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We must now leave the lonely Canadian colonists on the snow-clad heights of Quebec to mourn the death of their great leader, and return to the shores of Acadia to follow the fortunes of Biencourt and his companions whom we last saw near the smoking ruins of their homes on the banks of the Annapolis. We have now come to a strange chapter of Canadian history, which has its picturesque aspect as well as its episodes of meanness, cupidity, and inhumanity. As we look back to those early years of Acadian history, we see rival chiefs with their bands of retainers engaged in deadly feuds, and storming each other's fortified posts as though they were the castles of barons living in mediaeval times. We see savage Micmacs and Etchemins of Acadia, only too willing to aid in the quarrels and contests of the white men who hate each with a malignity that even the Indian cannot excel; closely shorn, ill-clad mendicant friars who see only good in those who help their missions; grave and cautious Puritans trying to find their advantage in the rivalry of their French neighbours; a Scotch nobleman and courtier who would be a king in Acadia as well as a poet in England; Frenchmen who claim to have noble blood in their veins, and wish to be lords of a wide American domain; a courageous wife who lays aside the gentleness of a woman's nature and fights as bravely as any knight for the protection of her home and what she believes to be her husband's rights. These are among the figures that we see passing through the shadowy vista which opens before us as we look into the depths of the Acadian wilderness two centuries and a half ago.

Among the French adventurers, whose names are intimately associated with the early history of Acadia, no one occupies a more prominent position than Charles de St. Etienne, the son of a Huguenot, Claude de la Tour, who claimed to be of noble birth. The La Tours had become so poor that they were forced, like so many other nobles of those times, to seek their fortune in the new world. Claude and his son, then probably fourteen years of age, came to Port Royal with Poutrincourt in 1610. In the various vicissitudes of the little settlement the father and his son participated, and after it had been destroyed by Argall, they remained with Biencourt and his companions. In the course of time, the elder La Tour established a trading post on the peninsula at the mouth of the Penobscot—in Acadian history a prominent place, as often in possession of the English as the French.

Biencourt and his companions appear to have had some accessions to their number during the years that followed the Virginian's visit. They built rude cabins on the banks of the Annapolis, and cultivated patches of ground after a fashion, beside raising a fort of logs and earth near Cape Sable, called indifferently Fort Louis or Lomeron. It has been generally believed that Biencourt died in Acadia about 1623, after making over all his rights to Charles La Tour, who was his personal friend and follower from his boyhood. Recently, however, the discovery of some old documents in Paris throws some doubt on the generally accepted statement of the place of his death.[1]

It is quite certain, however, whether Biencourt died in France or Acadia, young La Tour assumed after 1623 the control of Fort St. Louis and all other property previously held by the former. In 1626 the elder La Tour was driven from the Penobscot by English traders from Plymouth who took possession of the fort and held it for some years. He now recognised the urgent necessity of having his position in Acadia ratified and strengthened by the French king, and consequently went on a mission to France in 1627.

About this time the attention of prominent men in England was called to the fact that the French had settlements in Acadia. Sir William Alexander, afterwards the Earl of Stirling, a favourite of King James the Fourth of Scotland and First of England, and an author of several poetical tragedies, wished to follow the example of Sir Frederick Gorges, one of the promoters of the colonisation of New England. He had no difficulty in obtaining from James, as great a pedant as himself, a grant of Acadia, which he named Nova Scotia. When Charles the First became king, he renewed the patent, and also, at the persuasion of the ambitious poet, created an order of Nova Scotia baronets, who were obliged to assist in the settlement of the country, which was thereafter to be divided into "baronies." Sir William Alexander, however, did not succeed in making any settlement in Nova Scotia, and did not take any definite measures to drive the French from his princely, though savage, domain until about the time Claude de la Tour was engaged in advocating the claims of his son in Europe, where we must follow him.

The elder La Tour arrived at an opportune time in France. Cardinal Richelieu had just formed the Company of the Hundred Associates, and it was agreed that aid should at once be sent to Charles de la Tour, who was to be the King's lieutenant in Acadia. Men and supplies for the Acadian settlement were on board the squadron, commanded by Roquemont, who was captured by Kirk in the summer of 1628. On board one of the prizes was Claude de la Tour, who was carried to London as prisoner. Then to make the position for Charles de la Tour still more hazardous, Sir William Alexander's son arrived at Port Royal in the same year, and established on the Granville side a small Scotch colony as the commencement of a larger settlement in the future. Charles de la Tour does not appear to have remained in Port Royal, but to have retired to the protection of his own fort at Cape Sable, which the English did not attempt to attack at that time.

