CHAPTER 2
1643-1645.  

LA TOUR AND THE PURITANS.

ON the twelfth of June, 1643, the people of the infant town of Boston saw with some misgiving a French ship entering their harbor.  It chanced that the wife of Captain Edward Gibbons, with her children, was on her way in a boat to a farm belonging to her husband on an island in the harbor.  One of La Tour's party, who had before made a visit to Boston, and had been the guest of Gibbons, recognized his former hostess; and he, with La Tour and a few sailors, cast off from the ship and went to speak to her in a boat that was towed at the stern of the "Saint Clement." Mrs.  Gibbons, seeing herself chased by a crew of outlandish foreigners, took refuge on the island where Fort Winthrop was afterwards built, which was then known as the "Governor's Garden," as it had an orchard, a vineyard, and "many other conveniences." The islands in the harbor, most of which were at that time well wooded, seem to have been favorite places of cultivation, as sheep and cattle were there safe from those pests of the mainland, the wolves.  La Tour, no doubt to the dismay of Mrs.  Gibbons and her children, landed after them, and was presently met by the governor himself, who, with his wife, two sons, and a daughter-in-law, had apparently rowed over to their garden for the unwonted recreation of an afternoon's outing.  La Tour made himself known to the governor, and, after mutual civilities, told him that a ship bringing supplies from France had been stopped by his enemy, D'Aunay, and that he had come to ask for help to raise the blockade and bring her to his fort.  Winthrop replied that, before answering, he must consult the magistrates.  As Mrs.  Gibbons and her children were anxious to get home, the governor sent them to town in his own boat, promising to follow with, his party in that of La Tour, who had placed it at his disposal.  Meanwhile, the people of Boston had heard of what was taking place, and were in some anxiety, since, in a truly British distrust of all Frenchmen, they feared lest their governor might be kidnapped and held for ransom.  Some of them accordingly took arms, and came in three boats to the rescue.  In fact, remarks Winthrop, " if La Tour had been ill minded towards us, he had such an opportunity as we hope neither he nor any other shall ever have the like again." The castle, or fort, which was on another island hard by, was defenceless, its feeble garrison having been lately withdrawn, and its cannon might easily have been turned on the town.

Boston, now in its thirteenth year, was a straggling village, with houses principally of boards or logs, gathered about a plain wooden meeting house which formed the heart or vital organ of the place.  The rough peninsula on which the infant settlement stood was almost void of trees, and was crowned by a hill split into three summits,  whence the name of Tremont, or Trimount, still retained by a street of the present city.  Beyond the narrow neck of the peninsula were several smaller villages with outlying farms; but the mainland was for the most part a primeval forest, possessed by its original owners,  wolves, bears, and rattlesnakes.  These last undesirable neighbors made their favorite haunt on a high rocky hill, called Rattlesnake Hill, not far inland, where, down to the present generation, they were often seen, and where good specimens may occasionally be found to this day.

Far worse than wolves or rattlesnakes were the Pequot Indians,  a warlike race who had boasted that they would wipe the whites from the face of the earth, but who, by hard marching and fighting, had lately been brought to reason.

Worse than wolves, rattlesnakes, and Indians together were the theological quarrels that threatened to kill the colony in its infancy.  Children are taught that the Puritans came to New England in search of religious liberty.  The liberty they sought was for themselves alone.  It was the liberty to worship in their own way, and to prevent all others from doing the like.  They imagined that they held a monopoly of religious truth, and were bound in conscience to defend it against all comers.  Their mission was to build up a western Canaan, ruled by the law of God; to keep it pure from error, and, if need were, purge it of heresy by persecution,  to which ends they set up one of the most detestable theocracies on record.  Church and State were joined in one.  Church members alone had the right to vote.  There was no choice but to remain politically a cipher, or embrace, or pretend to embrace, the extremest dogmas of Calvin.  Never was such a premium offered to cant and hypocrisy; yet in the early days hypocrisy was rare, so intense and pervading was the faith of the founders of New England.

It was in the churches themselves, the appointed sentinels and defenders of orthodoxy, that heresy lifted its head and threatened the State with disruption.  Where minds different in complexion and character were continually busied with subtle questions of theology, unity of opinion could not be long maintained; and innovation found a champion in one Mrs.  Hutchinson, a woman of great controversial ability and inexhaustible fluency of tongue.  Persons of a mystical turn of mind, or a natural inclination to contrariety, were drawn to her preachings; and the church of Boston, with three or four exceptions, went over to her in a body.  " Sanctification," " justification," "revelations," the "covenant of grace," and the " covenant of works," mixed in furious battle with all the subtleties, sophistries, and venom of theological war; while the ghastly spectre of Antinomianism hovered over the fray, carrying terror to the souls of the faithful.  The embers of the strife still burned hot when La Tour appeared to bring another firebrand.  As a "papist" or "idolater," though a mild one, he was sorely prejudiced in Puritan eyes, while his plundering of the Plymouth trading house some years before, and killing two of its five tenants, did not tend to produce impressions in his favor; but it being explained that all five were drunk, and had begun the fray by firing on the French, the ire against him cooled a little.  Landing with Winthrop, he was received under the hospitable roof of Captain Gibbons, whose wife had recovered from her fright at his approach.  He went to church on Sunday, and the gravity of his demeanor gave great satisfaction,  a solemn carriage being of itself a virtue in Puritan eyes.  Hence he was well treated, and his men were permitted to come ashore daily in small numbers.  

The stated training day of the Boston militia fell in the next week, and La Tour asked leave to exercise his soldiers with the rest.  This was granted; and, escorted by the Boston trained band, about forty of them marched to the muster field, which was probably the Common,  a large tract of pasture land in which was a marshy pool, the former home of a colony of frogs, perhaps not quite exterminated by the sticks and stones of Puritan boys.  This pool, cleaned, paved, and curbed with granite, preserves to this day the memory of its ancient inhabitants, and is still the Frog Pond, though bereft of frogs.

The Boston trained band, in steel caps and buff coats, went through its exercise; and the visitors, we are told, expressed high approval.  When the drill was finished, the Boston officers invited La Tour's officers to dine, while his rank and file were entertained in like manner by the Puritan soldiers.  There were more exercises in the afternoon, and this time it was the turn of the French, who, says Winthrop, " were very expert in all their postures and motions." A certain "judicious minister," in dread of popish conspiracies, was troubled in spirit at this martial display, and prophesied that " store of blood would be spilled in Boston,"—a prediction that was not fulfilled, although an incident took place which startled some of the spectators.  The Frenchmen suddenly made a sham charge, sword in hand, which the women took for a real one.  The alarm was soon over; and as this demonstration ended the performance, La Tour asked leave of the governor to withdraw his men to their ship.  The leave being granted, they fired a salute and marched to the wharf where their boat lay, escorted, as before, by the Boston trained band.  During the whole of La Tour's visit he and Winthrop went amicably to church together every Sunday, —the governor being attended, on these and all other occasions while the strangers were in town, by a guard of honor of musketeers and halberd men.  La Tour and his chief officers had their lodging and meals in the houses of the principal townsmen, and all seemed harmony and goodwill.

La Tour, meanwhile, had laid his request before the magistrates, and produced among other papers the commission to Mouron, captain of his ship, dated in the last April, and signed and sealed by the Vice-Admiral of France, authorizing Mouron to bring supplies to La Tour, whom the paper styled Lieutenant-General for the King in Acadia; La Tour also showed a letter, genuine or forged, from the agent of the Company of New France, addressed to him as lieutenant-general, and warning him to beware of D'Aunay: from all which the Boston magistrates inferred that their petitioner was on good terms with the French government, notwithstanding a letter sent them by D'Aunay the year before, assuring them that La Tour was a proclaimed rebel, which in fact he was.  Throughout this affair one is perplexed by the French official papers, whose entanglements and contradictions in regard to the Acadian rivals are past unravelling.

La Tour asked only for such help as would enable him to bring his own ship to his own fort; and, as his papers seemed to prove that he was a recognized officer of his King, Winthrop and the magistrates thought that they might permit him to hire such ships and men as were disposed to join him.

La Tour had tried to pass himself as a Protestant; but his professions were distrusted, notwithstanding the patience with which he had listened to the long winded sermons of the Reverend John Cotton.  As to his wife, however, there appears to have been but one opinion.  She was approved as a sound Protestant " of excellent virtues;" and her denunciations of D'Aunay no doubt fortified the prejudice which was already strong against him for his seizure of the Plymouth trading house at Penobseot, and for his aggressive and masterful character, which made him an inconvenient neighbor.

