Three of these prisoners, examined by Schuyler, declared that Frontenac was preparing for a grand attack on Albany in the spring. In the political confusion of the time, the place was not in fighting condition; and Schuyler appealed for help to the authorities of Ma.s.sachusetts. "Dear neighbours and friends, we must acquaint you that nevir poor People in the world was in a worse Condition than we are at Present, no Governour nor Command, no money to forward any expedition, and scarce Men enough to maintain the Citty. We have here plainly laid the case before you, and doubt not but you will so much take it to heart, and make all Readinesse in the Spring to invade Canida by water." [Footnote: _Schuyler, Wessell, and Van Rensselaer to the Governor and Council of Ma.s.sachusetts,_ 15 _Feb.,_ 1690, in _Andros Tracts,_ III. 114.] The Mohawks were of the same mind. Their elders came down to Albany to condole with their Dutch and English friends on the late disaster. "We are come," said their orator, "with tears in our eyes, to lament the murders committed at Schenectady by the perfidious French. Onontio comes to our country to speak of peace, but war is at his heart. He has broken into our house at both ends, once among the Senecas and once here; but we hope to be revenged. Brethren, our covenant with you is a silver chain that cannot rust or break. We are of the race of the bear; and the bear does not yield, so long as there is a drop of blood in his body. Let us all be bears. We will go together with an army to ruin the country of the French. Therefore, send in all haste to New England. Let them be ready with ships and great guns to attack by water, while we attack by land." [Footnote: _Propositions made by the Sachems of ye. Maquase (Mohawk) Castles to ye. Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonality of ye. Citty of Albany, ye. 25 day of february_, 1690, in _Doc. Hist. N. Y._, II. 164-169.] Schuyler did not trust his red allies, who, however, seem on this occasion to have meant what they said. He lost no time in sending commissioners to urge the several governments of New England to a combined attack on the French.
New England needed no prompting to take up arms; for she presently learned to her cost that, though feeble and prostrate, Canada could sting. The war-party which attacked Schenectady was, as we have seen, but one of three which Frontenac had sent against the English borders.
The second, aimed at New Hampshire, left Three Rivers on the twenty-eighth of January, commanded by Francois Hertel. It consisted of twenty-four Frenchmen, twenty Abenakis of the Sokoki band, and five Algonquins. After three months of excessive hardship in the vast and rugged wilderness that intervened, they approached the little settlement of Salmon Falls on the stream which separates New Hampshire from Maine; and here for a moment we leave them, to observe the state of this unhappy frontier.
It was twelve years and more since the great Indian outbreak, called King Philip"s War, had carried havoc through all the borders of New England. After months of stubborn fighting, the fire was quenched in Ma.s.sachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut; but in New Hampshire and Maine it continued to burn fiercely till the treaty of Casco, in 1678.
The princ.i.p.al Indians of this region were the tribes known collectively as the Abenakis. The French had established relations with them through the missionaries; and now, seizing the opportunity, they persuaded many of these distressed and exasperated savages to leave the neighborhood of the English, migrate to Canada, and settle first at Sillery near Quebec and then at the falls of the Chaudiere.
Here the two Jesuits, Jacques and Vincent Bigot, prime agents in their removal, took them in charge; and the missions of St. Francis became villages of Abenaki Christians, like the village of Iroquois Christians at Saut St. Louis. In both cases, the emigrants were sheltered under the wing of Canada; and they and their tomahawks were always at her service. The two Bigots spared no pains to induce more of the Abenakis to join these mission colonies. They were in good measure successful, though the great body of the tribe still clung to their ancient homes on the Saco, the Kennebec, and the Pen.o.bscot.
[Footnote: The Abenaki migration to Canada began as early as the autumn of 1675 (_Relation,_ 1676-77). On the mission of St. Francis on the Chaudiere, see Bigot, _Relation,_ 1684; _Ibid.,_ 1685. It was afterwards removed to the river St. Francis.]
