David Kirke

Sir David kirke , adventurer, trader, colonizer, chief of the forwarding which seized Quebec in 1629, and later governor of Newfoundland, born about 1597 with Dieppe, deceased in 1654 close to London.

The catch of Quebec

David was oldest of five wire of Gervase (Jarvis) Kirke, of Derbyshire, merchant with London and Dieppe and of Elizabeth Gowding (Goudon), which was perhaps the girl of an established English merchant with Dieppe. By its situation of importer of Dieppe, Gervase was to be quite indicated on the French companies in North America. Some merchants of London, of which was Gervase, constituted in 1627 a company whose object was the trade and colonization on the edges of the the St. Lawrence. The same year, the war was declared between the France and the England. The company then financed a forwarding ordered by David Kirke, who was charged by the king, Charles Ier, of évincer the French of the “Canida”.

Accompanied by his brothers, Lewis, Thomas, John and James (this last called sometimes Jarvis), David Kirke left with three vessels, probably escorted of a flotilla bringing of the colonists to the colony projected by Sir William Alexander in Port-Royal. It may be that Kirke stopped with the establishment of Lord Baltimore in Ferryland, Newfoundland, before going up the St. Lawrence and seizing Tadoussac. It took a vessel carrying provisions for Quebec and it sent Basque fishermen to ask Samuel de Champlain the capitulation of the fort. Champlain, which awaited help of France, rejected the request and Kirke renonça to attack Quebec. The English vessels took again the road of England, but they met shortly after the French fleet of four vessels which ordered the admiral Roquemont de Brison. They seized some, without undergoing losses, after a short combat. When Paris learned these events, one burned the Kirke brothers in effigy because, born in Dieppe, one held them for French subjects, and their last acts passed for treason towards the king Louis XIII.

A second fleet, of six vessels and three Norway pines, left Gravesend in March 1629 under the command of the Kirke brothers, with Jacques Michel, a deserter of the colony of Champlain, which was used to them as pilot on the river. David Kirke, informed of the desperate state of the situation in Quebec, where the small garrison was then at the edge of the famine, sent Lewis and Thomas, of the station of Tadoussac. Not having of another solution, Champlain went on July 19th, 1629.

In spite of the Treated of Suse, Charles Ier refused to restore the territories conquered in North America as long as the dowry of his wife would not be discharged by his/her brother-in-law, the king of France, Louis XIII. The negotiations prolonged in connection with the dowry and of the property of the furs confiscated in Quebec by Kirke finished in 1632 with the treated Saint-Germain-in-Bush hammer, and the adventurous Merchants accepted the order to return Quebec and Port-Royal to the French. In recognition of his services, David Kirke was created knight in 1633.

First governor of Newfoundland

Sir David wrote in 1635 a description of Newfoundland inspired by an exploration, of dubious date, and, on November 13rd, 1637, it accepted the joint ownership of this island. Kirke accepted the authorization to charge a right of 5 p. 100 on oil and all fish taken by the foreign fishermen. The Armoiries of David Kirke are those of the province of Newfoundland today.

A little later Sir David, in his capacity as governor of Newfoundland, entered in fight with the companies of fishings of the West of England, called the Adventurers Western, which were determined to maintain their authority on the fisheries of the Grands Benches of Newfoundland by preventing colonization in the island. Sir David brought more than 100 colonists, built forts with Ferryland, Midsummer's Day and the Baie of Verde, and imposed rights to all the vessels of fishing.

Sir David was recalled in England in 1651 to answer the charge to have retained rights charged in the name of the government. Its property was managed by police chiefs. The goods of Kirke were put temporarily under sequestration, and itself was convened several times in England to appear before the Council of State. The charges carried against Sir David were never established, and his wife accepted the authorization to go back to Newfoundland to direct her business there. Sir David was however imprisoned at the request of the heirs to Lord Baltimore for the confiscation of Ferryland in 1639. It is during its detention, probably with the jail of Southwark, which he died, towards the end of 1654.

The character of David Kirke remains obscure and discussed: hero with the eyes of the English writers, pirates for some French. One condemned his intrigues to Quebec like those of a religious bigot coleric and avid; however, its relationship with Champlain seems to have been courteous and even cordial. To one time of violence, Kirke was led to Newfoundland like a kind of sovereign of the island of the fisheries, depending only on itself and imposing its own conditions on the vessels of fishing of passage. And yet the investigations of the puritan members of Parliament into the acts of this proven royalist could not prove any embezzlement of its share.

External bond

Biography of the biographical Dictionary of Canada in line

Random links: