But before any thing was decided he was seized with an illness, which perhaps was aggravated by prosecutions instituted against him in London by Dudley and Brenton, and which brought his life to an end Feb. 18. within a few weeks after his arrival. 1695. 1693 Renewal Meanwhile the war with the savages had been disastrously renewed, being stimulated by the Catholic missionaries from Canada, of whom the most noted, Sebastian Rasle, had lately established himself at Norridgewock on the Kennebec. In the hamlet in Dover called Oyster River, there were now twelve gar- of Indian rison-houses. At dawn of a midsummer day, these hostilities. were assailed at one moment by a party of Eastern savages, judged to be not far from two hundred and fifty in number, led by a French officer and a French July 17. priest. Four years having passed since their last invasion, and the treaty made the last summer at Pemaquid being in force, the occupants were off their guard and scantily supplied with ammunition, while most of the neighbors remained in their own dwellings; but, on the other hand, the signal of the Indians was prematurely given, and the William to think well of him, but served in the House for several towns and villages at some distance, where some of them were born, and others had their estates and improvements above any dwellers in the place for which they served. To be rid of them all at once, a bill was brought in, or rather a clause brought into a bill, that no man whatsoever should serve in the House of Commons for any town, unless where he did at that time live and dwell, which passed with the dissent of twenty-four, the whole House consisting of fifty, and with some heat in the Upper House. Sir William hereupon rushes into the House of Commons, and drives out the non-residents, and I am mistaken if either for estates or loyalty they 1694. left any of their equals in that House." -Jan. 12, 1694, Byfield wrote from Boston to Dudley in London an account of Phips's objecting, at the May meeting of the General Court, to certain Representatives, who, it appears, had been elected in violation of the law of the previous November. (See above, p. 143.) "Let not the Governor's treatment of the Assembly and abuse offered to the King's charter in refusing the five members die, but let us know how such things are resented at Whitehall." To Usher Byfield writes (July 12) of Phips's treatment of the Assembly the year before: "It has been such as I do think no place belonging to the English nation comparable." (British Colonial Papers.) surprise was not complete. In one house were fourteen persons, who were all massacred, and all lie buried in one grave. Another garrison-house was surrendered on a promise, which was not kept, of security to life. Three were hastily abandoned, and most of the occupants escaped. The others were defended with success. In one of them a man sent off his family by water, and, remaining alone, changed his dress as he kept firing first from one window, then from another, and shouting as if he had companions. As the morning advanced, the invaders, fearful of being attacked from the neighboring settlements, retreated towards Lake Winnipiseogee, with several prisoners. They had burned five of the fortified houses and fifteen other dwellings, and the number of persons killed and captured by them amounted to nearly a hundred.1 July 21. Once, at least, the savages came to Portsmouth, where, at an outlying farm, they killed the widow of President Cutt, and three of a party of haymakers whose work she was directing. Exeter and Dover, especially the latter settlement, were repeatedly ravaged. At Groton twenty persons were killed and nearly as many made prisoners. Kittery and Haverhill were the scene of more limited massacres. July 27. Sept. 24. 2 The help of the more powerful natives in the Western country was always coveted by the English; and a short time before the departure of Phips, commissioners from New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Connecticut met a delegation of the Five Nations at Albany.3 The Five Nations had by no means abandoned their hostile attitude towards the French. But they were Aug. 15. 1 According to Charlevoix (II. 148), two hundred and thirty English were killed, and fifty or sixty houses burned, while the victors lost not one man, and had only one wounded. I suppose that by "the fort near Boston" (Ibid.) Charle voix, imperfectly informed, meant Groton. 2 Butler, History of Groton, 93. 3 A Journal kept by Wadsworth, one of the Commissioners for Massachusetts, is in Mass. Hist. Col., XXXI. 102, &c. not without their jealousies of the rival people. The conference with them had no result beyond some general assurances of good-will on their part; and without actual intervention in arms they were too remote to exert a useful influence over the tribes which threatened Massachusetts. 1695. March. Sept. 9. August. The Lieutenant-Governor, on whose hands the war was left at Phips's departure, did not want resolution to conduct it.1 New negotiations which were attempted proved delusive or fruitless. The scattered English posts at the East were exposed and feeble, and a fresh succession of massacres began in the spring. Near Saco, near Pemaquid, and elsewhere, more than July 6. fifty Englishmen from the small population which had been recovering its ground were killed or carried away captive. In an opposite quarter the Indians broke up the fourteen years old settlement of French Protestants in Worcester County; and the few Huguenot families, hopeless of a quiet residence on the exposed frontier, removed in a body to Boston. In the following winter, a party of savages presented themselves before Pemaquid, and proposed an exchange of prisoners. Yielding culpably to a not unnatural resentment, Captain Feb. 16. Chubb, the commander of the garrison, allowed an attack upon them, in which four were put to death and some others were taken prisoners. The exasperation which followed increased the activity of the enemy. At Dover they shot, close by his own house, an unwary person 1696. May 7. who had once been their captive; and presently July 26. after, as the townspeople were dispersing from their place of Sunday worship, a party of Indians fired upon them, killed three, wounded three, and laid hands on as many more, whom they carried into captivity. 1 Chalmers (MS. Annals, II.) says that Stoughton "was chosen, not as a soldier, but as a scholar." But he was his father's son, and there was material for a soldier in him. But the marauding movements which had been keeping the detached hamlets in terror, or reducing them July 14. June. to ruin, were presently succeeded by a victory on a different scale. The new fort at Pemaquid, with its strength in structure, armament, and ammunition, and its garrison of a hundred men, had been thought secure. The French Governor of Quebec resolved to attempt it. He despatched from that place two men-of-war and two companies of soldiers, who on their way were reinforced at Port Royal and at the mouth of the Penobscot by some four hundred Indians. The French squadron met and engaged two English armed vessels which were on the watch, and increased its strength by the capture of one of them. When summoned to surrender, Chubb returned a braggart reply; the French landed and invested the place; and Castine, who had accompanied the expedition, sent in a message to the effect, that if there was further delay, the garrison would receive no quarter. Chubb capitulated, with the condition that his command should be protected from harm and insult, and be sent to Boston. The French could not enforce their agreement. The Indians fell upon the English and put many to death, while the rest were withdrawn under a French guard to an island out of their reach. The victors dismantled and blew up the fortification, and set sail for Penobscot River.1 July 15. July 18. Chubb, tried for cowardice, was acquitted. The calami 1 Mather, Magnalia, VII. 84–90; Charlevoix, II. 121, 144, 178. The assault on the English prisoners I state on the authority of Williamson (I. 644). Charlevoix (II. 179) allows the reader to understand that the precautions for their safety proved sufficient. For the French official account of this important conquest, see O'Callaghan (IX. 657, 658). Villebon, Governor of Nova Scotia, had recommended the expedition two years before. "No conjuncture," he wrote to M. de Pontchartrain, Aug. 20, 1694, "can be more favorable than the present to attack Fort Pemaquid, inasmuch as the Indians are resolved to wage a more vigorous and a more cruel war than heretofore, as they have demonstrated in the last expedition [that to Oyster River], having spared neither women nor children." (Ibid., 514.) Aug. 3. Sept. 3. Sept. 28. tous news created consternation at Boston. Five hundred men were immediately enlisted for a campaign at the eastward, and the Lieutenant-Governor gave the command to Benjamin Church, who, if his capacity did not equal his zeal, retained the advantage of a traditional reputation. Four armed vessels were despatched from Boston to the Penobscot,' but did not arrive there till the French squadron had sailed for St. John. Church led his force up the Penobscot, finding some plunder, but no enemy. Returning he met the squadron, with Colonel Hathorne, who came to supersede him in the command. There seemed nothing to be done either by land or sea against an enemy by no means so hard to vanquish as to find, and both troops and ships came back to Boston. In an Address to the King the General Court represented "the exhausted state of the Province through the languishing and wasting war with the French and Indians," and prayed for orders to the several colonial governments to contribute their assistance for the settlement and fortification of Port Royal and St. John; for a supply of ammunition, and the protection of a naval force; and for aid in the reduction of Canada," the unhappy fountain," they said, "from which issue all our miseries." 2 Sept. 24. sented himself to the Privy Council, "and said that he was taken by the French in '91 in attempting to settle Port Royal in Acadia, and that he had been prisoner either there or in France now almost five years." He represented Canada as powerless against a well-concerted invasion, being guarded, two years before, by no more than four hundred soldiers. (Journals of the Board of Trade, sub die.) The Board took his statements into consideration, and referred them (November 20) to the Privy Council, from which they do not appear to have received attention. For fur |