Thesis Document (13.19Mb)

“The Severity of This Service…” Canadien Inland Mariners in the Early Post-Conquest Era, 1760 to 1817 By John David More A thesis submitted to the Graduate Program in History in conformity with the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario, Canada May 2021 © John David More, 2021 “The Severity of This Service…” Canadien Inland Mariners in the Early Post-Conquest Era, 1760 to 1817 Abstract Beginning just a long decade after New France became part of the British Empire in 1763, a half-century of major crises engulfed British North America; the American Revolutionary War (1775-83), the postwar forced migration and resettlement of thousands of destitute and hungry British-American Loyalist refugees (1784-86), and the War of 1812 (1812-1814). In order to surmount, indeed, just to survive these crises, the British colonial regime in Quebec found it necessary to seek and retain the services of thousands of skilled, native-born, French-Canadian (Canadien) inland mariners in the newly acquired colony. For more than half a century, the Canadiens were needed to fulfill a variety of essential roles. Small boat (batteau) crews hauled virtually all the necessary supplies, including food, to sustain war and resettlement efforts west of Montreal for British soldiers and sailors, Loyalist settlers, militiamen, Indigenous allies and refugees. Canadien mariners also constructed, commanded, and crewed British warships on the Great Lakes. Some men were disabled in combat or became prisoners-of-war. Others died in shipwrecks or drowned on the river. The mariners left few personal records, but their actions were critically important for the successful defense and retention in the British Empire of the colonies that would eventually form central Canada. The contributions of Canadien inland mariners deserve serious consideration when examining the relationships between the people of the former New France and their new British rulers during the challenging, early transitional years of the British colonial regime. i Acknowledgements Oddly enough, it was writing historical fiction that brought me to writing a dissertation. That, and a sailor’s eye, which, in pondering some of the history written about this period, led me to wonder how, and why. There are many and varied blessings I am thankful for. Firstly, deep, heartfelt, humble, loving thanks to Donna, my long-suffering spouse of 43 years, and our daughter, Claire, who kindly kept their eye-rolling to an affectionate minimum when I blathered on, and on, at the age of sixty- something, about the amazing wonders of Canadian maritime history during my latest Seven Year “Plan.” I must next express my profound gratitude to Queen’s University, its History Department, and my supervisor and mentor, Professor Jane Errington, who very patiently but firmly (“Carefulll!”) guided and encouraged me successfully through the History Master’s and Doctoral programs. Writing for the academy is vastly different from creating good historical fiction and without her support I would likely not even have entered the Ph.D. journey, for such had not been my intent when I returned to school in 2014, much less completed it. Thank you so much, Dr. E! Several other scholars contributed directly and positively to my academic efforts. Drs. Andrew Jainchill and Jeffrey McNairn in the Queen’s History Department effectively opened my eyes in their seminars to how modern historians interpret history and how they create and apply history theory. I am afraid they found that my own abilities in that line are not very impressive – I am, perhaps inevitably (having written four historical novels), much more a narrative-focused historian (it is wonderful to be able to say that I actually am a historian) but I have enormous respect for those who can synthesize and apply such esoteric conceptualizing to their writing, rather in the way that non- ii athletes admire Olympians! Professor Donald Fyson at Université Laval was personally encouraging of my research subject from a very early date in the Master’s program and incredibly generous with his own hard-won research data. In my particular, narrow, field, I also doff my hat with a deep bow to several earlier, rather unsung scholars, without whose contributions I would likely have sailed, all unknowing, over the vast hidden knowledge of Canadien inland mariners. Those women and men glimpsed and recorded the iceberg’s tip in their own knowledge-seeking voyages, and they pointed the way for me to add to their findings with my own deep dive into the archives. Sarah Katherine Gibson, Carol MacLeod, and Judith Beattie, Tanya Grodzinski, Jonathan Steppler, and Steven Mecredy, in particular, all created bricks of solid research that I, and other, far more accomplished scholars, have