There were ten years of critical and dubious peace along the English border, and then the war broke out again. The occasion of this new uprising is not very clear, and it is hardly worth while to look for it. Between the harsh and reckless borderer on the one side, and the fierce savage on the other, a single spark might at any moment set the frontier in a blaze. The English, however, believed firmly that their French rivals had a hand in the new outbreak; and, in fact, the Abenakis told some of their English captives that Saint-Castin, a French adventurer on the Pen.o.bscot, gave every Indian who would go to the war a pound of gunpowder, two pounds of lead, and a supply of tobacco. [Footnote: Hutchinson, _Hist. Ma.s.s.,_ I. 326. Compare _N. Y.
Col. Docs.,_ IV. 282, 476.] The trading house of Saint-Castin, which stood on ground claimed by England, had lately been plundered by Sir Edmund Andros, and some of the English had foretold that an Indian war would be the consequence; but none of them seem at this time to have suspected that the governor of Canada and his Jesuit friends had any part in their woes. Yet there is proof that this was the case; for Denonville himself wrote to the minister at Versailles that the successes of the Abenakis on this occasion were due to the "good understanding which he had with them," by means of the two brothers Bigot and other Jesuits. [2]
Whatever were the influences that kindled and maintained the war, it spread dismay and havoc through the English settlements. Andros at first made light of it, and complained of the authorities of Boston, because in his absence they had sent troops to protect the settlers; but he soon changed his mind, and in the winter went himself to the scene of action with seven hundred men. Not an Indian did he find.
They had all withdrawn into the depths of the frozen forest. Andros did what he could, and left more than five hundred men in garrison on the Kennebec and the Saco, at Cas...o...b..y, Pemaquid, and various other exposed points. He then returned to Boston, where surprising events awaited him. Early in April, news came that the Prince of Orange had landed in England. There was great excitement. The people of the town rose against Andros, whom they detested as the agent of the despotic policy of James II. They captured his two forts with their garrisons of regulars, seized his frigate in the harbor, placed him and his chief adherents in custody, elected a council of safety, and set at its head their former governor, Bradstreet, an old man of eighty-seven. The change was disastrous to the eastern frontier. Of the garrisons left for its protection the winter before, some were partially withdrawn by the new council; while others, at the first news of the revolution, mutinied, seized their officers, and returned home. [3] These garrisons were withdrawn or reduced, partly perhaps because the hated governor had established them, partly through distrust of his officers, some of whom were taken from the regulars, and partly because the men were wanted at Boston. The order of withdrawal cannot be too strongly condemned. It was a part of the bungling inefficiency which marked the military management of the New England governments from the close of Philip"s war to the peace of Utrecht.
When spring opened, the Indians turned with redoubled fury against the defenceless frontier, seized the abandoned stockades, and butchered the helpless settlers. Now occurred the memorable catastrophe at Cocheco, or Dover. Two squaws came at evening and begged lodging in the palisaded house of Major Waldron. At night, when all was still, they opened the gates and let in their savage countrymen. Waldron was eighty years old. He leaped from his bed, seized his sword, and drove back the a.s.sailants through two rooms; but, as he turned to s.n.a.t.c.h his pistols, they stunned him by the blow of a hatchet, bound him in an arm-chair, and placed him on a table, where after torturing him they killed him with his own sword. The crowning event of the war was the capture of Pemaquid, a stockade work, mounted with seven or eight cannon. Andros had placed in it a garrison of a hundred and fifty-six men, under an officer devoted to him. Most of them had been withdrawn by the council of safety; and the entire force of the defenders consisted of Lieutenant James Weems and thirty soldiers, nearly half of whom appear to have been absent at the time of the attack. [4]
The Indian a.s.sailants were about a hundred in number, all Christian converts from mission villages. By a sudden rush, they got possession of a number of houses behind the fort, occupied only by women and children, the men being at their work. [Footnote: _Captivity of John Gyles._ Gyles was one of the inhabitants.] Some ensconced themselves in the cellars, and others behind a rock on the seash.o.r.e, whence they kept up a close and galling fire. On the next day, Weems surrendered, under a promise of life, and, as the English say, of liberty to himself and all his followers. The fourteen men who had survived the fire, along with a number of women and children, issued from the gate, upon which some were butchered on the spot, and the rest, excepting Weems and a few others, were made prisoners. In other respects, the behavior of the victors is said to have been creditable. They tortured n.o.body, and their chiefs broke the rum barrels in the fort, to prevent disorder. Father Thury, a priest of the seminary of Quebec, was present at the attack; and the a.s.sailants were a part of his Abenaki flock. Religion was one of the impelling forces of the war. In the eyes of the Indian converts, it was a crusade against the enemies of G.o.d. They made their vows to the Virgin before the fight; and the squaws, in their distant villages on the Pen.o.bscot, told unceasing beads, and offered unceasing prayers for victory. [5]
The war now ran like wildfire through the settlements of Maine and New Hampshire. Sixteen fortified houses, with or without defenders, are said to have fallen into the hands of the enemy; and the extensive district then called the county of Cornwall was turned to desolation.