In the meantime the elder La Tour was in high favour at London. He won the affections of one of the Queen's maids of honour, and was easily persuaded by Alexander and others interested in American colonisation, to pledge his allegiance to the English king. He and his son were made baronets of Nova Scotia, and received large grants of land or "baronies" in the new province. As Alexander was sending an expedition in 1630 with additional colonists and supplies for his colony in Nova Scotia, Claude de la Tour agreed to go there for the purpose of persuading his son to accept the honours and advantages which the King of England had conferred upon him. The ambitious Scotch poet, it was clear, still hoped that his arguments in favour of retaining Acadia, despite the treaty of Susa, made on the 24th of April, 1629, would prevail with the King. It was urged that as Port Royal was on soil belonging to England by right of Cabot's discovery, and the French had not formally claimed the sovereignty of Acadia since the destruction of their settlement by Argall, it did not fall within the actual provisions of a treaty which referred only to conquests made after its ratification.

Charles de la Tour would not yield to the appeals of his father to give up the fort at Cape Sable, and obliged the English vessels belonging to Alexander to retire to the Scotch settlement by the Annapolis basin. The elder La Tour went on to the same place, where he remained until his son persuaded him to join the French at Fort St. Louis, where the news had come that the King of France was determined on the restoration of Port Royal as well as Quebec. It was now decided to build a new fort on the River St. John, which would answer the double purpose of strengthening the French in Acadia, and driving the British out of Port Royal. Whilst this work was in course of construction, another vessel arrived from France with the welcome news that the loyalty of Charles de la Tour was appreciated by the King, who had appointed him as his lieutenant-governor over Fort Louis, Port La Tour, and dependencies.

By the treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye the French regained Acadia and were inclined to pay more attention to the work of colonisation. Richelieu sent out an expedition to take formal possession of New France, and Isaac de Launoy de Razilly, a military man of distinction, a Knight of Malta, and a friend of the great minister, was appointed governor of all Acadia. He brought with him a select colony, composed of artisans, farmers, several Capuchin friars, and some gentlemen, among whom were two whose names occupy a prominent place in the annals of Acadia and Cape Breton. One of them was Nicholas Denys, who became in later years the first governor of Cape Breton, where he made settlements at Saint Anne's and Saint Peter's, and also wrote an historical and descriptive account of the French Atlantic possessions. The most prominent Frenchman after Razilly himself, was Charles de Menou, Chevalier d'Aunay and son of René de Menou, lord of Charnizay, who was of noble family, and became one of the members of the King's council of state at the time the disputes between his son and Charles de la Tour were at their height. Charles de Menou, or d'Aunay, as I shall generally name him, was made Razilly's deputy, and consequently at the outset of his career assumed a prominence in the country that must have deeply irritated young La Tour, who still remained one of the King's lieutenants and probably expected, until Razilly's arrival, to be the head of the colony.

Captain Forrester, in command of the Scotch colony at Port Royal, gave up the post to Razilly in accordance with the orders of the English king, who had acted with much duplicity throughout the negotiations. The fort was razed to the ground, and the majority of the Scotch, who had greatly suffered from disease and death, left Acadia, though several remained and married among the French colonists. This was the end of Alexander's experiment in colonising Acadia and founding a colonial noblesse.

Razilly made his settlement at La Hève, on the Atlantic shore of Nova Scotia, and Denys had a mill and trading establishment in the vicinity. Port Royal was improved and the post at Penobscot occupied. D'Aunay was given charge of the division west of the St. Croix, and during the summer of 1632 he came by sea to the Plymouth House on the Penobscot, and took forcible possession of the post with all its contents. A year later La Tour also seized the "trading wigwam" at Machias, in the present State of Maine, but not before two of the English occupants were killed. La Tour had by this time removed from Cape Sable to the mouth of the River St. John, where he had built a strong fort on, probably, Portland Point, on the east side of the harbour of the present city of St. John, and was engaged in a lucrative trade in furs until a quarrel broke out between him and D'Aunay.

