it a moment after.” Charity joined in and said to Marsolet, “If I had your heart in my hands, I should eat it more readily and with greater spirit than I should eat any of the meats on that table.”

  David Kirke did not know whom to believe, and was afraid of displeasing the Montagnais. He ordered the Indian girls to remain in America, despite their tears and pleading. They attacked Marsolet with the “courage of Amazons” and said that they would follow Champlain to France if they had to do it in a canoe. But David Kirke was adamant, and the girls were forbidden to go.76

  In other respects Champlain was treated very well. He was careful never to aid his British captors in any way, or to recognize the legitimacy of their conquest. But in personal terms he and David Kirke got along. In one amazing scene, the captive and captor went hunting together. “We passed the time with the General hunting,” Champlain wrote, “game in that season being abundant and consisting principally of larks, plovers, curlews and sandpipers, of which more than twenty thousand were killed.” hey were shooting for the pot, to feed the many French captives and British seamen for whom they were responsible. But these two gentlemen of the old regime were also shooting for pleasure.77 After the hunt, they went fishing together with the Indians, “for salmon and trout which they brought us in very good quantity, and for smelts, which were caught in nets, and other fish, all very excellent.”78

  In the course of their conversations, Champlain told the “general” of some news from France. “I informed him that Émery de Caën had assured me positively that peace had been made, having learned it from persons worthy of credit as he was leaving La Rochelle.” If true, the Kirkes’ conquest of Quebec was unlawful. David Kirke was contemptuous of this report. “Has he the articles?” he insisted.

  “No,” Champlain replied.

  “Then,” said Kirke, “it is only an idle rumor.”79 But Champlain had put David Kirke on notice. If these persistent reports of peace were true, the conquest of New France was an illegal act. It could not stand, and Champlain was determined to undo it.

  20.

  NEW FRANCE REGAINED

  Champlain’s Greatest Test, 1629–32

  From the time the English took possession of Quebec, the days seemed like months to me.

  —Samuel de Champlain, Voyages, 16321

  IN THE FALL OF 1629 the Kirkes prepared to sail home to Britain. David Kirke ordered his ships to be careened. In the tight little harbor at Tadoussac, their bottoms were cleaned, tarred, and tallowed. With some prodding from Champlain, he sent more supplies to Quebec, sufficient to see the habitants through a long winter. The river barque also carried Champlain’s two Indian girls, Hope and Charity, back to their Montagnais people. Champlain’s brother-in-law, Eustache Boullé, gave them rosaries. Champlain told them that the French would be back, and made arrangements for them to be taken into the Hébert household, if they wished. On September 14, 1629, Champlain watched as Guillaume Couillard and the girls sailed up the river to Quebec. It was a moment of sad parting.2

  On the same day, the Kirkes weighed anchor at Tadoussac and sailed down the St. Lawrence River, homeward bound for England. Champlain noticed that they were in a state of “considerable apprehension.” Indians had reported a French fleet of “ten well-armed vessels” on the coast near Gaspé. David Kirke insisted that he was “not afraid of them in the least,” but Champlain observed that he steered very close to the coast of Anticosti Island, fourteen leagues north of Gaspé, “so as not to be noticed,” and so he got safely to sea.3 They were leaving much later in the season than Champlain’s normal practice. Just off the American coast they ran into autumn storms. Champlain wrote, “We were kept back by very bad weather accompanied with fogs till we reached the Grand Banks.” Sickness spread through the crowded British ships. “On the way across,” he noted, “eleven of Kirke’s men died of dysentery.”4

  On October 16, 1629, the Kirkes crossed soundings on the coast of England, and ran into the west-country port of Plymouth. Champlain immediately asked for news and was told that the war was over. More than that, England and France had signed a peace treaty six months earlier, in the town of Suze (Susa to the English). By its terms, all conq
uests or seizures made after the peace had to be returned. The effective date of the treaty was April 24, 1629, nearly three months before the fall of Quebec in July.