Ma.s.sachusetts and Plymouth sent hasty levies of raw men, ill-armed and ill-officered, to the scene of action. At Cas...o...b..y, they met a large body of Indians, whom they routed after a desultory fight of six hours; and then, as the approaching winter seemed to promise a respite from attack, most of them were withdrawn and disbanded.
It was a false and fatal security. Through snow and ice and storm, Hertel and his band were moving on their prey. On the night of the twenty-seventh of March, they lay hidden in the forest that bordered the farms and clearings of Salmon Falls. Their scouts reconnoitred the place, and found a fortified house with two stockade forts, built as a refuge for the settlers in case of alarm. Towards daybreak, Hertel, dividing his followers into three parties, made a sudden and simultaneous attack. The settlers, unconscious of danger, were in their beds. No watch was kept even in the so-called forts; and, when the French and Indians burst in, there was no time for their few tenants to gather for defence. The surprise was complete; and, after a short struggle, the a.s.sailants were successful at every point. They next turned upon the scattered farms of the neighborhood, burned houses, barns, and cattle, and laid the entire settlement in ashes.
About thirty persons of both s.e.xes and all ages were tomahawked or shot; and fifty-four, chiefly women and children, were made prisoners.
Two Indian scouts now brought word that a party of English was advancing to the scene of havoc from Piscataqua, or Portsmouth, not many miles distant. Hertel called his men together, and began his retreat. The pursuers, a hundred and forty in number, overtook him about sunset at Wooster River, where the swollen stream was crossed by a narrow bridge. Hertel and his followers made a stand on the farther bank, killed and wounded a number of the English as they attempted to cross, kept up a brisk fire on the rest, held them in check till night, and then continued their retreat. The prisoners, or some of them, were given to the Indians, who tortured one or more of the men, and killed and tormented children and infants with a cruelty not always equalled by their heathen countrymen. [6]
Hertel continued his retreat to one of the Abenaki villages on the Kennebec. Here he learned that a band of French and Indians had lately pa.s.sed southward on their way to attack the English fort at Cas...o...b..y, on the site of Portland. Leaving at the village his eldest son, who had been badly wounded at Wooster River, he set out to join them with thirty-six of his followers. The band in question was Frontenac"s third war-party. It consisted of fifty French and sixty Abenakis from the mission of St. Francis; and it had left Quebec in January, under a Canadian officer named Portneuf and his lieutenant, Courtemanche. They advanced at their leisure, often stopping to hunt, till in May they were joined on the Kennebec by a large body of Indian warriors. On the twenty-fifth, Portneuf encamped in the forest near the English forts, with a force which, including Hertel"s party, the Indians of the Kennebec, and another band led by Saint-Castin from the Pen.o.bscot, amounted to between four and five hundred men. [Footnote: _Declaration of Sylva.n.u.s Davis; Mather, Magnalia_, II. 603.] Fort Loyal was a palisade work with eight cannon, standing on rising ground by the sh.o.r.e of the bay, at what is now the foot of India Street in the city of Portland. Not far distant were four block-houses and a village which they were designed to protect. These with the fort were occupied by about a hundred men, chiefly settlers of the neighborhood, under Captain Sylva.n.u.s Davis, a prominent trader. Around lay rough and broken fields stretching to the skirts of the forest half a mile distant. Some of Portneuf"s scouts met a straggling Scotchman, and could not resist the temptation of killing him. Their scalp-yells alarmed the garrison, and thus the advantage of surprise was lost.
