Picturesque Quebec : a sequel to Quebec past and present Part 47

(_From the Quebec Gazette, 30th August_, 1843.)

"In the last number (August 25th, inst.,) of _Le Canadien_ there is an article of deep interest to the Canadian antiquarian: The long agitated question as to the _where_ or _whereabouts_ Jacques Cartier, on his second voyage from France to this continent spent the winter of 1535-6; whether at the embouchure of the river bearing his name emptying into the St.

Lawrence some ten or eleven leagues above Quebec, or in the little river St. Charles to the north of and at the foot of the promontory on which Quebec is built, is now, it would seem, about to be solved and satisfactorily set at rest by the recent discovery of the remains of a vessel, doubtless of European construction, supposed to be those of _La Pet.i.te Hermine_, of about 60 tons burthen, one of the three (_La Grande Hermine_, _La Pet.i.te Hermine_, and _L'Emerillon_), with which on the 19th of May, 1535, that intrepid navigator left St. Malo.

The article alluded to, which we believe to be the work of the editor himself (Mr. McDonald) of _Le Canadien_, logically establishes from Jacques Cartier's narrative that the place of his wintering, or Sainte Croix, as he named it, can be none other than the little river St.

Charles, as we now call it. "Coasting," says he, "the said island (Orleans) we found at the upper end of it an expanse of water very beautiful and pleasant, at which place there is a little river and bar harbor with two or three fathoms of water, which we found to be a place suitable for putting our vessels in safety. We called it _Ste. Croix_, because on that day, (14th September) we arrived there. Near this place there are natives, whose chief is Donnacona and who lives there, which place is called Stadacone," (now Quebec). Cartier observes in another part of his narrative that _Sainte Croix_ was situate half a league from _and to the north_ of Quebec. Again, speaking of the residence (Stadacone) of Donnacona, he says, "_under which high land towards the north_ is the river and harbour Sainte Croix, at which place we remained from the 15th of September, to the 16th of May, 1536, where the vessels remained dry."

"We now translate from _Le Canadien_:--'At the invitation of Mr. Jos.

Hamel, City Surveyor, Hon. Wm. Sheppard, the President, and (G. B.) Faribault, Vice-President of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, went with him on Sat.u.r.day, the 19th instant, (1843) to visit the place, and according to the position of the _debris_ of the vessel, the nature of the wood it is composed of, and the character of the stones (ballast) they found at the bottom, they were satisfied that all the probabilities are in favor of Mr. Hamel's hypothesis.

"'On a report of this visit, the Council of the Literary and Historical Society a.s.sembled on Monday last, and resolved on laying open the _debris_, leaving it to Mr. Faribault, the Vice-President, to make, with Mr. Hamel, the necessary arrangements for the execution. The members of the Council having no funds at their disposal, that they can legally apply to this purpose, have so far carried it on at their own expense.

"'Some valuable evidences of the ancient existence of this vessel have been gathered. We shall speak of them in giving an account of the exhumation in progress, under the direction of Messrs. Faribault and Hamel. All those who can throw any light on the subject, either of their own knowledge or by what they may have learnt by tradition, are earnestly solicited to impart the same at the Office of _Le Canadien_.'

"Those gentlemen ought not to be allowed to carry on this work at their sole expense. The country, the world, are interested in it. This continent in 1535, from end to end one vast wilderness, the imagination can scarcely figure to itself a more awful solitude than that in which, during the winter of 1535-6 Cartier and his faithful followers, amidst savages in an unknown country, during a Canadian winter, at a thousand leagues from their native land, were buried in the dreary swamp (for it then must have been little better) of _Sainte Croix_ now the beautiful valley of the St. Charles, covered with cheerful cottages and a redundant population.

