Nobility Lost by Christian Ayne Crouch

Author:Christian Ayne Crouch [Crouch, Christian Ayne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, Colonial Period (1600-1775), Europe, France, Military, Other
ISBN: 9780801470394
Google: Lx35AgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2014-03-04T01:10:47+00:00

CHAPTER 5

The Losing Face of France

Buffeted by strong winds portending winter and barred from serving in North America by the terms of New France’s capitulation, the troops of France’s armies embarked for home in autumn 1760, leaving behind a Canada ravaged by the last six years of war. The desperate spring campaign of 1760 had not saved the colony—by September, three British armies had encircled Montreal, the last free city of New France, and offered the choice of capitulation or annihilation. Canada’s leaders chose the former and acquiesced to Gen. Jeffery Amherst’s terms because he promised a generous treatment of the habitants, including the right to Roman Catholic worship. Despite anxieties about living under British occupation, about 95 percent of New France’s colonial population chose Canada as their home and opted to remain in North America rather than migrate to France. The Canadian militia, a handful of regular soldiers, and even some marine officers, especially those who still served at posts deep in the North American interior or who, like Charles Mouet de Langlade, had family ties to Native communities, also chose to cast their lots with the new British regime as well.

Those individuals who did leave the colony belonged disproportionately to the administrative, military, and mercantile elites of New France. They were those who had strong contacts with France or desired to continue in royal service. After Montreal fell, many marine officers hurriedly left for France, thinking that the large amounts of paper money—bills of exchange, promissory notes, colonial currency—they brought back with them to the metropole would ensure some financial security for their families in France. Barred from continued service in the ongoing war by the terms of the Montreal capitulation, these men in the compagnies franches de la marine and in the regulars, the troupes de terre, all had to find new ways of living—and new sources of income.

France had been scarred by notable losses and global setbacks in its war effort for two years before the ships bringing the refugees from New France arrived in November 1760. The previous year, Louis XV’s troops had lost Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Caribbean, Pondicherry in India, and the battle of Minden in Germany. Gorée Island in West Africa and Louisbourg on Cape Breton had been captured in 1758; now New France had surrendered. The capitulation of Montreal especially stung because here the British commanding general, Jeffery Amherst, continued the policy of denying the honors of war to the surrendering French army, a policy he had first forced on the French at the fall of Louisbourg. Shortly after his arrival in France in December, former governor Vaudreuil received a letter from Louis XV, who was angry and demanded explanations for both the surrender of Montreal without the honors of war and for the loss of Canada.1 There was also the matter of years of war expenses that continued to grow exponentially. The paroled and therefore unemployable returning army soldiers, marines, and Canadians now joined the earlier Acadian refugees of

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