Davis resolved to keep his men within their defences, and to stand on his guard; but there was little or no discipline in the yeoman garrison, and thirty young volunteers under Lieutenant Thaddeus Clark sallied out to find the enemy. They were too successful; for, as they approached the top of a hill near the woods, they observed a number of cattle staring with a scared look at some object on the farther side of a fence; and, rightly judging that those they sought were hidden there, they raised a cheer, and ran to the spot. They were met by a fire so close and deadly that half their number were shot down. A crowd of Indians leaped the fence and rushed upon the survivors, who ran for the fort; but only four, all of whom were wounded, succeeded in reaching it. [Footnote: _Relation de Monseignat_; La Potherie, III.
79.]
The men in the blockhouses withdrew under cover of night to Fort Loyal, where the whole force of the English was now gathered along with their frightened families. Portneuf determined to besiege the place in form; and, after burning the village, and collecting tools from the abandoned blockhouses, he opened his trenches in a deep gully within fifty yards of the fort, where his men were completely protected. They worked so well that in three days they had wormed their way close to the palisade; and, covered as they were in their burrows, they lost scarcely a man, while their enemies suffered severely. They now summoned the fort to surrender. Davis asked for a delay of six days, which was refused; and in the morning the fight began again. For a time the fire was sharp and heavy. The English wasted much powder in vain efforts to dislodge the besiegers from their trenches; till at length, seeing a machine loaded with a tar-barrel and other combustibles shoved against their palisades, they asked for a parley. Up to this time, Davis had supposed that his a.s.sailants were all Indians, the French being probably dressed and painted like their red allies. "We demanded," he says, "if there were any French among them, and if they would give us quarter. They answered that they were Frenchmen, and that they would give us good quarter. Upon this, we sent out to them again to know from whence they came, and if they would give us good quarter for our men, women, and children, both wounded and sound, and (to demand) that we should have liberty to march to the next English town, and have a guard for our defence and safety; then we would surrender; and also that the governour of the French should hold up his hand and swear by the great and ever living G.o.d that the several articles should be performed: all which he did solemnly swear."
The survivors of the garrison now filed through the gate, and laid down their arms. They with their women and children were thereupon abandoned to the Indians, who murdered many of them, and carried off the rest. When Davis protested against this breach of faith, he was told that he and his countrymen were rebels against their lawful king, James II. After spiking the cannon, burning the fort, and destroying all the neighboring settlements, the triumphant allies departed for their respective homes, leaving the slain unburied where they had fallen. [7]
Davis with three or four others, more fortunate than their companions, was kept by the French, and carried to Canada. "They were kind to me,"
he says, "on my travels through the country. I arrived at Quebeck the 14th of June, where I was civilly treated by the gentry, and soon carried to the fort before the governour, the Earl of Frontenack."
Frontenac told him that the governor and people of New York were the cause of the war, since they had stirred up the Iroquois against Canada, and prompted them to torture French prisoners. [Footnote: I am unable to discover the foundation of this last charge.] Davis replied that New York and New England were distinct and separate governments, each of which must answer for its own deeds; and that New England would gladly have remained at peace with the French, if they had not set on the Indians to attack her peaceful settlers. Frontenac admitted that the people of New England were not to be regarded in the same light with those who had stirred up the Indians against Canada; but he added that they were all rebels to their king, and that if they had been good subjects there would have been no war. "I do believe,"
observes the captive Puritan, "that there was a popish design against the Protestant interest in New England as in other parts of the world." He told Frontenac of the pledge given by his conqueror, and the violation of it. "We were promised good quarter," he reports himself to have said, "and a guard to conduct us to our English; but now we are made captives and slaves in the hands of the heathen. I thought I had to do with Christians that would have been careful of their engagements, and not to violate and break their oaths. Whereupon the governour shaked his head, and, as I was told, was very angry with Burniffe (_Portneuf_)."
Frontenac was pleased with his prisoner, whom he calls a _bonhomme_.
He told him in broken English to take courage, and promised him good treatment; to which Davis replied that his chief concern was not for himself, but for the captives in the hands of the Indians. Some of these were afterwards ransomed by the French, and treated with much kindness, as was also Davis himself, to whom the count gave lodging in the chateau.
The triumphant success of his three war-parties produced on the Canadian people all the effect that Frontenac had expected. This effect was very apparent, even before the last two victories had become known. "You cannot believe, Monseigneur," wrote the governor, speaking of the capture of Schenectady, "the joy that this slight success has caused, and how much it contributes to raise the people from their dejection and terror."