Look to-day from the Citadel of _Stadacone_ in all directions north, south, east, west, than which under heaven, there is not a more splendid panorama, and think of what it was when Cartier and his comrades first looked upon it. Contrast his landing on the flinty rock at the base of Cape Diamond, the 14th September, 1535, and reception by a few gaping savages, with that of the present Governor-General, Sir Charles Metcalfe; amidst acclaiming thousands, on the 25th (Aug. 1843)--the manner of pa.s.sing a winter at Stadacone in 1535-6 and at the same place in 1842-3.

What changes have the three centuries wrought! What recollections have they left! And what changes will not the next three hundred years bring about? More wonderful probably than those we admire to-day. But come what may of that which men sometimes call great and glorious, nothing can obliterate or eclipse the honors justly due to the memory of the celebrated navigator and his comrades, who first "coasting the said island (now Orleans) found at the end of it an expanse of water very beautiful and pleasant, and a little bar harbour," ('hable,' as he calls it,) and wintered there at about half a league northward of and under the highland of Stadacone."

"During the dismal winter Jacques Cartier must have pa.s.sed in his new quarters at _Ste. Croix_, he lost, by sickness contracted, it is said, from the natives, but more probably from scurvy, twenty-five of his men. This obliged him to abandon one of his three vessels (_La Pet.i.te Hermine_ it is believed) which he left in her winter quarters, returning with the two others to France. The _locale_ of the _debris_ or remains, not only corresponds with the description given by Jacques Cartier of Ste.

Croix, but also with the attention and particular care that might be expected from a skilful commander, in the selection of a safe spot in an unknown region where never an European had been before him, for wintering his vessels. They lie in the bottom of a small creek or gulley, known as the _ruisseau St. Michel_, into which the tides regularly flow, on the property of Charles Smith, Esq., on the north side of the St. Charles and at about half a mile following the bends of the river above the site of the old Dorchester Bridge.--They are a little up the creek at about an acre from its mouth, and their position (where a sudden or short turn of the creek renders it next to impossible that she should be forced out of it by any rush of water in the spring or efforts of the ice,) evinces at once the precaution and the judgment of the commander in his choice of the spot. But small portions of her remaining timber (oak) are visible through the mud, but they are bitumanised and black as ebony, and after reposing in that spot 307 years, seem, as far as by chopping them with axes or spades, and probing by iron rods or picks, can be ascertained, sound as the day they were brought thither. The merit of the discovery belongs to our fellow townsman, Mr. Joseph Hamel, the City Surveyor."

Quebec, 28th August, 1843.

_"LE CANON DE BRONZE."--THE BRONZE CANNON._

"A few years ago an ancient cannon of peculiar make, and supposed to have been of Spanish construction, was found in the river St. Lawrence, opposite the Parish of Champlain, in the District of Three Rivers. It is now in the Museum of Mr. Cha.s.seur, and will repay the visit of the curious stranger. The ingenious writer of the Treatise upon this piece of ordnance, published in the second volume of the TRANSACTIONS of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, has endeavoured to show that it belonged to Verazzani,--that the latter perished before the second voyage of Jacques Cartier, either by scurvy or s.h.i.+pwreck, on his way up the river towards Hochelaga. He also endeavors, with great stretch of fancy, to explain and account for the pantomime enacted by the Indians in the presence of Jacques Cartier, in order to dissuade him from proceeding to Hochelaga so late in the season, by their recollection and allusion to the death of Verazzani, some nine or ten years before. But if they had really known anything respecting the fate of this navigator--and it must have been fresh in their memory, if we recall to mind how comparatively short a period had elapsed--is it not most likely that they would have found means, through the two interpreters to communicate it to Cartier? Yet it appears that the latter never so much as heard of it, either at Hochelai, now the Richelieu, where he was on friendly terms with the chief of the village--or at Hochelaga, where it must have been known--or when he wintered at Ste. Croix, in the little river St. Charles--nor yet when he pa.s.sed a second winter at Carouge! The best evidence, however, that the Indian pantomime had no reference to Verazzani, and to disprove at once the truth of the tradition respecting his death in any part of the St.

