city, burning the houses, and killing, it was said, more than a thousand of the people.1 A further consequence of these transactions was, that for the time the French lost most of the Indian allies, whose fidelity to them had hitherto been steady. This took place just after the overthrow of the government of King James the Second in the parent country, and of Governor Andros in New England. New France. appeared to be in an almost desperate condition. Her pecuniary distress was not what in similar circumstances. was brought about in New England, for the King took care of her military outlays. But her loss of men in the war had been severe; her husbandry had unavoidably been neglected; her interior trade was cut off; and an exasperated savage enemy was at her doors, scarcely less powerful, in numbers, than her own people; well united together, for the present, by a common hate and fear; with plenty of recent experience in the kind of warfare in which it was most formidable; animated to new action by its recent success.2 If New France in such circumstances seemed scarcely equal to cope with the vigorous Five Nations alone, its doom might appear to be certain when, war having been declared by King William against France, the hostile savage power was backed by the equally interested hos 1 Charlevoix, Histoire, &c., I. 549. Charlevoix's relation of this affair has a few touches that help our conception of the character of Indian war, unless, indeed, we should consider them as due to the lively French imagination of the writer. "Ils commencèrent par massacrer tous les hommes; ensuite ils mirent le feu aux maisons. Par-là tous ceux qui y étaient restés tombèrent entre les mains de ces sauvages, et essayèrent tout ce que la fureur peut inspirer à des barbares. Ils la poussèrent même à des excès dont on ne les avait pas encore crus capables. Ils ouvrirent le sein des femmes enceintes, pour en arracher le fruit qu'elles portoient. Ils mirent des enfans tout vivans à la broche, et contraignèrent les mères de les tourner pour les faire rôtir. Ils inventèrent quantité d'autres supplices inouïs, et deux-cent personnes de tout âge et de tout sexe périrent ainsi en moins d'une heure dans les plus affreux tourmens." (Comp. Smith, History of New York, 100.) 2 Colden, History, &c., I. 92, 93. tility and superior military efficiency of New York and New England. But precious time passed and nothing was done. After the deposition of Governor Andros, the governments of New England remained in an undefined and ineffective state. In New York, incapacity in the successive rulers, party spirit and turbulence among the English people, and the chronic dissensions and jealousies between them and their more numerous Dutch fellowcitizens, were at the all-important crisis fatal obstacles to strenuous action. The behavior of the Dutch colonists in these times was such as to provoke from the contemporary historian the comment that "many of them had none of the virtues of the country of their origin, except their industry in getting money," and that "they sacrificed every thing other people think honorable or most sacred to their gain." " The threatening attitude of the Five Nations, and the recent demonstrations of their strength and boldness, necessarily embarrassed and postponed the enterprise with which the new Governor of New France was charged. Immediately on arriving at Quebec Oct. 2. he proceeded to Montreal, whence he sent emissaries to endeavor to engage the tribes in a negotiation for 1689. 1 Of course, one result of this was financial disorder. One of the first representations brought to the Board by Cooke and Oakes, on their arrival in England, was that the charge of the war bath hitherto been maintained by the disbursements of particular persons, there being no public treasure to be found upon the Revolution, and that the public stores of ammunition were very inconsiderable; that nothing since had been raised there but what had been advanced by way of loan, to carry on the public charges of the war." (Journal of the Board of Trade for Feb. 25, 1690.) 2 Colden, History, &c., I. 100. 198, &c. Charlevoix (Histoire, &c., II. 117) speaks bitterly of the Protestant La Hontan. — According to a Memoir in the French "Bureau de la Marine," the slowness of Frontenac's movements was owing to an instruction from the King respecting an attempt to make peace." The ill-founded hope of peace with the Iroquois caused the inactivity in which the last campaign had been passed." (O'Callaghan, IX. 431, 433.) King James (treacherously to England) had set his heart on bringing about this pacification between the French and the Iroquois. (Charlevoix, Histoire, &c., II. 330, 376, 401, 403.) a peace,' with the less chance, however, of success, as at a great council at Albany the chiefs had just September. 1690. Jan. 22. been renewing their engagements with the English.2 At Onondaga they held another council to consider his proposals, and its result was a renewed declaration of their purpose to " adhere to the old chain" with Corléar (the planters of New York), and to prosecute the war against Onondio (the French). But the military arrangements of one division of their allies did not satisfy them. They thought they saw a more promising course of action. "Brother Kinshon," they said to the messengers present from New England (which country they symbolized by the Oneida word for fish), "we hear you design to send soldiers to the eastward against the Indians there, but we advise you, now so many are united against the French, to fall immediately on them. Strike at the root; when the trunk shall be cut down, the branches fall of course. Corléar and Kinshon, courage! courage! In the spring, to Quebec! Take that place, and you will have your feet on the necks of the French, and all their friends in America." 