With the permission of the governor and the approval of most of the magistrates, La Tour now made a bargain with his host, Captain Gibbons, and a merchant named Thomas Hawkins.  They agreed to furnish him with four vessels; to arm each of these with from four to fourteen small cannon, and man them with a certain number of sailors, La Tour himself completing the crews with Englishmen hired at his own charge.  Hawkins was to command the whole.  The four vessels were to escort La Tour and his ship, the "Saint Clement," to the mouth of the Saint John, in spite of D'Aunay and all other opponents.  The agreement ran for two months; and La Tour was to pay £250 sterling a month for the use of the four ships, and mortgage to Gibbons and Hawkins his fort and all his Acadian property as security.  Winthrop would give no commissions to Hawkins or any others engaged in the expedition, and they were all forbidden to fight except in self defence; but the agreement contained the significant clause that all plunder was to be equally divided according to rule in such enterprises.  Hence it seems clear that the contractors had an eye to booty; yet no means were used to hold them to their good behavior.

Now rose a brisk dispute, and the conduct of Winthrop was sharply criticised.  Letters poured in upon him concerning "great dangers," "sin upon the conscience," and the like.  He himself was clearly in doubt as to the course he was taking, and he soon called another meeting of magistrates, in which the inevitable clergy were invited to join; and they all fell to discussing the matter anew.  As every man of them had studied the Bible daily from childhood up, texts were the chief weapons of the debate.  Doubts were advanced as to whether Christians could lawfully help idolaters, and Jehoshaphat, Ahab, and Josias were brought forward as cases in point.  Then Solomon was cited to the effect that "he that meddleth with the strife that belongs not to him takes a dog by the ear; " to which it was answered that the quarrel did belong to us, seeing that Providence now offered us the means to weaken our enemy, D'Aunay, without much expense or trouble to ourselves.  Besides, we ought to help a neighbor in distress, seeing that Joshua helped the Gibeonites, and Jehoshaphat helped Jehoram against Moab with the approval of Elisha.  The opposing party argued that "by aiding papists we advance and strengthen popery;" to which it was replied that the opposite effect might follow, since the grateful papist, touched by our charity, might be won to the true faith and turned from his idols.

Then the debate continued on the more worldly grounds of expediency and statecraft, and at last Winthrop's action was approved by the majority.  Still, there were many doubters, and the governor was severely blamed.  John Endicott wrote to him that La Tour was not to be trusted, and that he and D'Aunay had better be left to fight it out between them, since if we help the former to put down his enemy he will be a bad neighbor to us.

Presently came a joint letter from several chief men of the colony, Saltonstall, Bradstreet, Nathaniel Ward, John Norton, and others,  saying in substance: We fear international law has been ill observed; the merits of the case are not clear; we are not called upon in charity to help La Tour (see  Chronicles xix., and Proverbs xxvi.  17); this quarrel is for England and France, and not for us; if D'Aunay is not completely put down, we shall have endless trouble; and "he that loses his life in an unnecessary quarrel dies the devil's martyr."

This letter, known as the "Ipswich letter," touched Winthrop to the quick.  He thought that it trenched on his official dignity, and the asperity of his answer betrays his sensitiveness.  He calls the remonstrance "an act of an exorbitant nature," and says that it "blows a trumpet to division and dissension." "If my neighbor is in trouble," he goes on to say, "I must help him." He maintains that "there is great difference between giving permission to hire to guard or transport, and giving commission to fight," and he adds the usual Bible text, " The fear of man bringeth a snare; but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe."

In spite of Winthrop's reply, the Ipswich letter had great effect; and he and the Boston magistrates were much blamed, especially in the country towns.  The governor was too candid not to admit that he had been in fault, though he limits his self accusation to three points: first, that he had given La Tour an answer too hastily; next, that he had not sufficiently consulted the elders or ministers; and lastly, that he had not opened the discussion with prayer.

The upshot was that La Tour and his allies sailed on the fourteenth of July.  D'Aunay's three vessels fled before them to Port Royal.  La Tour tried to persuade his Puritan friends to join him in an attack; but Hawkins, the English commander, would give no order to that effect, on which about thirty of the Boston men volunteered for the adventure.  D'Aunay's followers had ensconced themselves in a fortified mill, whence they were driven with some loss.  After burning the mill and robbing a pinnace loaded with furs, the Puritans returned home, having broken their orders and compromised their colony.

In the next summer, La Tour, expecting a serious attack from D'Aunay,—who had lately been to France, and was said to be on his way back with large reinforcements,  turned again to Massachusetts for help.  The governor this time was John Endicott, of Salem.  To Salem the suppliant repaired; and as Endicott spoke French, the conference was easy.  The rugged bigot had before expressed his disapproval of "having anything to do with these idolatrous French;" but, according to Hubbard, he was so moved with compassion at the woful tale of his visitor that he called a meeting of magistrates and ministers to consider if anything could be done for him.  The magistrates had by this time learned caution, and the meeting would do nothing but write a letter to D'Aunay, demanding satisfaction for his seizure of Penobscot and other aggressions, and declaring that the men who escorted La Tour to his fort in the last summer had no commission from Massachusetts, yet that if they had wronged him he should have justice, though if he seized any New England trading vessels they would hold him answerable.  In short, La Tour's petition was not granted.