Soon after Razilly's death in the autumn of 1635, D'Aunay asserted his right, as lieutenant-governor of Acadia and his late chief's deputy, to command in the colony. He obtained from Claude de Razilly, brother of the governor, all his rights in Acadia, and removed the seat of government from La Hève to Port Royal, where he built a fort on the site of the present town of Annapolis. It was not long before he and La Tour became bitter enemies.

La Tour considered, with much reason, that he had superior rights on account of his long services in the province that ought to have been acknowledged, and that D'Aunay was all the while working to injure him in France. D'Aunay had certainly a great advantage over his opponent, as he had powerful influence at the French Court, while La Tour was not personally known and was regarded with some suspicion on account of his father being a Huguenot, and friendly to England. As a matter of fact, the younger La Tour was no Protestant, but a luke-warm Catholic, who considered creed subservient to his personal interests. This fact explains why the Capuchin friars always had a good word to say for his rival who was a zealous Catholic and did much to promote their mission.

The French Government attempted at first to decide between the two claimants and settle the dispute, but all in vain. La Tour made an attempt in 1640 to surprise D'Aunay at Port Royal, but the result was that he as well as his bride, who had just come from France, were themselves taken prisoners. The Capuchin friars induced D'Aunay to set them all at liberty on condition that La Tour should keep the peace in future. The only result was an aggravation of the difficulty and the reference of the disputes to France, where D'Aunay won the day both in the courts and with the royal authorities. La Tour's commission was revoked and D'Aunay eventually received an order to seize the property and person of his rival, when he proved contumacious and refused to obey the royal command, on the ground that it had been obtained by false representations. He retired to his fort on the St. John, where, with his resolute wife and a number of faithful Frenchmen and Indians, he set D'Aunay at defiance. In this crisis La Tour resolved to appeal to the government of Massachusetts for assistance. In 1630, the town of Boston was commenced on the peninsula of Shawmut, and was already a place of considerable commercial importance. Harvard College was already open, schools were established, town meetings were frequent, and a system of representative government was in existence. Not only so, the colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Haven, and Plymouth had formed themselves into a confederacy "for preserving and propagating the truth and liberties of the Gospel, and for their own mutual safety and welfare."

Much sympathy was felt in Boston for La Tour, who was a man of very pleasing manners, and was believed to be a Huguenot at heart. He explained the affair at Machias and his relations with the French Government to the satisfaction of the Boston people, though apparently with little regard to truth. The desire to encourage a man, who promised to be a good customer of their own, finally prevailed over their caution, and the cunning Puritans considered they got out of their quandary by the decision that, though the colony could not directly contribute assistance, yet it was lawful for private citizens to charter their vessels, and offer their services as volunteers to help La Tour. The New Englanders had not forgotten D'Aunay's action at Penobscot some years before, and evidently thought he was a more dangerous man than his rival.

Some Massachusetts merchants, under these circumstances, provided La Tour with four staunch armed vessels and seventy men, while he on his part gave them a lien over all his property. When D'Aunay had tidings of the expedition in the Bay of Fundy, he raised a blockade of Fort La Tour and escaped to the westward. La Tour, assisted by some of the New England volunteers, destroyed his rival's fortified mill, after a few lives were lost on either side. A pinnace, having on board a large quantity of D'Aunay's furs, was captured, and the booty divided between the Massachusetts men and La Tour.

From his wife, then in France, where she had gone to plead his cause, La Tour received the unwelcome news that his enemy was on his return to Acadia with an overwhelming force. Thereupon he presented himself again in Boston, and appealed to the authorities for further assistance, but they would not do more than send a remonstrance to D'Aunay and ask explanations of his conduct.

At this critical moment, La Tour's wife appeared on the scene. Unable to do anything in France for her husband, she had found her way to London, where she took passage on a vessel bound for Boston; but the master, instead of carrying her directly to Fort La Tour, as he had agreed, spent some months trading in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and on the coast of Nova Scotia. D'Aunay was cruising off Cape Sable, in the hope of intercepting her, and searched the vessel, but Madame La Tour was safely concealed in the hold, and the vessel was allowed to go on to Boston. On her arrival there, Madame La Tour brought an action against the master and consignee for a breach of contract, and succeeded in obtaining a judgment in her favour for two thousand pounds. When she found it impossible to come to a settlement, she seized the goods in the ship, and on this security hired three vessels and sailed to rejoin her husband. In the meantime an envoy from D'Aunay, a Monsieur Marie, always supposed to be a Capuchin friar, presented himself to the Massachusetts authorities, and after making a strong remonstrance against the course heretofore pursued by the colony, proffered terms of amity in the future on the condition that no further aid was given to La Tour. After some consideration the colonial government, of which Governor Endicott was now the head, agreed to a treaty of friendship, which was not ratified by D'Aunay for some time afterwards, when La Tour was a fugitive. Then the terms were sanctioned by the commissioners of the confederated colonies.

