Iberville

live father, has been called the first great Cana-
dian. He may also be called the Canadian "Cid,"
since his career was compounded of daring, ro-
mantic enterprise, and heroic feats. His train-
ing was in the royal navy, which he entered at
the age of fourteen. His field of action was the
entire North American continent from which he
attempted to expel the English in the interest of
the French empire. His greatest feats were per-
formed in Hudson Bay; his greatest service was
laying the foundations of Louisiana in the Gulf
of Mexico. After a decade of service at sea,
where Louis XIV was endeavoring to build up
a royal navy, Iberville returned to his native
Canada imbued with ideas of expansion and im-
perialism. His father having died in 1685, he
with two of his brothers joined the expedition
of Chevalier de Troyes, which early in 1686 left
Montreal to drive the British from the James
Bay extension of Hudson Bay. The two nations
were temporarily at peace, but the Hudson's Bay
Company, founded in 1670 by the advice of the
French explorer Radisson, was demoralizing the
fur trade of the interior on which rested the pros-
perity of New France. The expedition left Mon-
treal in March and on snow shoes followed the
Ottawa River to its source, six hundred miles
distant. There the adventurers built canoes and
dropped down Moose River for three hundred
miles more—a journey unparalleled even in
Canada for hardship and peril. Upon reaching
their goal Iberville led the storming parties that
carried by impetuous assault three British posts
in James Bay and took fifty thousand crowns'
worth of furs, the harvest of the Hudson's Bay
Company for the year. With this booty the raid-
ers returned in triumph to Quebec.

Thus was begun a duel on a vast scale between
Iberville with his devoted followers and the
British company's officials. When the French
officer was absent the British recaptured the
posts and the trade. Then Iberville would muster
his forces and again raid the Bay posts. After
France declared war on England in 1689 the
contest was intensified, Iberville having the sup-
port of the navy as well as of the Canadians. In
1689, 1691, 1694, and 1697 he made expeditions
to the north, which demanded more and more
daring and courage as the struggle progressed.
The last raid is especially noteworthy. In one
small man of war, the Pelican., Iberville encoun-
tered three British warships, sank the Hamp-
shire with all its crew, and captured the two
others. Then when the Pelican was wrecked by
a storm on a hostile coast, Iberville with his
starving crew led an assault on the strongest
British post, Fort Nelson, captured it, and saved

Iberville

his men. In this raid he lost one of his brothers,
and Bienville [q.v.~\, his younger brother, was
severely wounded.

Notwithstanding these exploits and the hardi-
hood and dangers endured in their furtherance,
France did not finally control Hudson Bay. Nor
were Iberville's other war enterprises more use-
ful to his beloved country. In 1690 he accom-
panied as a volunteer the overland expedition
which sacked Schenectady and destroyed the set-
tlement with fire and sword. In 1692 he failed
in an attack on Fort Pemaquid on the Maine
coast, showing in the face of superior force pru-
dence rather than rashness. Four years later he
successfully attacked the same post and razed
it to the ground. The same year, 1696, he cap-
tured the British fort St. John's in Newfound-
land. He advocated and nearly succeeded in
taking New York City from the English.

His career seemed ended when in 1697 the
peace of Ryswick was signed between France
and England. It proved, however, to be the
opening for a greater success, the one on which
his title to fame is based. In 1698 he sailed from
France to found a colony in Louisiana at the
mouth of the Mississippi and there succeeded
where La Salle, thirteen years earlier, had failed.
"If the duration of a man's existence," wrote
Gayarre, historian of Louisiana, "is to be mea-
sured by the merits of his deeds, then Iberville
had lived long, before reaching the meridian of
life, and he was old in fame, if not in years when
he undertook to establish a colony in Louisiana"
(post, 1,90). In this enterprise Iberville showed
ability and courage of a new sort—the ability to
overcome obstacles, the courage to await events.
He also'developed administrative ability, and the
colony made notable progress until his untimely
death at Havana of yellow fever. Before this,
however, France and England were again at
war, and Iberville in his old dashing fashion cap-
tured two West India islands for his crown. The
infant colony of Louisiana, which he had found-
ed, was left to the care of his brother Bienville.
For his courage, his daring, his resource, he was
idolized by his men and acclaimed by all Cana-
dians. His broader vision of a continent for
France was not appreciated by many; he pene-
trated the purposes of English colonization as
did few other Canadians of his day. "As mili-
tary as his sword," "hardened to the water as a
fish/' he attracted attention rather for his phys-
ical prowess than for his ideals of empire. He
planned to give a continent to France and nearly
succeeded. His cruelty and ruthlessness in giv-
ing no quarter were defects of his age. Iberville
was married in Quebec on Oct. 8,1693, to Marie

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