D'Aunay, when in France, had pursued his litigation against his rival, and the royal council had ordered that the contumacious La Tour should be seized, his goods confiscated, and he himself brought home a prisoner; which decree D'Aunay was empowered to execute, if he could.  He had returned to Acadia the accredited agent of the royal will.  It was reported at Boston that a Biscayan pirate had sunk his ship on the way; but the wish was father to the thought, and the report proved false.  D'Aunay arrived safely, and was justly incensed at the support given by the Puritans in the last year to his enemy.  But he too had strong reasons for wishing to be on good terms with his heretic neighbors.  King Louis, moreover, had charged him not to offend them, since, when they helped La Tour, they had done so in the belief that he was commissioned as lieutenant-general for the King, and therefore they should be held blameless.

Hence D'Aunay made overtures of peace and friendship to the Boston Puritans.  Early in October, 1644, they were visited by one Monsieur Marie, "supposed," says the chronicle, "to be a friar, but habited like a gentleman." He was probably one of the Capuchins who formed an important part of D'Aunay's establishment at Port Royal.  The governor and magistrates received him with due consideration; and along with credentials from D'Aunay he showed them papers under the great seal of France, wherein the decree of the royal council was set forth in full, La Tour condemned as a rebel and traitor, and orders given to arrest both him and his wife.  Henceforth there was no room to doubt which of the rival chiefs had the King and the law on his side.  The envoy, while complaining of the aid given to La Tour, offered terms of peace to the governor and magistrates,  who replied to his complaints with their usual subterfuge, that they had given no commission to those who had aided La Tour, declaring at the same time that they could make no treaty without the concurrence of the commissioners of the United Colonies.  They then desired Marie to set down his proposals in writing; on which he went to the house of one Mr.  Fowle, where he lodged, and drew up in French his plan for a treaty, adding the proposal that the Bostonians should join D'Aunay against La Tour.  Then he came back to the place of meeting and discussed the subject for half a day,  sometimes in Latin with the magistrates, and sometimes in French with the governor, that old soldier being probably ill versed in the classic tongues.  In vain they all urged that D'Aunay should come to terms with La Tour.  Marie replied, that if La Tour would give himself up his life would be spared, but that if he were caught he would lose his head as a traitor; adding that his wife was worse than he, being the mainspring of his rebellion.  Endicott and the magistrates refused active alliance ; but the talk ended in a provisional treaty of peace, duly drawn up in Latin, Marie keeping one copy and the governor the other.  The agreement needed ratification by the commissioners of the United Colonies on one part, and by D'Aunay on the other.  What is most curious in the affair is the attitude of Massachusetts, which from first to last figures as an independent State, with no reference to the King under whose charter it was building up its theocratic republic, and consulting none but the infant confederacy of the New England colonies, of which it was itself the head.  As the commissioners of the confederacy were not then in session, Endicott and the magistrates took the matter provisionally into their own hands.

Marie had made good despatch, for he reached Boston on a Friday and left it on the next Tuesday, having finished his business in about three days, or rather two, as one of the three was "the Sabbath." He expressed surprise and gratification at the attention and courtesy with which he had been treated.  His hosts supplied him with horses, and some of them accompanied him to Salem, where he had left his vessel, and whence he sailed for Port Royal, well pleased.

Just before he came to Boston, that town had received a visit from Madame de la Tour, who, soon after her husband's successful negotiation with Winthrop in the past year, had sailed for France in the ship " Saint Clement." She had labored strenuously in La Tour's cause; but the influence of D'Aunay's partisans was far too strong, and, being charged with complicity in her husband's misconduct, she was forbidden to leave France on pain of death.  She set the royal command at naught, escaped to England, took passage in a ship bound for America, and after long delay landed at Boston.  The English ship master had bargained to carry her to her husband at Fort Saint Jean; but he broke his bond, and was sentenced by the Massachusetts courts to pay her £2,000 as damages.  She was permitted to hire three armed vessels then lying in the harbor, to convey her to Fort Saint Jean, where she arrived safely and rejoined La Tour.

