One La Corne, "a recklessly sanguinary partisan" (military gentleman of the Trenck, INDIGO-Trenck species), nestles himself (winter, 1749-50) on that Missiquash River, head of the Bay of Fundy; in the Village of Chignecto, which is admittedly English ground, though inhabited by French. La Corne compels, or admits, the Inhabitants to swear allegiance to France again; and to make themselves useful in fortifying, not to say in drilling,--with an eye to military work. Hearing of which, Colonel Cornwallis and incipient Halifax are much at a loss. They in vain seek aid from the Governor of Massachusetts ("Assembly to be consulted first, to be convinced; Constitutional rights:--Nothing possible just, at once");--and can only send a party of 400 men, to try and recover Chignecto at any rate. April 20th, 1750, the 400 arrive there;order La Corne instantly to go. Bourbon Flag is waving on his dikes, this side the Missiquash: high time that he and it were gone. "Village Priest [flamingly orthodox, as all these Priests are, all picked for the business], with his own hands, sets fire to the Church in Chignecto; "inhabitants burn their houses, and escape across the river,--La Corne as rear-guard. La Corne, across the Missiquash, declares, That, to a certainty, he is now on French ground; that he will, at all hazards, defend the Territory here;and maintain every inch of it,--"till regular Commissioners [due ever since the Treaty of Aix, had not that ROMISH-KING Business been so pressing] have settled what the Boundary between the two Countries is."--Chignecto being ashes, and the neighboring population gone, Cornwallis and his Four Hundred had to return to Halifax.
It was not till Autumn following, that Chignecto could be solidly got hold of by the Halifax people; nor till a long time after, that La Corne could be dislodged from his stockades, and sent packing.
[<italic> Gentleman's Magazine, <end italic> xx. 539, 295.]
September, 1750, a new Expedition on Chignecto found the place populous again, Indians, French "Peasants" (seemingly Soldiers of a sort); who stood very fiercely behind their defences, and needed a determined on-rush, and "volley close into their noses," before disappearing. This was reckoned the first military bloodshed (if this were really military on the French side). And in November following, some small British Cruiser on those Coasts, falling in with a French Brigantine, from Quebec, evidently carrying military stores and solacements for La Corne, seized the same; by force of battle, since not otherwise,--three men lost to the British, five to the French,--and brought it to Halifax. "Lawful and necessary!"says the Admiralty Court; "Sheer Piracy!" shriek the French;--matters breaking out into actual flashes of flame, in this manner.
British Commissions, two in number, names not worth mention, have, at last, in this Year 1750, gone to Paris; and are holding manifold conferences with French ditto,--to no "purpose, any of them. One reads the dreary tattle of the Duke of Newcastle upon it, in the Years onward: "Just going to agree," the Duke hopes; "some difficulties, but everybody, French and English, wanting mere justice; and our and their Commissioners being in such a generous spirit, surely they will soon settle it." [His Letters, in Coxe's <italic> Pelham, <end italic> ii. 407 ("September, 1751"), &c.]
They never did or could; and steadily it went on worsening.
That notable private assertion of the French, That Canada and Louisiana mean all America West of the Alleghanies, had not yet oozed out to the English; but it is gradually oozing out, and that England will have to content itself with the moderate Country lying east of that Blue range. "Not much above a million of you", say the French; "and surely there is room enough East of the Alleghanies?
We, with our couple of Colonies, are the real America;--counting, it is true, few settlers as yet; but there shall be innumerable;and, in the mean while, there are Army-Detachments, Block-houses, fortified Posts, command of the Rivers, of the Indian Nations, of the water-highways and military keys (to you unintelligible);and we will make it good!"The exact cipher of the French (guessed to be 50,000), and their precise relative-value as tillers and subduers of the soil, in these Two Colonies of theirs, as against the English Thirteen, would be interesting to know: curious also their little bill, of trouble taken in creating the Continent of America, in discovering it, visiting, surveying, planting, taming, ****** habitable for man:--and what Rhadamanthus would have said of those Two Documents!
Enough, the French have taken some trouble, more or less,--especially in sending soldiers out, of late. The French, to certain thousands, languidly tilling, hunting and adventuring, and very skilful in wheedling the Indian Nations, are actually there;and they, in the silence of Rhadamanthus, decide that merit shall not miss its wages for want of asking. "Ours is America West of the Alleghanies," say the French, openly before long.
"Yours? Yours, of all people's?" answer the English; and begin, with lethargic effort, to awake a little to that stupid Foreign Question; important, though stupid and foreign, or lying far off.