Having succeeded in obtaining the neutrality of the English colonists through his agent Marie, D'Aunay then determined to attack La Tour's fort on the St. John, as he had now under his control a sufficient number of men and ships. In the spring of the same year, however, when La Tour was absent, D'Aunay mustered all his vessels and men, and laid siege to the fort, but he met with most determined resistance from the garrison, nerved and stimulated by the voice and example of the heroic wife. The besiegers were almost disheartened, when a traitor within the walls—a "mercenary Swiss," according to a contemporary writer—gave them information which determined them to renew the assault with still greater vigour. D'Aunay and his men again attempted to scale the walls, but were forced to retire with a considerable force. Then D'Aunay offered fair terms if the fort was immediately given up. Madame La Tour, anxious to spare the lives of her brave garrison, which was rapidly thinning, agreed to the proposal, and surrendered the fort; and then D'Aunay is said to have broken his solemn pledge, and hanged all the defenders except one, whose life was spared on the condition of his acting as executioner.

One would fain not believe what the contemporary historian adds, that D'Aunay forced Madame La Tour to remain with a rope round her own neck, and witness the execution of the brave men who had so nobly assisted her in defending the fort. The poor lady did not long survive this tragedy, as she died a prisoner a few weeks later. All the acts of her adventurous and tragic career prove her to have been a good woman and a courageous wife, and may well be an inspiring theme for poetry and romance.[2]

D'Aunay now reigned supreme in Acadia. He had burdened himself heavily with debt in his efforts to ruin his rival, but he had some compensation in the booty he found at St. John. By the capture of his fort La Tour lost jewels, plate, furniture, and goods valued at ten thousand pounds, and was for a time a bankrupt. His debts in Boston were very heavy, and Major Gibbons, who had sent vessels to Fort La Tour in 1643, was never able to recover the mortgage he had taken on his estate. Bereft of wife and possessions, La Tour left Acadia and sought aid from Sir David Kirk, who was then governor of Newfoundland, but to no purpose. Various stories are told of his career for two years or longer, and it is even reported that he robbed a Boston vessel in his necessities, "whereby it appeared, as the Scripture saith," mournfully exclaims Governor Winthrop, "that there is no confidence in any unfaithful or carnal man." Boston merchants and sailors had suffered a good deal from both D'Aunay and La Tour, and such a story would naturally obtain credence among men who found they had made a bad investment in Fort La Tour and its appendages. D'Aunay continued his work of improving Port Royal and surrounding country, and the colony he founded was the parent of those large settlements that in the course of time stretched as far as the isthmus of Chignecto. He was accidentally drowned in the Annapolis River some time in 1650. French Canadian writers call him cruel, vindictive, rapacious, and arbitrary, but he has never been the favourite of historians. His plans of settlement had a sound basis and might have led to a prosperous and populous Acadia, had he not wrecked them by the malignity with which he followed La Tour and his wife.

La Tour, in the year 1648, visited Quebec, where he was received with the most gratifying demonstrations of respect by his countrymen, who admired his conduct in the Acadian struggle. Then D'Aunay died and La Tour immediately went to France, where the government acknowledged the injustice with which it had treated him in the past, and appointed him governor of Acadia, with enlarged privileges and powers. In 1653 he married D'Aunay's widow, Jeanne de Motin, in the hope—to quote the contract—"to secure the peace and tranquillity of the country, and concord and union between the two families." Peace then reigned for some months in Acadia; many new settlers came into the country, the forts were strengthened, and the people were hoping for an era of prosperity. But there was to be no peace or rest for the French in Acadia.

One of D'Aunay's creditors in France, named Le Borgne, came to America in 1654 at the head of a large force, with the object of obtaining possession of D'Aunay's property, and possibly of his position in Acadia. He made a prisoner of Denys, who was at that time engaged in trade in Cape Breton, and treated him with great harshness. After a short imprisonment at Port Royal, which was occupied by Le Borgne, Denys was allowed to go to France, where he succeeded eventually in obtaining a redress of his grievances, and an appointment as governor of Cape Breton.

Whilst Le Borgne was preparing to attack La Tour, the English appeared on the scene of action. By this time the civil war had been fought in England, the King beheaded, and Cromwell proclaimed Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. In 1653 very strong representations were made to the latter by the colonists of New England with respect to the movements of the French in Acadia, and the necessity of reducing the country to the dominion of England. Peace then nominally prevailed between France and Great Britain, but we have seen, as the case of Argall proved, that matters in America were often arranged without much reference to international obligations. A fleet, which had been sent out by Cromwell to operate against the Dutch colony at Manhattan, arrived at Boston in June, 1654, and the news came a few days later that peace had been proclaimed between the English and Dutch. Thereupon an expedition was organised against the French under the command of Major Robert Sedgewick of Massachusetts. Le Borgne at Port Royal and La Tour on the St. John immediately surrendered to this force, and in a few days all Acadia was once more in the hands of the English. Denys was almost ruined by these events and obliged to retire for a time from the country. La Tour was now far advanced in years, and did not attempt to resist the evil destiny that seemed to follow all the efforts of France to establish herself in Nova Scotia. No doubt the injuries he had received from his own countrymen, together with the apathy which the French Government always displayed in the affairs of Acadia, were strong arguments, if any were needed, to induce him to place himself under the protection of the English. The representations he made to the Protector met with a favourable response, and obtained for him letters patent, dated August 9, 1656, granting to him, Sir Charles La Tour, in conjunction with Sir Thomas Temple and William Crowne, the whole territory of Acadia, the mines and minerals alone being reserved for the government. Sir Thomas Temple, a man of generous disposition and remarkably free from religious prejudices, subsequently purchased La Tour's rights, and carried on a large trade in Acadia with much energy. La Tour now disappears from the scene, and is understood to have died in the country he loved in the year 1666, at the ripe age of seventy-four. He left several descendants, none of whom played a prominent part in Acadian history, though there are persons still in the maritime provinces of Canada who claim a connection with his family. His name clings to the little harbour near Cape Sable, where he built his post of Lomeron, and antiquaries now alone fight over the site of the more famous fort at the mouth of the St. John, where a large and enterprising city has grown up since the English occupation. About the figure of this bold gentleman-adventurer the romance of history has cast a veil of interest and generous appreciation on account of the devotion of his wife and of the obstinate fight he waged under tremendous disadvantages against a wealthy rival, supported by the authority of France. He was made of the same material as those brave men of the west coast of England who fought and robbed the Spaniard in the Spanish Main, but as he plundered only Puritans by giving them worthier mortgages, and fought only in the Acadian wilds, history has given him a relatively small space in its pages.

Acadia remained in possession of England until the Treaty of Breda, which was concluded in July of 1667, between Charles II. and Louis XIV. Temple, who had invested his fortune in the country, was nearly ruined, and never received any compensation for his efforts to develop Acadia. In a later chapter, when we continue the chequered history of Acadia, we shall see that her fortunes from this time become more closely connected with those of the greater and more favoured colony of France in the valley of the St. Lawrence.

[1] See Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada, vol. x., sec. 2, p. 93.

[2] This story of the capture of Fort La Tour rests on the authority of Denys (Description Géographique et Historique de l'Amérique Septentrionale, Paris, 1672), who was in Acadia at the time and must have had an account from eyewitnesses of the tragedy. The details which make D'Aunay so cruel and relentless are denied by a Mr. Moreau in his Histoire de l'Acadie Française (Paris, 1873). This book is confessedly written at the dictation of living members of the D'Aunay family, and is, from the beginning to the end, an undiscriminating eulogy of D'Aunay and an uncompromising attack on the memory of La Tour and his wife. He attempts to deny that the fort was seized by treachery, when on another page he has gone so far as to accuse some Recollets of having made, at the instigation of D'Aunay himself, an attempt to win the garrison from Madame La Tour who was a Protestant and disliked by the priests. He also admits that a number of the defenders of the fort were executed, while others, probably the traitors, had their lives spared. The attacks on Madame La Tour's character are not warranted by impartial history, and clearly show the bias of the book.