Lawrence, is to show, which we shall do on good authority, that at the very time when Cartier was pa.s.sing the winter at Ste. Croix, Verazzani was actually alive in Italy. From a letter of Annibal Caro, quoted by Tiraboschi, an author of undoubted reputation, in the Storie della Literature Italiana, Vol. VII. part I. pp. 261, 462, it is proved that Verazzani was living in 1537, a year after the pantomime at Ste. Croix!

While on the subject of the Canon de Bronze it may be noted that Charlevoix mentions also a tradition, that Jacques Cartier himself was s.h.i.+pwrecked at the mouth of the river called by his name, with the loss of one of his vessels. From this it has been supposed that the Canon de Bronze was lost on that occasion; and an erroneous inscription to that effect has been engraved upon it. In the first place the cannon was not found at the mouth of the River Jacques Cartier, but opposite the Parish of Champlain; in the next, no s.h.i.+pwreck was ever suffered by Jacques Cartier, who wintered in fact at the mouth of the little river St.

Charles. The tradition as to his s.h.i.+pwreck, and to the loss of one of his vessels, most probably arose from the well known circ.u.mstance of his having returned to France with two s.h.i.+ps, instead of three, with which he left St. Malo. Having lost so many men by scurvy during his first winter in Canada, he was under the necessity of abandoning one of them, which lay in the harbour of Ste. Croix. The people of Champlain having possessed themselves of the old iron to be found on the vessel, it of course soon fell to pieces, and in process of time arose the tradition that Jacques Cartier had been s.h.i.+pwrecked. The removal of the scene of his supposed disaster from the St. Charles to the River Jacques Cartier. was an error of Charlevoix.

Before we conclude this notice of Verazzani: it may be mentioned, that in the Strozzi Library at Florence, is preserved a ma.n.u.script, in which he is said to have given with great minuteness, a description of all the countries which he had visited during his voyage, and from which, says Tiraboschi, we derive the intelligence, that he had formed the design, in common with the other navigators of that era, of attempting a pa.s.sage through those seas to the East Indies. It is much to be desired, that some Italian Scholar would favor the world with the publication of this ma.n.u.script of Verazzani."

[_See pages_ 71-72.]

_THE FRENCH WHO REMAINED IN QUEBEC AFTER ITS CAPITULATION TO THE BRITISH IN 1629._

(_From the Canadian Antiquarian_)

In Canadian annals there is no period veiled deeper in Cimmerian darkness, than the short era of the occupation of Quebec by the English under Louis Kirke, extending from the 14th July 1629, to 13th July, 1632. The absence of diaries, of regular histories, no doubt makes it difficult to reconstruct, in minute details, the nascent city of 1629. Deep researches, however, in the English and French archives have recently brought to the surface many curious incidents. To the Abbe Faillon, who, in addition to the usual sources of information had access to the archives of the Propaganda at Rome, the cause of history is deeply indebted, though one must occasionally regret his partiality towards Montreal which so often obscures his judgment. Another useful source to draw from for our historians, will be found in a very recent work on the conquest of Canada in 1629 by a descendant of Louis Kirke, an Oxford graduate, it is published in England.

Those who fancy reading the present to the past, will be pleased to meet in those two last writers a quaint account of the theological feud agitating the Rock in 1629. Religious controversies were then, as now, the order of the day. But bluff Commander Kirke had a happy way of getting rid of bad theology. His Excellency, whose ancestors hailed from France, was a Huguenot, a staunch believer in John Calvin. Of his trusty garrison of 90 men a goodly portion were calvinists, the rest, however, with the chaplain of the forces, were disciples of Luther. The squabble, from theology, degenerated into disloyalty to the const.i.tuted authorities, a conspiracy was hatched to overthrow the Governor's rule and murder Kirke. His Reverence the Lutheran minister was supposed to be in some way accessory to the plot, which Kirke found means to suppress with a high hand, and His Reverence, without the slightest regard to the cut of his coat, was arrested and detained a prisoner for six months in the Jesuit's residence on the banks of the St. Charles, near Hare Point, from which he emerged, let us hope, a wiser, if not a better man. History has failed to disclose the name of the Lutheran minister.