One untoward accident damped the general joy for a moment. A party of Iroquois Christians from the Saut St. Louis had made a raid against the English borders, and were returning with prisoners. One evening, as they were praying at their camp near Lake Champlain, they were discovered by a band of Algonquins and Abenakis who were out on a similar errand, and who, mistaking them for enemies, set upon them and killed several of their number, among whom was Kryn, the great Mohawk, chief of the mission of the Saut. This mishap was near causing a rupture between the best Indian allies of the colony; but the difference was at length happily adjusted, and the relatives of the slain propitiated by gifts. [Footnote: The attacking party consisted of some of the Abenakis and Algonquins who had been with Hertel, and who had left the main body after the destruction of Salmon Falls.
Several of them were killed in the skirmish, and among the rest their chief, Hopehood, or Wohawa, "that memorable tygre," as Cotton Mather calls him.]
[1] Many of the authorities on the burning of Schenectady will be found in the _Doc.u.mentary History of New York_, I. 297-312. One of the most important is a portion of the long letter of M. de Monseignat, comptroller-general of the marine in Canada, to a lady of rank, said to be Madame de Maintenon. Others are contemporary doc.u.ments preserved at Albany, including, among others, the lists of killed and captured, letters of Leisler to the governor of Maryland, the governor of Ma.s.sachusetts, the governor of Barbadoes, and the Bishop of Salisbury; of Robert Livingston to Sir Edmund Andros and to Captain Nicholson; and of Mr. Van Cortlandt to Sir Edmund Andros. One of the best contemporary authorities is a letter of Schuyler and his colleagues to the governor and council of Ma.s.sachusetts, 15 February, 1690, preserved in the Ma.s.sachusetts archives, and printed in the third volume of Mr. Whitmore"s _Andros Tracts_. La Potherie, Charlevoix, Colden, Smith, and many others, give accounts at second-hand.
Johannes Sander, or Alexander, Glen, was the son of a Scotchman of good family. He was usually known as Captain Sander. The French wrote the name _Cendre_, which became transformed into _Condre_, and then into _Coudre_. In the old family Bible of the Glens, still preserved at the place named by them Scotia, near Schenectady, is an entry in Dutch recording the "murders" committed by the French, and the exemption accorded to Alexander Glen on account of services rendered by him and his family to French prisoners. See _Proceedings of N. Y.
Hist. Soc._, 1846, 118.
The French called Schenectady Corlaer or Corlar, from Van Curler, its founder. Its treatment at their hands was ill deserved, as its inhabitants, and notably Van Curler himself, had from the earliest times been the protectors of French captives among the Mohawks.
Leisler says that only one-sixth of the inhabitants escaped unhurt.
[2] "En partant de Canada, j"ay laisse une tres grande disposition a attirer au Christianisme la plus grande partie des sauvages Abenakis qui abitent les bois du voisinage de Baston. Pour cela il faut les attirer a la mission nouvellement etablie pres Quebec sous le nom de S. Francois de Sale. Je l"ai vue en peu de temps au nombre de six cents ames venues du voisinage de Baston. Je l"ay laissee en estat d"augmenter beaucoup si elle est protegee; j"y ai fait quelque depense qui n"est pas inutile. _La bonne intelligence que j"ai eue avec ces sauvages par les soins des Jesuites, et surtout des deux peres Bigot freres a fait le succes de toutes les attaques qu"ils ont faites sur les Anglois cet este_, aux quels ils ont enleve 16 forts, outre celuy de Pemcuit (_Pemaquid_) ou il y avoit 20 pieces de canon, et leur ont tue plus de 200 hommes." _Denonville au Ministre, Jan._, 1690.
It is to be observed that this Indian outbreak began in the summer of 1688, when there was peace between France and England. News of the declaration of war did not reach Canada till July, 1689. (Belmont.) Dover and other places were attacked in June of the same year.
The intendant Champigny says that most of the Indians who attacked the English were from the mission villages near Quebec. _Champigny au Ministre_, 16 _Nov._, 1689. He says also that he supplied them with gunpowder for the war.
The "forts" taken by the Indians on the Kennebec at this time were nothing but houses protected by palisades. They were taken by treachery and surprise. _Lettre du Pere Thury_, 1689. Thury says that 142 men, women, and children were killed.
[3] _Andros, Account of Forces in Maine,_ in 3 _Ma.s.s. Hist. Coll.,_ I.
85. Compare _Andros Tracts,_ I. 177; _Ibid.,_ II. 181, 193, 207, 213, 217; _Ibid.,_ III. 232; _Report of Andros_ in _N. Y. Col. Docs.,_ III.
722. The order for the reduction of the garrisons and the return of the suspected officers was pa.s.sed at the first session of the council of safety, 20 April. The agents of Ma.s.sachusetts at London endeavored to justify it. See _Andros Tracts,_ III. 34. The only regular troops in New England were two companies brought by Andros. Most of them were kept at Boston, though a few men and officers were sent to the eastern garrison. These regulars were regarded with great jealousy, and denounced as "a crew that began to teach New England to Drab, Drink, Blaspheme, Curse, and Damm." _Ibid.,_ II. 50.
In their hatred of Andros, many of the people of New England held the groundless and foolish belief that he was in secret collusion with the French and Indians. Their most dangerous domestic enemies were some of their own traders, who covertly sold arms and ammunition to the Indians.
[4] Andros in 3 _Ma.s.s. Hist. Coll.,_ I. 85. The original commanding officer, Brockholes, was reputed a "papist." Hence his removal.
_Andros Tracts,_ III. 35. Andros says that but eighteen men were left in the fort. A list of them in the archives of Ma.s.sachusetts, certified by Weems himself, shows that there were thirty. Doubt is thrown on this certificate by the fact that the object of it was to obtain a grant of money in return for advances of pay made by Weems to his soldiers. Weems was a regular officer. A number of letters from him, showing his condition before the attack, will be found in Johnston, _History of Bristol, Bremen, and Pemaquid_.
[5] Thury, _Relation du Combat des Canibas_. Compare Hutchinson, _Hist. Ma.s.s_., I. 352, and Mather, _Magnalia_, II. 590 (ed. 1853). The murder of prisoners after the capitulation has been denied. Thury incidentally confirms the statement, when, after saying that he exhorted the Indians to refrain from drunkenness and cruelty, he adds that, in consequence, they did not take a single scalp, and "_tuerent sur le champ ceux qu"ils voulurent tuer_."
English accounts place the number of Indians at from two to three hundred. Besides the persons taken in the fort, a considerable number were previously killed, or captured in the houses and fields. Those who were spared were carried to the Indian towns on the Pen.o.bscot, the seat of Thury"s mission. La Motte-Cadillac, in his _Memoire sur l"Acadie_, 1692, says that 80 persons in all were killed; an evident exaggeration. He adds that Weems and six men were spared at the request of the chief, Madockawando. The taking of Pemaquid is remarkable as one of the very rare instances in which Indians have captured a fortified place otherwise than by treachery or surprise.
The exploit was undoubtedly due to French prompting. We shall see hereafter with what energy and success Thury incited his flock to war.
[6] The archives of Ma.s.sachusetts contain various papers on the disaster at Salmon Falls. Among them is the report of the authorities of Portsmouth to the governor and council at Boston, giving many particulars, and asking aid. They estimate the killed and captured at upwards of eighty, of whom about one fourth were men. They say that about twenty houses were burnt, and mention but one fort. The other, mentioned in the French accounts, was, probably a palisaded house.
Speaking of the combat at the bridge, they say, "We fought as long as we could distinguish friend from foe. We lost two killed and six or seven wounded, one mortally." The French accounts say fourteen. This letter is accompanied by the examination of a French prisoner, taken the same day. Compare Mather, _Magnalia_, II. 595; Belknap, _Hist. New Hampshire_, I. 207; _Journal of Rev. John Pike (Proceedings of Ma.s.s.
Hist. Soc_. 1875); and the French accounts of Monseignat and La Potherie. Charlevoix adds various embellishments, not to be found in the original sources. Later writers copy and improve upon him, until Hertel is pictured as charging the pursuers sword in hand, while the English fly in disorder before him.