Meanwhile, D'Aunay was hovering off the coast, armed with the final and conclusive decree of the royal council, which placed both husband and wife under the ban, and enjoined him to execute its sentence.  But a resort to force was costly and of doubtful result, and D'Aunay resolved again to try the effect of persuasion.  Approaching the mouth of the Saint John, he sent to the fort two boats, commanded by his lieutenant, who carried letters from his chief, promising to La Tour's men pardon for their past conduct and payment of all wages due them if they would return to their duty.  An adherent of D'Aunay declares that they received these advances with insults and curses.  It was a little before this time that Madame de la Tour arrived from Boston.  The same writer says that she fell into a transport of fury, "behaved like one possessed with a devil," and heaped contempt on the Catholic faith in the presence of her husband, who approved everything she did; and he further affirms that she so berated and reviled the Re'collet friars in the fort that they refused to stay, and set out for Port Royal in the depth of winter, taking with them eight soldiers of the fort who were too good Catholics to remain in such a nest of heresy and rebellion.  They were permitted to go, and were provided with an old pinnace and two barrels of Indian corn, with which, unfortunately for La Tour, they safely reached their destination.

On her arrival from Boston, Madame de la Tour had given her husband a piece of politic advice.  Her enemies say that she had some time before renounced her faith to gain the favor of the Puritans; but there is reason to believe that she had been a Huguenot from the first.  She now advised La Tour to go to Boston, declare himself a Protestant, ask for a minister to preach to his men, and promise that if the Bostonians would help him to master D'Aunay and conquer Acadia, he would share the conquest with them.  La Tour admired the sagacious counsels of his wife, and sailed for Boston to put them in practice just before the friars and the eight deserters sailed for Port Royal, thus leaving their departure unopposed.

At Port Royal both friars and deserters found a warm welcome.  D'Aunay paid the eight soldiers their long arrears of wages, and lodged the friars in the seminary with his Capuchins.  Then he questioned them, and was well rewarded.  They told him that La Tour had gone to Boston, leaving his wife with only fortyfive men to defend the fort.  Here was a golden opportunity.  D'Aunay called his officers to council.  All were of one mind.  He mustered every man about Port Royal and embarked them in the armed ship of three hundred tons that had brought him from France; he then crossed the Bay of Fundy with all his force, anchored in a small harbor a league from Fort Saint Jean, and sent the Re'collet Pdre Andre" to try to seduce more of La Tour's men,  an attempt which proved a failure.  D'Aunay lay two months at his anchorage, during which time another ship and a pinnace joined him from Port Royal.  Then he resolved to make an attack.  Meanwhile, La Tour had persuaded a Boston merchant to send one Grafton to Fort Saint Jean in a small vessel loaded with provisions, and bringing also a letter to Madame de la Tour containing a promise from her husband that he would join her in a month.  When the Boston vessel appeared at the mouth of the Saint John, D'Aunay seized it, placed Grafton and the few men with him on an island, and finally supplied them with a leaky sailboat to make their way home as they best could.

D'Aunay now landed two cannon to batter Fort Saint Jean on the land side; and on the seventeenth of April, having brought his largest ship within pistol shot of the water rampart, he summoned the garrison to surrender.  They answered with a volley of cannon shot, then hung out a red flag, and, according to D'Aunay's reporter, shouted "a thousand insults and blasphemies "! Towards evening a breach was made in the wall, and D'Aunay ordered a general assault.  Animated by their intrepid mistress, the defenders fought with desperation, and killed or wounded many of the assailants, not without severe loss on their own side.  Numbers prevailed at last; all resistance was overcome; the survivors of the garrison were made prisoners, and the fort was pillaged.  Madame de la Tour, her maid, and another woman, who were all of their sex in the place, were among the captives, also Madame de la Tour's son, a mere child.  D'Aunay pardoned some of his prisoners, but hanged the greater part, "to serve as an example to posterity," says his reporter.  Nicolas Denys declares that he compelled Madame de la Tour to witness the execution with a halter about her neck; but the more trustworthy accounts say nothing of this alleged outrage.  On the next day, the eighteenth of April, the bodies of the dead were decently buried, an inventory was made of the contents of the fort, and D'Aunay set his men to repair it for his own use.  These labors occupied three weeks or more, during a part of which Madame de la Tour was left at liberty, till, being detected in an attempt to correspond with her husband by means of an Indian, she was put into confinement; on which, according to D'Aunay's reporter, "she fell ill with spite and rage," and died within three weeks,—after, as he tells us, renouncing her heresy in the chapel of the fort.