  Champlain was delighted. David Kirke was in a fury, “greatly angered by the news.” He had seized twenty-one fishing vessels, some of them after several people had told him the war was over, thereby making him liable for damages. He was still holding French leaders and priests for ransom. Kirke’s actions had been outside the law, and even against it.5

  David Kirke promptly left Plymouth for Dover, the English port closest to France. He released his captives and made arrangements to send them home as quickly as possible. It was not an act of kindness. Kirke wanted to get these troublesome Frenchmen out of the country before proceedings could be brought against him in an English court. Most of them seemed happy to go home, with one exception. Champlain refused to leave England until he could determine the status of New France. He was humiliated by its loss and outraged by the way it had happened. Under the terms of the Treaty of Susa, which had the force of law in both countries, Quebec rightfully belonged to France, and England was required to return it. But Champlain knew that it was one thing to have a title, and another to gain possession.6

  Others in his position would have sailed home to France and put the problem in the laps of Cardinal Richelieu and the king, but that was not Champlain’s way. Having lost Quebec, he felt a personal responsibility to get it back again. Acting on his own initiative, he went to work in Dover, documenting what had happened. First he compiled a record of the Kirkes’ acts. He probably consulted with his fellow prisoners and collected testimony before they left England. Then he dispatched letters and documents in several directions. One set went to France, addressed to M. de Lauson, Superintendent of Affairs in New France under the Company of the Hundred Associates. Champlain enclosed “an account of all that had taken place” and asked that copies be forwarded to Cardinal Richelieu and the king, with an appeal that Louis XIII might send letters to the French ambassador in London, “recommending this matter to his special attention.”7

  Then, while his fellow travelers were en route from Dover to France, Champlain headed in the opposite direction. He made his way to London by sea, sailing from Dover to the River Thames, then to Gravesend and the London docks, where he arrived on October 29. The next day he went to see the French ambassador, the marquis de Châteauneuf, a splendid character who embodied the virtues of the Old Regime. Even the English highly respected him. The marquis received Champlain with grace and exquisite courtesy. Champlain told him the whole story and gave him another set of his documents. Later he recalled: “I related all the reasons for our voyage, and how we had been seized two [actually three] months after the peace, namely on the 20th of July, through lack of provisions, munitions of war, and assistance. After having endured many privations for a year and a half, we had to go into the woods to dig roots to sustain life; although I kept only sixteen persons at the fort and habitation, the greater part of my companions having been sent to live with the Indians, so as to avoid severe famine.”8

  Champlain spoke not only of Quebec but also of Acadia and other parts of New France that English freebooters had occupied while the Kirkes were in the St. Lawrence. Champlain had put his cartographic skill to work and he presented a detailed map of the entire area, mainly “to show to the English the discoveries that we had made and the possession we had taken in that country of New France before the English, who had only followed in our tracks.” His map showed the full extent of British seizures at Quebec, Cap Tourmente, Tadoussac, Gaspé, Cape Breton, Miscou, Acadia, and the small French trading post at Pentagoet, now the town of Castine in Maine.9 Champlain also documented the damage that had been done to French trade and fisheries, and gave the ambassador copies of the surrender of Quebec. He made very clear that these events had happened after the end of the war, and even after reports of the peace had reached America.10

  Champlain added a complaint about another issue that offended him in a personal way. The English had attempted to abolish the place names that the French had given to the American land. With great indignation, he wrote that the English had “within two or three years, imposed on parts of La Nouvelle France such names as New England and New Scotland.” This insult infuriated Champlain more than any material injury that les Anglais and les Ecossais had done him. “They took this notion into their heads very late in the day,” he wrote. “They ought to act reasonably and not change names already given.” It was a point of honor among cartographers.11

  The French ambassador listened to Champlain with close attention and acted quickly. “Having heard my story,” Champlain wrote, “the ambassador resolved to speak of it with the king [of England].” He obtained an audience and presented some of Champlain’s original documents. One of them has been found in British archives. King Charles I received the ambassador with respect and even with sympathy. To Champlain’s surprise he accepted full responsibility for what had happened in New France, and agreed that the colony rightfully belonged to Louis XIII. According to the marquis de Châteauneuf, the English king “gave all good hope that the place would be restored to us, together with all the furs and merchandise that he had ordered to be taken from us.” Champlain had high praise for the ambassador and wrote that “he applied himself to the business in a very praiseworthy manner, hoping to get the Council to issue an order for the restitution of the colony and the property seized there.”12

  Champlain expected that the matter would be settled quickly and waited in London for instructions from his superiors in France. But nothing happened. Weeks passed without a word from Louis XIII, or Richelieu, or any French minister in Paris. Champlain was baffled, mainly because he appears not to have known about another major problem that stood in the way of a solution. Charles I had a major grievance of his own against France. When he married Louis XIII’s sister Henrietta Maria, he had been promised a dowry of 2,400,000 livres. Six years later, only half of it had been paid, and Charles desperately needed the money. Unknown to Champlain, he had promised secretly to return New France on one condition—full payment of the dowry.13

  In Paris the king and his ministers were slow to respond for one simple reason. They did not have the money. More weeks went by. Champlain remained in London at the ambassador’s request, with growing irritation. He wrote, “I was nearly five weeks in close touch with the ambassador, awaiting news from France all the time, marking how little diligence they showed in sending anyone over, or in advising me of what they wanted to be done.”14

  The month of November neared its end, and the English weather was growing cold and gray. The days dragged on and Champlain grew weary of waiting in London with no word from his own government. Finally, in the last week of the month, he decided to head for France and seek out the king and Richelieu. Champlain was an old hand at court politics. Before he left London he was careful to ask the marquis de Châteauneuf for permission to depart. “I asked the ambassador whether he any longer wanted my services, because I wanted to return to France,” Champlain noted. “He granted me permission, gave me a letter to my Lord the Cardinal and assured me that the King of England and his council had promised to restore the place [New France].15

  Champlain tells us that he left London for France on November 30, 1629. It was a difficult trip, with ill winds in the English Channel and misadventures on the road.16 Champlain made his way to his home in Paris, almost as a stranger. He had been gone for more than three years and he was returning in deep adversity. The fall of Quebec was the worst defeat of his career. He was out of a job and short of money. Just when it seemed that nothing more could go wrong, he suffered another heavy blow. His marriage came apart. Hélène Boullé, his beautiful young wife, told her husband that she no longer wished to live with him. Divorce was out of the question in Catholic France. She requested her husband’s permission to enter a convent. He appears to have asked her to stay with him. From what little we know they may have agreed to live sep
arately in the same house. It must have been an agony for both of them. Hélène never traveled with Champlain again, and she did not return to Canada. In Quebec she was sorely missed by Indians and Europeans alike, but New France was not for her. She turned away from her husband and retreated into a life of religious devotion for the rest of her years.

  We shall never know the full story of this marriage, beyond the fact of its troubled start, happier middle years, and final failure. These two extraordinary people were both attractive to others who knew them, yet they were unable to find happiness with one another. This was perhaps one more part of what Champlain meant when he wrote in 1632, “From the time the English took possession of Quebec, the days seemed like months to me.”17

  Somehow Champlain found the resources to go on. His Christian faith was a source of strength to him. So also was his grand design. Even in his suffering, Champlain resolved to keep striving for his dream.18 In Paris he took up the cause of New France once more, and moved straight to the heart of the problem. “I went to pay my respects to his Majesty, my Lord Cardinal, and Messieurs the Associates,” he wrote. The loss of Quebec was not held against him, and he was able to get access to the king. As he had done so often in the past, he began to build a new base for his project. In the winter of 1629–30, he cultivated yet another circle of friends, and soon found supporters who were close to Louis XIII. They were younger men, a generation removed from the American circle who had helped him before but now were gone from the scene. Like the older group, they had powerful friends at court. One of them was André Daniel, a physician highly connected in Paris, with an active interest in New France. He was a major investor and a leader of the Hundred Associates, with many personal ties to America. His brother Captain Charles Daniel had made many voyages to the new world, and Father Antoine Daniel was a Jesuit missionary who would later be martyred in New France.19