[7] Their remains were buried by Captain Church, three years later. On the capture of Fort Loyal, compare Monseignat and La Potherie with Mather, _Magnalia_, II. 603, and the _Declaration of Sylva.n.u.s Davis_, in 3 _Ma.s.s. Hist. Coll_., I. 101. Davis makes curious mistakes in regard to French names, his rustic ear not being accustomed to the accents of the Gallic tongue. He calls Courtemanche, Monsieur Corte de March, and Portneuf, Monsieur Burniffe or Burneffe. To these contemporary authorities may be added the account given by Le Clercq, _Etabliss.e.m.e.nt de la Foy_, II. 393, and a letter from Governor Bradstreet of Ma.s.sachusetts to Jacob Leisler in _Doc. Hist. N. Y_., II. 259. The French writers of course say nothing of any violation of faith on the part of the victors, but they admit that the Indians kept most of the prisoners. Scarcely was the fort taken, when four English vessels appeared in the harbor, too late to save it. Willis, in his _History of Portland_ (ed. 1865), gives a map of Fort Loyal and the neighboring country. In the Ma.s.sachusetts archives is a letter from Davis, written a few days before the attack, complaining that his fort is in wretched condition.
CHAPTER XII.
1690.
Ma.s.sACHUSETTS ATTACKS QUEBEC.
ENGLISH SCHEMES.--CAPTURE OF PORT ROYAL.--ACADIA REDUCED.--CONDUCT OF PHIPS.--HIS HISTORY AND CHARACTER.--BOSTON IN ARMS.--A PURITAN CRUSADE.--THE MARCH FROM ALBANY.--FRONTENAC AND THE COUNCIL.--FRONTENAC AT MONTREAL.--HIS WAR DANCE.--AN ABORTIVE EXPEDITION.--AN ENGLISH RAID.--FRONTENAC AT QUEBEC.--DEFENCES OF THE TOWN.--THE ENEMY ARRIVES.
When Frontenac sent his war-parties against New York and New England, it was in the hope not only of reanimating the Canadians, but also of teaching the Iroquois that they could not safely rely on English aid, and of inciting the Abenakis to renew their attacks on the border settlements. He imagined, too, that the British colonies could be chastised into prudence and taught a policy of conciliation towards their Canadian neighbors; but he mistook the character of these bold and vigorous though not martial communities. The plan of a combined attack on Canada seems to have been first proposed by the Iroquois; and New York and the several governments of New England, smarting under French and Indian attacks, hastened to embrace it. Early in May, a congress of their delegates was held in the city of New York. It was agreed that the colony of that name should furnish four hundred men, and Ma.s.sachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut three hundred and fifty-five jointly; while the Iroquois afterwards added their worthless pledge to join the expedition with nearly all their warriors. The colonial militia were to rendezvous at Albany, and thence advance upon Montreal by way of Lake Champlain. Mutual jealousies made it difficult to agree upon a commander; but Winthrop of Connecticut was at length placed at the head of the feeble and discordant band.
While Montreal was thus a.s.sailed by land, Ma.s.sachusetts and the other New England colonies were invited to attack Quebec by sea; a task formidable in difficulty and in cost, and one that imposed on them an inordinate share in the burden of the war. Ma.s.sachusetts hesitated.
She had no money, and she was already engaged in a less remote and less critical enterprise. During the winter, her commerce had suffered from French cruisers, which found convenient harborage at Port Royal, whence also the hostile Indians were believed to draw supplies Seven vessels, with two hundred and eighty-eight sailors, were impressed, and from four to five hundred militia-men were drafted for the service. [Footnote: _Summary of Muster Roll, appended to A Journal of the Expedition from Boston against Port Royal_, among the papers of George Chalmers in the Library of Harvard College.] That rugged son of New England, Sir William Phips, was appointed to the command. He sailed from Nantasket at the end of April, reached Port Royal on the eleventh of May, landed his militia, and summoned Meneval, the governor, to surrender. The fort, though garrisoned by about seventy soldiers, was scarcely in condition to repel an a.s.sault; and Meneval yielded without resistance, first stipulating, according to French accounts, that private property should be respected, the church left untouched, and the troops sent to Quebec or to France. [Footnote: _Relation de la Prise du Port Royal, par les Anglois de Baston_, piece anonyme, 27 _Mai_, 1690.] It was found, however, that during the parley a quant.i.ty of goods, belonging partly to the king and partly to merchants of the place, had been carried off and hidden in the woods.