Part 10 (1/2)

Alexandre le Borgne de Belleisle was living on the River St. John as late at least as 1754 and was regarded by the Nova Scotia authorities as ”a very good man.” The site of his residence is indicated on Charles Morris' map of 1765 and there can be little doubt that a settlement of four houses in the same vicinity, marked ”Rob.i.+.c.heau” in the Morris map of 1758, was the place of residence of Frances Belleisle Rob.i.+.c.haux.

The name Nid d'Aigle, or ”The Eagle's Nest,” is applied to this locality in Bellin's map of 1744, D'Anville's map of 1755 marks at the same place ”Etabliss't Francois,” or French Settlement. The place is nearly opposite Evandale, the site of the well known summer hotel of John O. Vanwart. Here the St. John river is quite narrow, only about a five minutes paddle across. The British government during the war of 1812 built at Nid d'Aigle, or ”Worden's,” a fortification consisting of an earthwork, or ”half-moon battery,” with magazine in rear and a block-house at the crest of the hill still farther to the rear, the ruins of which are frequently visited by tourists. The situation commands an extensive and beautiful view of the river, both up and down, and no better post of defence could be chosen, since the narrowness of the channel would render it well nigh impossible for an enemy to creep past either by day or night without detection. There is some reason to believe that the French commander, Boishebert, established a fortified post of observation here in 1756.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD FORT AT WORDEN'S]

It is altogether probable that the name ”Nid d'Aigle” was given to the place by the sieur de Belleisle or some member of his family, and one could wish that it might be restored either in its original form, or in its Saxon equivalent, ”The Eagle's Nest.”

Colonel Monckton, by direction of Governor Lawrence, ravaged the French Settlements on the lower St. John in 1758, and in the report of his operations mentions ”a few Houses that were some time past inhabited by the Rob.i.+.c.heaus,” which he burnt. It is possible that Francoise Belleisle Rob.i.+.c.haux went with her family to l'Islet in Quebec to escape the threatened invasion of which they may have had timely notice, but it is more probable the removal occurred a little earlier. The situation of the Acadians on the River St. John in 1757 was pitiable in the extreme. They were cut off from every source of supply and lived in fear of their lives. The Marquis de Vaudreuil says that in consequence of the famine prevailing on the river, many Acadian families were forced to fly to Quebec and so dest.i.tute were the wretched ones in some instances that children died at their mother's breast. The parish records of l'Islet[23] show that Pierre Rob.i.+.c.haux and his wife lived there in 1759.

[23] A child of Pierre Rob.i.+.c.haud and Francoise Belleisle his wife was interred at l'Islet, December 10, 1759.

Francoise Belleisle Rob.i.+.c.haux died at l'Islet January 28, 1791, at the age of 79 years, having outlived her husband six years. They had a number of children, one of whom, Marie Angelique, married Jean Baptiste d'Amour, de Chaufour, and had a daughter, Marguerite d'Amour, whose name seems very familiar to us.

The parish records at l'Islet give considerable information concerning the descendants of the families d'Amours, Rob.i.+.c.haux and Belleisle, but the s.p.a.ce at our disposal will allow us to follow them no further.

CHAPTER X.

RIVAL CLAIMS TO THE ST. JOHN RIVER.

The St. John river region may be said to have been in dispute from the moment the treaty of Utrecht was signed in 1713 until the taking of Quebec in 1759. By the treaty of Utrecht all Nova Scotia, or Acadia, comprehended within its ancient boundaries, was ceded to Great Britain, and the English at once claimed possession of the territory bordering on the St. John. To this the French offered strong objection, claiming that Nova Scotia, or Acadia, comprised merely the peninsula south of the Bay of Fundy--a claim which, as already stated in these pages, was strangely at variance with their former contention that the western boundary of Acadia was the River Kennebec.[24] For many years the dispute was confined to remonstrances on the side of either party, the French meanwhile using their savage allies to repel the advance of any English adventurers who might feel disposed to make settlements on the St. John, and encouraging the Acadians to settle there, while the English authorities endeavored, with but indifferent success, to gain the friends.h.i.+p of the Indians and compel the Acadians to take the oath of allegiance to the British crown. The dispute over the limits of Acadia at times waxed warm. There were protests and counter-protests. Letters frequently pa.s.sed between the English government at Annapolis and the missionaries on the St. John--Loyard, Danielou, and Germain, who were in close touch with the civil authorities of their nation, and were in some measure the political agents of the Marquise de Vaudreuil and other French governors of Canada.

[24] In a letter to the French minister, written in 1698, Villebon observes ”J'ai recu par mons'r de Bonaventure qui est arrive ici le 20 Juillet la lettre de votre Grandeur et le traite de Paix fait avec l'Angleterre [the treaty of Ryswick]. * * Comme vous me marquez, Monseigneur, que les bornes de l'Acadie sont a la Riviere de Quenebequi.” [Kennebec]. etc.

It is possible that the Marquis de Vaudreuil felt special interest in the St. John river country, owing to the fact that his wife Louise Elizabeth Joibert, was born at Fort Jemseg while her father, the Sieur de Soulanges, was governor of Acadia. At any rate the marquis stoutly a.s.serted the right of the French to the sovereignty of that region and he wrote to the Lieut. Governor of Nova Scotia in 1718, ”I pray you not to permit your English vessels to go into the river St. John, which is always of the French dominion.” He also encouraged the Acadians of the peninsula to withdraw to the river St. John so as not to be under British domination, pledging them his support and stating that Father Loyard, the Jesuit missionary, should have authority to grant them lands agreeably to their wishes.

Lieut. Governor Doucett, of Nova Scotia, complained of the aggressive policy of the Marquis de Vaudreuil, a.s.serting that he was entirely mistaken as to the owners.h.i.+p of the St. John river, for it was ”about the centre of Nova Scotia;” he was satisfied, nevertheless, that the Acadians believed it would never be taken possession of by the British, and if the proceedings of the French were not stopped they would presently claim everything within cannon short of his fort at Annapolis.

The policy of the French in employing their Indian allies to deter the English from any advance towards the St. John region was attended with such success that the infant colony of Nova Scotia was kept in a constant state of alarm by the threats and unfriendly att.i.tude of the Micmacs and Maliseets. There were, however, occasional periods in which there were no actual hostilities, and it may be said that the peace made at Boston in 1725, and ratified by the St. John river tribe in May, 1728, was fairly observed by the Indians until war was declared between England and France in 1744.

During this war the St. John river was much used as a means of communication between Quebec and the French settlements of Acadia, smart young Indians with light birch canoes being employed to carry express messages, and on various occasions large parties of French and Indians travelled by this route from the St. Lawrence to the Bay of Fundy. The Indian villages of Medoctec and Aukpaque afforded convenient stopping places.

In the year 1746 a great war party, including the Abenakis of Quebec as well as their kinsmen of the upper St. John, arrived at Aukpaque.

Thence they took their way in company with the missionary Germain to Chignecto. They had choice of two routes of travel, one by way of the Kennebecasis and Anagance to the Pet.i.tcodiac, the other by way of the Washademoak lake and the Canaan to the same river. As the war proceeded the Maliseets actively supported their old allies the French. Some of them took part in the midwinter night attack, under Coulon de Villiers, on Colonel n.o.ble's post at Grand Pre. The English on this occasion were taken utterly by surprise; n.o.ble himself fell fighting in his s.h.i.+rt, and his entire party were killed, wounded or made prisoners. From the military point of view this was one of the most brilliant exploits in the annals of Acadia, and, what is better, the victors behaved with great humanity to the vanquished.

The missionaries le Loutre and Germain were naturally very desirous of seeing French supremacy restored in Acadia and the latter proposed an expedition against Annapolis. With that end in view he proceeded to Quebec and returned with a supply of powder, lead and ball for his Maliseet warriors. However, in October, 1748, the peace of Aix la Chapelle put a stop to open hostilities.

Immediately after the declaration of peace, Captain Gorham, with his rangers and a detachment of auxiliaries, proceeded in two s.h.i.+ps to the River St. John and ordered the French inhabitants to send deputies to Annapolis to give an account of their conduct during the war.

Count de la Galissonniere strongly protested against Gorham's interference with the Acadians on the St. John, which he described as ”a river situated on the Continent of Canada, and much on this side of the Kennebec, where by common consent the bounds of New England have been placed.” This utterance of the French governor marks another stage in the controversy concerning the limits of Acadia. He stoutly contended that Gorham and all other British officers must be forbidden to interfere with the French on the St. John river, or to engage them to make submissions contrary to the allegiance due to the King of France ”who,” he says, ”is their master as well as mine, and has not ceded this territory by any treaty.”

The governors of Ma.s.sachusetts and of Nova Scotia replied at some length to the communication of Count de la Galissonniere, claiming the territory in dispute for the king of Great Britain, and showing that the French living on the St. John had some years before taken the oath of allegiance to the English monarch.

The Acadians on the St. John, whose allegiance was in dispute, were a mere handful of settlers. The Abbe le Loutre wrote in 1748: ”There are fifteen or twenty French families on this river, the rest of the inhabitants are savages called Marichites (Maliseets) who have for their missionary the Jesuit father Germain.” His statement as to the number of Acadian settlers is corroborated by Mascarene, who notified the British authorities that thirty leagues up the river were seated twenty families of French inhabitants, sprung originally from the Nova Scotia side of the bay, most of them since his memory, who, many years ago, came to Annapolis and took the oath of fidelity. He adds, ”the whole river up to its head, with all the northern coast of the Bay of Fundy, was always reckoned dependent on this government.”

Both Mascarene and s.h.i.+rley strongly urged upon the British ministry the necessity of settling the limits of Acadia, and a little later commissioners were appointed, two on each side, to determine the matter. They spent four fruitless years over the question, and it remained undecided until settled by the arbitrament of the sword.

s.h.i.+rley was one of the commissioners, as was also the Marquis de la Galissonniere, and it is not to be wondered at that with two such determined men on opposite sides and differing so widely in their views, there should have been no solution of the difficulty.

The period now under consideration is really a very extraordinary one.