Elsewhere [332] we have furnished a summary of the French families who remained in Quebec in 1629, after the departure of Champlain and capitulation of the place to the British. Students of Canadian history are indebted to Mr. Stanislas Drapeau, of Ottawa, for a still fuller account, which we shall take the liberty to translate.

"Over and above the English garrison of Quebec, numbering 90 men, we can make out that twenty-eight French remained. The inmates of Quebec that winter amounted to 118 persons, as follows:

1. GUILLAUME HOBOU--Marie Rollet, his wife, widow of the late Louis Hebert, Guillaume Hebert son of Louis Hebert.

2. GUILLAUME COUILLARD, son-in-law of the late Louis Hebert.--Guillemette Hebert, his wife, Louise, aged four years, Marguerite, aged three years, Louis, aged two years, their children.

3. ABRAHAM MARTIN.--Marguerite Langlois, his wife; Anne, aged twenty-five years; Marguerite, aged five years; Helene, aged two years, their children.

4. PIERRE DESPORTES.--Francois Langlois, his wife; Helene Langlois.

5. NICHOLAS PIVERT.--Marguerite Lesage, his wife; Marguerite Lesage, his little neice; Adrien du Chesne, Surgeon.

NICOLET; FROIDEMOUCHE; LE COQ., carpenter; PIERRE ROY, of Paris, coach- builder; ETIENNE BRUSLe, of Champigny, interpreter of the Hurons; NICOLAS MARSOLAIS, of Rouen, interpreter of the Montagnais; GROS JEAN, of Dieppe, interpreter of the Algonquins.

ENGLISH GARRISON.--Louis Kirke, Commandant and Governor;... Minister of Religion; Le Baillif, of Amiens, clerk to Kirke; 88 men, officers, and soldiers."

_THE ARMS OF THE DOMINION._

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES TO THE GOVERNOR GENERAL.

DOWNING STREET, October 14, 1868.

My Lord,--I have the honour to enclose a certified copy of 26th May, Her Majesty's Warrant of a.s.signment of 1868, Armorial Bearings for the Dominion and Provinces of Canada, which has been duly enrolled in Her Majesty's College of Arms, and I have to request that your Lords.h.i.+p will take such steps as may be necessary for carrying Her Majesty's gracious intentions into effect.

I have, &c,

(Signed) BUCKINGHAM AND CHANDOS.

TO THE GOVERNOR, THE RIGHT HON. VISC. MONK, &c., &c.

VICTORIA R.

VICTORIA, by the grace of G.o.d, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Queen, Defender of the Faith, &c.

To our right trusty and well-beloved councillor Edward George Fitzalan Howard, (commonly called Lord Edward George Fitzalan Howard), deputy to our right trusty and right entirely beloved cousin, Henry, Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal, and our Hereditary Marshal of England--Greeting:

Whereas, etc,... We were empowered to declare after a certain day therein appointed, that the Provinces of Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick should form one Dominion under the name of Canada, etc.,... and after the first day of July, 1867, the said Provinces should form and be one Dominion under the name of Canada accordingly.

And forasmuch as it is Our Royal will and pleasure that for the greater honour and distinction of the said Provinces, certain Armorial Ensigns should be a.s.signed to them;

Know Ye, therefore, that We, of Our Princely Grace and special favour have granted and a.s.signed, and by these presents do grant and a.s.sign the Armorial Ensigns following, that is to say:

FOR THE PROVINCE OF ONTARIO

Vert a sprig of three Leaves of Maple slipped, or on a chief Argent the Cross of St. George.

FOR THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC