This book is a group of narratives of the most striking events of our colonial history connected with the principal points of interest to the tourist visiting Canada and the northern borders of the United States. The narratives are drawn, with the addition of explanatory passages, from "The Conspiracy of Pontiac," "Pioneers of France in the New World," "The Jesuits in North America," "Count Frontenac," and "Montcalm and Wolfe." Boston , 1 April, 1885....

T his beautiful lake owes its name to Samuel de Champlain, the founder of Quebec. In 1609, long before the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth, he joined a band of Huron and Algonquin warriors on an expedition against their enemies, the Iroquois, since known as the Five Nations of New York. While gratifying his own love of adventure, he expected to make important geographical discoveries. After a grand war dance at the infant settlement of Quebec, the allies set out together. Champlain was in a b

The allies, growing anxious, called with loud cries for their champion, and opened their ranks that he might pass to the front. He did so, and, advancing before his red companions-in-arms, stood revealed to the astonished gaze of the Iroquois, who, beholding the warlike apparition in their path, stared in mute amazement. But his arquebuse was levelled; the report startled the woods, a chief fell dead, and another by his side rolled among the bushes. Then there rose from the allies a yell, which,

I t was thirty-three years since Champlain had first attacked the Iroquois. They had nursed their wrath for more than a generation, and at length their hour was come. The Dutch traders at Fort Orange, now Albany, had supplied them with firearms. The Mohawks, the most easterly of the Iroquois nations, had, among their seven or eight hundred warriors, no less than three hundred armed with the arquebuse. They were masters of the thunderbolts which, in the hands of Champlain, had struck terror into

F or more than a century after the death of Jogues, Lakes George and Champlain were the great route of war parties between Canada and the British Colonies. Courcelles came this way in 1666 to lay waste the Mohawk towns; and Mantet and Sainte-Hélène, in 1690, to destroy Schenectady in the dead of winter; while, in the next year, Major Schuyler took the same course as he advanced into Canada to retort the blow. Whenever there was war between France and England, these two lakes became the scene of

In January, Shirley had proposed an attack on it to the Ministry; and in February, without waiting their reply, he laid the plan before his Assembly. They accepted it, and voted money for the pay and maintenance of twelve hundred men, provided the adjacent colonies would contribute in due proportion. Massachusetts showed a military activity worthy of the reputation she had won. Forty-five hundred of her men, or one in eight of her adult males, volunteered to fight the French, and enlisted for th

W hile Johnson was building Fort William Henry at one end of Lake George, the French began Fort Ticonderoga at the other, though they did not finish it till the next year. In the winter of 1757, hearing that the English were making great preparations at Fort William Henry to attack them, they resolved to anticipate the blow and seize that post by surprise. To this end, Vaudreuil, Governor of Canada, sent a large detachment from Montreal, while the small body of troops and provincials who occupie

H aving failed to take Fort William Henry by surprise, the French resolved to attack it with all the force they could bring against it, and in the summer of 1757 the Marquis de Montcalm and the Chevalier de Lévis advanced against it with about eight thousand regulars, Canadians, and Indians. The whole assembled at Ticonderoga, where several weeks were spent in preparation. Provisions, camp equipage, ammunition, cannon, and bateaux were dragged by gangs of men up the road to the head of the rapid

The position of the enemy was full in sight before them. At the head of the lake, towards the right, stood the fort, close to the edge of the water. On its left was a marsh; then the rough piece of ground where Johnson had encamped two years before; then a low, flat, rocky hill, crowned with an intrenched camp; and, lastly, on the extreme left, another marsh. Far around the fort and up the slopes of the western mountain the forest had been cut down and burned, and the ground was cumbered with bl

I n 1758, the English commanders, incensed at the loss of Fort William Henry, resolved to retaliate by a strong effort to seize Ticonderoga. In June, the combined British and provincial force destined for the expedition was gathered at the head of Lake George under General Abercromby, while the Marquis de Montcalm lay around the walls of the French stronghold with an army not one fourth so numerous. Montcalm hesitated whether he should not fall back to Crown Point. It was but a choice of difficu

From this part of the shore [4] a plain covered with forest stretched northwestward half a mile or more to the mountains behind which lay the valley of Trout Brook. On this plain the army began its march in four columns, with the intention of passing round the western bank of the river of the outlet, since the bridge over it had been destroyed. Rogers, with the provincial regiments of Fitch and Lyman, led the way, at some distance before the rest. The forest was extremely dense and heavy, and so

M ention has been made of the death of Major Duncan Campbell of Inverawe. The following family tradition relating to it was told me in 1878 by the late Dean Stanley, to whom I am also indebted for various papers on the subject, including a letter from James Campbell, Esq., the present laird of Inverawe, and great-nephew of the hero of the tale. The same story is told, in an amplified form and with some variations, in the Legendary Tales of the Highlands of Sir Thomas Dick Lauder. As related by D

T he River Niagara was known to the Jesuits as early as 1640. The Falls are indicated on Champlain's map of 1632, and in 1648 the Jesuit Rugueneau speaks of them as a "cataract of frightful height." In 1678, the Falls were visited by the friar Louis Hennepin, who gives an exaggerated description of them, and illustrates it by a curious picture. The name Niagara is of Iroquois origin, and in the Mohawk dialect is pronounced Nyàgarah. In the year of Hennepin's visit, the followers of Cavelier de l

A fter the conquest of Canada, there was a general uprising of the Indian tribes, led by the famous Pontiac, against the British forts and settlements. In the war that followed, a remarkable incident took place a little way below Niagara Falls. The carrying-place of Niagara formed an essential link in the chain of communication between the province of New York and the interior country. Men and military stores were conveyed in boats up the river, as far as the present site of Lewiston. Thence a p

W e come now to an enterprise as singular in its character as it proved important in its results. At La Flèche, in Anjou, dwelt one Jérôme le Royer de la Dauversière, receiver of taxes. His portrait shows us a round, bourgeois face, somewhat heavy perhaps, decorated with a slight mustache, and redeemed by bright and earnest eyes. On his head he wears a black skull-cap; and over his ample shoulders spreads a stiff white collar, of wide expanse and studious plainness. Though he belonged to the nob

C hamplain was the founder of this old capital of French Canada, whose existence began in 1608. In that year he built a cluster of fortified dwellings and storehouses, which he called "The Habitation of Quebec," and which stood on or near the site of the marketplace of the Lower Town. The settlement made little progress for many years. A company of merchants held the monopoly of its fur-trade, by which alone it lived. It was half trading-factory, half mission. Its permanent inmates did not excee

Q uebec was without a governor. Who should succeed Champlain? and would his successor be found equally zealous for the Faith, and friendly to the mission? These doubts, as he himself tells us, agitated the mind of the Father Superior, Le Jeune; but they were happily set at rest, when, on a morning in June, he saw a ship anchoring in the basin below, and, hastening with his brethren to the landing-place, was there met by Charles Huault de Montmagny, a Knight of Malta, followed by a train of offic

L ike Montreal, Quebec transformed itself in time lost much of its character of a mission, and became the seat of the colonial government. In short, it became secularized, though not completely so; for the priesthood still held an immense influence and disputed the mastery with the civil and military powers. In the beginning of William and Mary's War, Count Frontenac, governor of Canada, sent repeated war-parties to harass the New England borders; and, in 1690, the General Court of Massachusetts

T he early part of the Seven Years' War was disastrous to England. The tide turned with the accession to power of the great war minister, William Pitt. In 1759, he sent General James Wolfe with a combined military and naval force to capture Quebec. The British troops numbered somewhat less than nine thousand, while Montcalm and Vaudreuil were posted to receive them, on positions almost impregnable, with an army of regulars, Canadians, and Indians, amounting in all to about sixteen thousand. The

The capture of Quebec now seemed hopeless. Wolfe was almost in despair. His body was as frail as his spirit was ardent and daring. Since the siege began he had passed with ceaseless energy from camp to camp, animating the troops, observing everything, and directing everything; but now the pale face and tall lean form were seen no more, and the rumor spread that the General was dangerously ill. He had in fact been seized by an access of the disease that had tortured him for some time past; and fe