May 20.

Postponement of

Oct. 11.

The Massachusetts troops were promptly mustered at Boston before the end of spring, in consequence of partial intelligence which had preceded the full development of the plan.1 The western contingent proceeded towards Lake Champlain, and lay encamped at Wood Creek, awaiting information of the arrival at Boston. of the English fleet. Month passed after month of anxiety and expense, and the fleet did not appear. At length, General Stanhope having lost the battle operations. of Almanza, intelligence came that the troops expected in Boston were wanted in Portugal, and had been sent thither; and the ministers directed a consideration of the question, whether the preparations which had been made in Massachusetts might not be serviceable against Port Royal. The plan was approved at a consultation between the New England Governors. But the officers in command of the few King's ships which had come to Boston declared that their orders would not justify them in affording assistance, and they took the responsibility of sailing away at once. There was now no convoy for the troops, and, on a request from the General Court, the Governor disbanded them, to put an end to the oppressive expense. The army at Wood Creek, under the command of Nicholson, Lieutenant-Governor of New York,

3

Dudley wrote to Lord Sunderland: "I have these seven years last past represented to her Majesty, by all the offices proper, the unspeakable benefit to the British nation to have all the North America in her Majesty's hands, of which there is now a fair prospect, by the favor of Almighty God." (British Colonial Papers.)

1 As early as March 1, 1709, Vetch received instructions on the subject, which recognized him in a manner as the originator of the scheme. (Papers in the British Colonial Office.) Writing from New York, May 18, he reported that vessels which had

been despatched from Portsmouth, March 11, had reached Boston, April 28.- May 26, in his speech at the opening of the General Court for elections, Dudley announced the Queen's purpose, and recommended the utmost expedition and diligence on the part of the Province in carrying out the project.

2 See letter (dated Boston, Oct. 24, 1709) of Dudley, Vetch, Nicholson, and Moody to Lord Sunderland, in British Colonial Papers.

Dudley put the best face upon the matter in a speech to the General Court, October 26.

was distressed by an epidemic sickness, occasioned, as was afterwards believed, by the perfidy of their native allies, who threw putrid skins into a stream which supplied the English camp. That force also, threatened by a movement of the French, precipitately withdrew, and the whole costly expedition came to nothing.

1710.

Sept. 24.

The project was renewed in the next year as to the less important of its objects, - the conquest of Nova Scotia. Nicholson, who had gone to England for the purpose of urging it, returned to Boston with a fleet of small vessels,. which was increased during the summer, by ships of the four New England Colonies and of the July 15. royal navy, to the number of thirty-six. These conveyed to Port Royal a force, under his command, consisting of four regiments from New England, and a regiment of royal marines. The garrison, under the command of the officer, Subercase, who had foiled Captain Wainwright three years before, consisted of only two hundred and fifty men, and was too feeble to oppose the landing. At the end of a week, some mortar batteries having been erected, a summons was sent into the fort, and it capitulated the following day on favorable terms. The garrison was to march out Scotia. with the honors of war, and be conveyed to a French post. Persons dwelling within three miles of the fort (who turned out to be four hundred and eighty-one in number) had liberty to remain for two years at their homes, with their farm-stock, provisions, and furniture, on taking the oaths of allegiance and fidelity to the Queen. fort was out of repair, and the siege cost the English the lives of only fourteen or fifteen men. But the French were dissatisfied with their officer's conduct. Agreeably

1 Charlevoix, II. 337, 339.

2 Charlevoix (II. 341) relates that this was learned by the French from English prisoners. Jeremiah Dummer, in England, had solicited the

Conquest

of Nova

Oct. 1.

The

appointment of Judge-Advocate to this expedition. (British Colonial Papers for July 15.)

8 Haliburton, Nova Scotia, I. 85. Charlevoix, II. 343.

to a promise from Lord Sunderland, Vetch was "left in command there."1 It was also intended that he should be Governor of Canada, when further projected operations should have succeeded.2 Nova Scotia has remained ever since a possession of the British crown.

The summer had brought its accustomed sorrows along the line of the outlying settlements. At Exeter three men were killed, among them Colonel Hilton, of Norridgewock memory. At York, Biddeford, Berwick, Chelmsford, Brookfield, and other places, some murders were committed. The savages went as far as Connecticut, where they entered the towns of Simsbury and Waterbury.3

Lord Bol

In England the Tory statesmen, Harley and St. John, were now in full power, from whom the people ingbroke's of Massachusetts did not presume to expect proofs project for of friendship for themselves, or of hostility to France. The surprise was great when Nicholson, who, before the change in the English minis

the conquest of Quebec.

1 Penhallow, 49-56; Niles, in Mass. Hist. Col., XXXV. 319-323; comp. letter of Dudley to the Secretary of State, of Nov. 15, 1710, in British Colonial Papers.

