Picquet counted there as many as fifty canoes. There was notwithstanding at Niagara a Trading House where the Commandant and Trader lodged, but it was too small, and the King's property was not safe there. M. Picquet negotiated with the Senecas who promised to repair to his Mission and gave him twelve children as hostages, saying to him that their parents had nothing dearer to them and followed him immediately, as well as the Chief of the Little Rapid with all his family. He set out with all those Savages to return to Fort Niagara. M. Chabert de Joncaire would not abandon him. At each place where they encountered camps, cabins and entrepots, they were saluted with musquetry by the Indians who never ceased testifying their consideration for the Missionary. M. Picquet took the lead with the Savages of the hills; Messrs Joncaire and Rigouille following with the recruits. He embarked with thirty-nine Savages in his large canoe and was received on arriving at the fort with the greatest ceremony, even with the discharge of cannon which greatly pleased the Indians. On the morrow he assembled the Senecas, for the first time, in the chapel of the Fort for religious services. M. Picquet returned along the south coast of Lake Ontario. Alongside of Choëguen, a young Seneca met her Uncle who was coming from his village with his wife and children. This young girl spoke so well to her Uncle, though she had but little knowledge of Religion that he promised to repair to La Presentation early the following spring, and that he hoped to gain over also seven other cabins of Senecas of which he was chief. Twenty-five leagues from Niagara he visited the River Gascouchagou1 where he met a number of Rattlesnakes. The young Indians jumped into the midst of them and killed forty-two without having been bitten by any. He next visited the Falls of this River. The first which appear in sight in ascending resemble much the great Cascade at Saint Cloud, except that they have not been ornamented and do not seem so high, but they possess natural beauties which render them very curious. The second, a quarter of a mile higher, are less considerable, yet are remarkable. The third, also a quarter of a league higher, has beauties truly admirable by its curtains and falls which form also, as at Niagara, a charming proportion and variety. They may be one hundred and some feet high.2 In the intervals between the falls, there are a hundred little cascades which present likewise a curious spectacle; and if the altitudes of each chute were joined together, and they made but one as at Niagara, the height would, perhaps, be four hundred feet; but there is four times less water than at the Niagara Fall which will cause the latter to pass, for ever, as a Wonder perhaps unique in the World. The English to throw disorder into this new levy sent a good deal of brandy. Some savages did, in fact get drunk whom M. Picquet could not bring along. He therefore desired much that Choëguen were destroyed and the English prevented rebuilding it; and in order that we should be absolutely masters of the south side of Lake Ontario, he proposed erecting a Fort near there at the bay of the Cayugas3 which would make a very good harbour and furnish very fine anchorage. No place is better adapted for a Fort. He examined attentively the Fort of Choëguen, a post the most pernicious to France that the English could erect. It was commanded almost from all sides and could be very easily approached in time of war. It was a two story very low building; decked like a ship and surmounted on the top by a gallery; the whole was surrounded by a stone wall, flanked only with two bastions at the side towards the nearest bill. Two batteries each of three twelve pounders, would have been more than sufficient to reduce that establishment to ashes. It was prejudicial to us by the facility it af 1 The Genesee River. In Berlin's Map of Partie Occidentale de la Nouvelle France, 1755 (No. 992 W. C. State Lib.) it is described as a "River unknown to Geographers, filled with Rapids and Waterfalls." 2 The highest fall on the river is 105 feet, 3 Sodus bay. forded the English of communicating with all the tribes of Canada still more than by the trade carried on there as well by the French of the Colony as by the savages: for Choëguen was supplied with merchandize adapted only to the French, at least as much as with what suited to the savages, a circumstance that indicated an illicit trade. Had the Minister's orders been executed, the Choëguen trade at least with the savages of Upper Canada would be almost ruined. But it was necessary to supply Niagara, especially the Portage, rather than Toronto. The difference between the two first of these posts and the last is, that three or four hundred canoes could come loaded with furs to the Portage, and that no canoes could go to Toronto except those which cannot pass before Niagara and to Fort Frontenac, such as the Otaois of the head of the Lake (Fond du Lac) and the Mississagues; so that Toronto could not but diminish the trade of these two antient posts, which would have been sufficient to stop all the savages had the stores been furnished with goods to their liking. There was a wish to imitate the English in the trifles they sold the savages such as silver bracelets etc. The Indians compared & weighed them, as the storekeeper at Niagara stated, and the Choëguen bracelets which were found as heavy, of a purer silver and more elegant did not cost them two beavers, whilst those at the King's post wanted