relied upon for our footing. It is a priviledge to have been able to build on what they found. I can only say that, if my own research is meaningful at all, I surely do stand on the shoulders of giants. One kind individual who grounded my archival research to a personal level in such a valuable way and who deserves mention here was my friend Marie Edwards. A direct descendant of the Beaupré clan mentioned in this thesis, she spent many hours as my volunteer Research Assistant, and brought me sheaves of documentation about her ancestors and their surprising, interesting and important roles, not just in the history described here, but also in the subsequent maritime history of the Great Lakes, the city of Kingston, and Portsmouth Village in particular. My wife and I are extremely fortunate to live deeply embedded in history around the corner from where Marie’s antecedent Edouard built and operated his successful shipyard, and where his son built the still-thriving community pub now known as the Portsmouth Tavern. Our own limestone home was built as a rooming house when Edouard Beaupre was alive. In it, shipbuilders from the yards iii across the street likely lived, perhaps even some who worked for the Beaupré yard. Such is the magic of history. iv Table of Contents Abstract: i Acknowledgements: ii List of Maps and Figures: vi List of Tables: vii List of Abbreviations: viii Chapter One: Introduction and Historiography 1 Chapter Two: Canadien Inland Mariners: General Background 1760-1774 29 Chapter Three: Canadien Inland Mariners: The American Revolutionary War and the Loyalist Settlements in Quebec (1775-1786) 78 Chapter Four: Canadien Inland Mariners: The Interwar Period (1787-1811) 131 Chapter Five: Canadian Inland Mariners: Wartime (1812-1814) 163 Chapter Six: Canadian Inland Mariners: Postwar (1815-1817); Summary and Conclusions 237 Bibliography: 249 Appendix 1: Loyalist Batteau Units 269 v List of Maps and Figures Maps Map 1: “The Archipelago” 9 Map 2: Upper St. Lawrence River 47 Map 3: Colony of Quebec, 1790 82 Figures Figure 1: Ship's launch, HMS Bounty, 1789 44 Figure 2: Batteau in upper St. Lawrence rapids 45 Figure 3: Reconstruction of Batteau 48 Figure 4: Boats being hauled up the St. Lawrence rapids 49 Figure 5: St. Lawrence River schooners (goélettes) awaiting high tide 71 Figure 6: Carleton Island and Fort Haldimand, 1780 121 Figure 7: A coil of 16-inch hemp towing hawser 219 vi List of Tables Table 1: Canadiens at Kingston Royal Dockyard, July-Sept 1814 187 vii List of Abbreviations LAC: Library and Archives Canada QUA: Queen’s University Archives DCB: Dictionary of Canadian Biography BAnQ: Bibliotheque et Archives national du Québec CIC: Commander-in-Chief viii Chapter One Introduction and Historiography “… a business of great anxiety and trouble”1 The early autumn of 1760 brought point finale to more than a century of sporadic bloody combat in North America over the possession of New France, though for the next half-century and more, British settlers and their colonial government felt deep uneasiness from time to time about the potential for France to re-acquire their former territory. The Seven Years’ War began far to the southwest of Montreal in the remote Ohio Valley territory, but its North American campaigns, referred to by American historians as the French and Indian War, ended in Montreal itself after six bitterly contested years. British Commander Major-General Jeffery Amherst accepted the surrender of a surrounded, militarily outnumbered and exhausted New France in its last stronghold from its native-born Governor Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil, Marquis de Vaudreuil-Cavagnial, in the name of their respective princes, His Britannic Majesty King George III and His Most Christian Majesty, Louis XV. That laying-down of arms on an island in the St. Lawrence River on September 9, 1760 is still referred to simply (and often pejoratively) as “The Conquest.” The aftermath of the Conquest created profound, novel difficulties both for Quebec’s French- speaking inhabitants and for its vastly outnumbered new British governors and colonists, but it proved to be a surprisingly durable partnership between two nominally European cultures with a prolonged history of bitter warfare. Native-born Canadien inland mariners were at the core of this developing partnership during its critically important crisis-strewn, first half-century and more. This 1 “W. H. Robinson to J. C. Herries, No. 87, 7 November 1812,” LAC, W.O. 57/141. 1 was despite the fact that elsewhere in North America and around the globe France and Britain renewed and waged unrelenting, ferocious war upon each other through the era of Atlantic Revolutions until 1815. Canadien inland mariners were complex actors

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