2The charge last year, when we did nothing, and the reduction of Port Royal this year, have cost this Province forty. thousand pounds, which, added to their debts for the defence of the frontiers, will leave them greatly in arrears, while Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Jersey, and New York are covered by these northern Provinces, and sit quiet from losses or charges." (Letter of Dudley to the Secretary of State, of Nov. 15, 1710, in British Colonial Papers.) — March 21, 1711, "Governor Vetch" drew, in favor of his friend "John Borland, her Majesty's agent," for £2115, "for one hundred and twenty days' victualling of five hundred and sixty-four

men," serving "in her Majesty's garrison of Annapolis Royal, in Nova Scotia." (British Colonial Papers.) - Dec. 31, 1712, three months before the peace, the Massachusetts House of Deputies refused to make a grant for supplies to Port Royal. (General Court Records, sub die.)-Hutchinson mentions (II. 185) a message sent at this time to Quebec, by the way of Penobscot River, to acquaint Vaudreuil with the conquest of Acadia, and demand the restoration of his prisoners (comp. Penhallow, 56); and he says that the journal of Major Livingstone, who conducted the expedition, was in his hands. After being lost sight of for a century, it has come a few years ago into the possession of the Chicago Historical Society. (Proceedings of the Mass. Hist. Soc. for 1861, 230.)

8 Mass. Hist. Col., XXXV. 325, 326; Penhallow, 58, 59.

1711.

Jan. 3.

try, had gone to England to solicit aid in another expedition,' returned with two frigates and two transports, bringing orders to proceed in the plan on a large June 8. scale. His representations had been seconded by those of the very able Jeremiah Dummer, who, the autumn before, had been charged by the General Court of the Province with the agency in England, Sir Henry Ashurst being now dead, and his brother, Sir William, having declined to succeed him.3 A fleet was promised, and the engagement was presently made good by its appearance in Boston Harbor,

1710.

Nov. 11.

1711.

after a seven weeks' voyage, to the number of June 24. fifteen men-of-war of different sizes, and forty transports, conveying more than five thousand troops. As one of the methods to conceal its destination, it was not provisioned in England, but supplies for it for ten weeks were to be procured in Boston.

The extreme difficulty, which might prove to be an impossibility, of making this provision, led to a suspicion that the home government was not sincere, but intended to impute to the Colony the failure which would ensue. The jealousy was not unnatural, considering what had occurred in the last year; but in this instance it was without foundation. Letters of the Secretary, St. John' (soon to be Lord Bolingbroke), admit no doubt of his having

1 Letter of Dudley to Lord Dartmouth, of May 22, 1711, in British Colonial Papers.

2 Memorial of Jeremiah Dummer, of Sept. 10, 1709, in Mass. Hist. Col., XXI. 231, and of Jan. 3, 1711, in British Colonial Papers.

3 June 6, 1710, Jeremiah Dummer informed the Board of Trade that the government of Massachusetts had appointed Sir William Ashurst to be their agent, but that he, being incapacitated by ill-health, had devolved the trust upon himself (Dummer). November 11, Dudley unwill

ingly signed Dummer's commission as agent. (Journal of Board of Trade for June 6, 1710, and Feb. 5, 1711.)

* In the year 1706, Charles, Earl of Sunderland, had succeeded Sir Charles Hodges as Secretary of State; in the following year Henry Boyle succeeded Harley; June 14, 1710, Lord Sunderland gave place to William Lord Dartmouth; in September of the same year, Henry Boyle to Henry St. John; in 1713, Lord Dartmouth to William Bromley.

been in impatient earnest as to this business. Apparently the Tory ministers, who had been scheming to arrest Marlborough's great series of victories in Europe, and withdrawing his troops, wished to compensate this proceeding, and protect their popularity, by so striking an exploit of their own as would have been the conquest of New France; and it would have been a special satisfaction to the Queen's new favorite, Mrs. Masham, if at the same time that she distressed her discarded rival by the recall of the great Duke from his triumphs on the continent, she could have raised her brother to consequence as the winner of a new empire for England in America, and gratified Harley, her kinsman, by the glory which that conquest would have shed upon his administration.

February

St. John's mind seems to have been filled with August. this scheme during half of the first year of his official life, till it failed. No one was informed of it,— so he writes to Hunter, Governor of New York, Feb. 6. in a letter of which he sent a copy to Dudley,except the Queen, himself, and his colleague, Lord Dartmouth. "It is my favorite project," he says, “which I have been driving on ever since I came last into business, what will be an immense and lasting advantage to our country, if it succeeds, and what, if it fails, will perhaps be particularly prejudicial to me." Those who were to be employed in the expedition were made to understand that it was destined for a landing in the south of France. Sealed instructions were prepared for the naval commander, not to be examined by him till he should reach the fortieth degree of latitude. When, after some delay, at which St. John constantly and passionately ex

April 10.

1 Yet it seems a very different view of St. John's object was entertained, according to Grahame, who does not give his authority for the statement. 66 Harley. . . . . subsequently affirmed, in a memorial to

the Queen, that the whole affair was a contrivance of Lord Bolingbroke and the Lord Chancellor Harcourt to defraud the public of twenty thou sand pounds." (Comp. Smith, History of New York, 131.)