to sell them for ten beavers. Thus we were discredited, and this silver ware remained a pure loss in the King's stores. French brandy was preferred to the English, but that did not prevent the Indians going to Choëguen. To destroy the Trade the King's posts ought to have been supplied with the same goods as Choëguen and at the same price. The French ought also have been forbidden to send the domiciliated Indians thither: but that would have been very difficult. Mr. Picquet next returned to Frontenac. Never was a reception more imposing. The Nipissings and Algonquins who were going to war with M. de Bellestre, drew up in a line of their own accord above Fort Frontenac where three standards were hoisted. They fired several volleys of musketry and cheered incessantly. They were answered in the same style from all the little craft of bark. M. de Verchere and M. de la Valtrie caused the guns of the Fort to be discharged at the same time, and the Indians transported with joy at the honors paid them also kept up a continual fire with shouts and acclamations which made every one rejoice. The commandants and officers received our Missionary at the landing. No sooner had he debarked than all the Algonquins and Nipissings of the Lake came to embrace him, saying that they had been told that the English had arrested him, and had that news been confirmed they would soon have themselves relieved him. Finally when he returned to La Presentation, he was received with that affection, that tenderness which children would experience in recovering a father whom they had lost. War was no sooner declared in 1754 than the new children of God, of the King and of M Picquet, thought only of giving fresh proofs of their fidelity and valor, as those of the Lake of the Two Mountains had done in the war preceding. The generals were indebted to M. Picquet for the destruction of all the Forts as well on the river Corlac (Corlear) as on that of Choëguen. His Indians distinguished themselves especially at Fort George on Lake Ontario where the warriors of La Presentation alone with their bark canoes destroyed the English fleet commanded by Capt. Beccan who was made prisoner with a number of others and that in sight of the French army, commanded by M. de Villiers who was at the Isle Galop. The war parties which departed and returned continually, filled the Mission with so many prisoners that their numbers frequently surpassed that of the warriors, rendering it necessary to empty the villages and send them to Headquarters. In fine a number of other expeditions of which M. Picquet was the principal author have procured the promotion of several officers. He frequently found himself in the vanguard when the King's troops were ordered to attack the enemy. He distinguished himself particularly in the expeditions of Sarasto (Saratoga), Lake Champlain, Pointe a la Chevelure (Crown Point), the Cascades, Carillon (Ticonderoga) Choëguen (Oswego), River Corlac (Mohawk), Isle au Galop etc. The posts he established for the King protected the colony pending the entire war. M. du Quesne said that the Abbé Picquet was worth more than ten regiments. In the month of May 1756 M. de Vaudreuil got M. Picquet to depute the Chiefs of his Missions to the Five Nations of Senecas, Cayugas, Onontagués, Tuscaroras and Oneidas to attach them more and more to the French. The English had surprised and killed their nephews in the three villages of the Loups (Mohegans ?) M. de Vaudreuil requested him to form parties which could succeed each other in disquieting and harassing the English. In 1758 he destroyed the English forts on the banks of Corlac, but at length the battle of the 13 Sept. 1759, in which the Marquis of Montcalm was killed, brought ruin on Quebec and that of Canada followed. When he saw all thus lost, M. Picquet terminated his long and laborious career by his retreat on the 8th May 1760, with the advice and consent of the General, the Bishop and Intendant, in order not to fall into the hands of the English. He had determined never to swear allegiance to another power. He passed to Michilimachina between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan; proceeded thus by way of Upper Canada to the Illinois country & Louisiana, and sojourned twenty two months at New Orleans. On his return to France, he passed several years in Paris. A hernia which afflicted him a long time, having become aggravated, finally caused his death at Verjon on the 15th July 1781. In his life time he was complimented with the title of "Apostle of the Iroquois." NOTE.-Fort la Presentation, with the River, under the names of Wegatchi, Swegatchi, Oswegatchi, will be found laid down in the following Maps and Charts, vizt A map of that part of America which was the principal seat of War in 1756, published in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1757, Vol. xxvii. ; An Exact Chart of the River St. Lawrence from Fort Frontenac to the Island of Anticosti by Tho Jeffereys, London 1775; with the River St. Lawrence from Quebec to Lake Ontario copied from D'Anvill's Map of 1755; Sauthier's Map of the Inhabited parts of Canada and Frontiers of New York, &c. London 1777; Sauthier's Map of the Province of New York, Lond. 1779 and in Carte Generale des (14) Etats Unis de l'Amerique Septentrionale renfernant quelques Provinces Angloises adjacentes, being No. 30 in Atlas of Maps on America in State Lib. Reference to this settlement will be also found in Gent. Mag. xxiv, 593. It is sometimes, though corruptly, called Fort Patterson. |