3 But, while they announced and counselled so correct a policy in relation to the French, they were not prepared for such action as would have made them immediately useful to New England. At the conference which had lately been held with them by commissioners from Mas- 1689. sachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut, while the September. chiefs were profuse of protestations of friendship, they 1 Charlevoix, Histoire, &c., II. 76; Colden, History, &c., I. 106 et seq. 2 Colonel John Pynchon, Major Thomas Savage, and Captain Andrew Belcher, appointed Aug. 21, 1689 (Mass. Col. Rec., sub die), to treat with the Mohawks at Albany, had proceeded immediately on their mission. * Colden, History, &c., I. 113 et seq.. - At this juncture, Feb. 13, 1690, Wait Winthrop was restored to the command of the militia of Massachusetts. (Mass. Col. Rec., sub die.) This may be guessed to have been a measure of conciliation at a time too much in need of union to admit of the cherishing of any needless jealousies. (See above, Vol. III. 581.) could not be brought to undertake hostilities against the Eastern Indians, with whom they said they had no quarrel.1 Frontenac's good information concerning these Eastern tribes gave him encouragement as to the use which they might be made to serve. the Eastern The Abenakis or Cannibas ordinarily French intrigues with Indians. reside on the river Quinebaqui [Kennebec], and disperse themselves for the purpose of hunting as far as Quebec, whither they have been attracted by the missionaries. Of all the Indians these are the bravest and most formidable to the English. The experience of what they effected last year by the capture of Fort Pemkuit [Pemaquid] and sixteen palisaded settlements ought to be an assurance of what may be expected from them, were they to receive some assistance for the expeditions on which they can be led against the Iroquois in the direction of Quebec, and against the English towards Acadia. The preservation of Acadia is due to these Cannibas. They alone have prevented the English invading and settling it; and its security depends for a solid foundation on the continuance of the war they will wage against the English." Such was part of a report submitted to the King by the Governor, who, with no loss of time, concerted his measures accordingly. The King concurred in his opinion. "As the settlement of the Cannibas," he wrote, "is particularly towards Acadia and in the vicinity of the New England settlements, where they seized Fort Pemkuit and several fortified posts, they ought to be encouraged to continue the war there." 2 As the new French Governor viewed the circumstances in which he stood, he found it material to give the English colonists employment at home, so as to restore the spirit of his own people by action, and to re-establish with the savages the credit of the French arms. To To quell the pre 1 Colden. Five Nations, I. 109. Louis the Fourteenth to the Comte de Frontenac. (O'Callaghan, sumption of the Iroquois, it was necessary to convince them that their reliance on the protection of the Governor of New York was insecure,' and that, notwithstanding present appearances, the pledges by which they expected to avert unfriendliness in that quarter would expose them to at least equal trouble from the resentment of the French. Proceeding on these considerations, Frontenac organized three parties for attacks on as many points, distant from each other, of the English border.2 Sack of tady by Indians. Schenectady, called by the French Corlear,3-by which name, believed to have been the name of a Dutch inhabitant of the place, the Indians also desig- Schenecnated the Colony of New York, lies twenty French and miles north-west from Albany. At the time now treated of, it contained perhaps five hundred inhabitants. A party of a hundred and ten Frenchmen and about as many natives reached the place by a difficult march of three or four weeks from Montreal. The French were "bush-lopers or Indian traders; the natives were mostly renegade Iroquois, settled by their priests at a place near Montreal, called Cocknawaga. The invaders were so exhausted when they reached their destination as to be all ready to surrender, had they encountered any resistance. But to their great joy they found the place unguarded." 1 Charlevoix, Histoire, &c., II. 43. 2 Frontenac's characteristic energy and promptness are observable on this occasion. The assault on Schenectady was made in less than three weeks after the treaty of the English with the Indians at Onondaga.-The transactions of the French for a year, beginning in November, 1689, are detailed at length, in a perspicuous manner and with good information, in a Memoir by M. Monseignat, Comptroller-General of the Marine in Canada, believed to have been prepared for Madame de Maintenon. (O'Callaghan, IX. 462-491.) 4 8 Colden, History, &c., I. 32. Smith, History of New York, 61; Colden, Five Nations, I. 120 et seq.; Charlevoix, II. 45 et seq. Monseignat says in his account of the affair (Documentary History of New York, I. 186) that this party 66 may have been composed of about two hundred and ten men: viz., eighty savages from the Sault and from La Montagne; sixteen Algonquins; and the remainder Frenchmen." La Hontan, Voyages, &c., I. 204; Colden, History, &c., I. 121. |