We

66 are now

March 12.

ing the people to seek by repentance for sin the Divine intervention, never needed more. arriving," it declared, "to such an extremity that an axe is laid to the root of the trees, and we are in imminent danger of perishing."

1

June 6.

The expedition was projected on a scale proportioned to the magnitude of the object. Its costliness presented a formidable difficulty. The government issued a proposal to persons who should advance the money that they should be remunerated with half the net proceeds of the spoils, besides being repaid the amount of their outlay. This plan did not find favor, and the sums immediately necessary were borrowed on the simple credit of the Colony. An embargo was laid to prevent intelligence and to detain supplies. Sir William Phips's recent achievement caused him to be appointed General, and John Walley of Barnstable was made Lieutenant-General, of the forces to be sent by sea.

June 12.

March 22.

Aug. 9.

The fleet, consisting of thirty-two vessels, the largest mounting forty-four guns, sailed from Nantasket, near Boston, having been detained till too near the autumn, waiting for the supplies which it was hoped would come from England; but it was the summer of the battle of the Boyne, and there was too much going on just then to allow the home government to concern itself about America. Phips's fleet conveyed two thousand men, with provisions for four months. The stock of ammunition was scanty. The plan of the campaign contemplated a diversion to be made by an assault on Montreal by a force composed of English from Connecticut and New York, and of Iroquois Indians, at the same time with the attack

1 Mass. Col. Rec., sub die. 2 Mass. Archives, XXXVI. 111. Mass. Col. Rec., sub die. Letter of John Usher (July 4) in British Colonial Papers.

4"Ammunition little enough." (Letter of Major Savage, Feb. 2, 1691, in Mass. Hist. Col., XIII. 256.)

on Quebec by the fleet. And a second expedition into Maine under Captain Church was to threaten the Eastern tribes, whose incursions had during the last summer been so disastrous. At the same time that their maraudings along the northern border were to be checked and punished, they were to be kept occupied, so as to be disabled from carrying assistance to Quebec.

As is so apt to happen when a plan involves the simultaneous action of distant parties, the condition of success failed. The movement of Church, who had with him but three hundred men, proved ineffective as to any contribution to the descent upon Canada. In the peril in which he found himself, Frontenac could not afford to

September. send his Abenaqui allies any succor; nor was it, on the other hand, to be imagined that the English commander with so small a force should penetrate across the country in time to make himself useful on the St. Lawrence. Landing in an inlet of Casco Bay, in what is now the town of Brunswick, Church went forty miles up the Androscoggin, taking two or three Indian forts, killing a few scores of the savages, and liberating a number of their captives. Leaving a hundred men at Wells, he returned by sea to Boston, to meet there a cold reception, which he thought cruelly unjust. Certainly he had achieved nothing brilliant. But it may have been in consequence of his inroad, against which the savages found that they got no aid from Quebec, that they sent some of their sagamores to the Kennebec, who agreed with commissioners of Massachusetts on a truce for five months, and a restoration of their prisoners. Only three towns, Wells, York, and Kittery, all close to the south-western corner of Maine, now remained to the English in that province.

Nov. 29.

It was not till after a voyage of more than six weeks

1 Church, Entertaining Passages, to Thomas Hinckley, in Mass. Hist. 107-117; Williamson, History, &c., Col., XXXV. 271 et seq. I. 624-627; Letter of Benjamin Church

Sept. 23.

that the fleet from Boston cast anchor within the mouth of the river St. Lawrence, and meanwhile the overland expedition against Montreal had miscarried. The commanders respectively of the Connecticut and the New York troops had disagreed, and could not act effectively together. The troops were bewildered by false reports, which Frontenac contrived to have spread among them, of obstructions in their way. The Indian auxiliaries were, or pretended to be, frightened by rumors of the appearance of small-pox. The supply, both of boats and of provisions, was found to be insufficient. The disastrous result was that a retreat was ordered, without so much as an embarkation of the troops on Lake Champlain.1 Frontenac was at Montreal, whither he had gone to superintend the defence, when the intelligence, so unexpected, reached him from Quebec; and presently after came the tidings of Phips's fleet being in the St. Lawrence. Nothing could have been more opportune than this coincidence, which gave the Governor liberty to hasten down to direct his little force of two hundred soldiers at the capital. The French historian says that, if he had been three days later, or if the English fleet had not been delayed by contrary winds, or had had better pilots in the river, where in fact it was nearly a fortnight more in making its slow way, Frontenac would have come down from the upper country only to find the English commander in his citadel. As it was, there ensued a crushing mortification and sorrow to Massachusetts.

Sept. 30.

Oct. 1.

New France was made much more formidable than More than sixty years were to pass before Quebec should receive an English garrison.

ever.

' Charlevoix, Histoire, &c., II. calendar more than a century before 88, 89. this time.

2 I use the dates of the New England writers. They differ from those of the French by ten days, the French nation having adopted the Gregorian

3 La Hontan, Voyages, I. 324; Colden, Five Nations, &c., I. 134 et seq. Mather, Magnalia, II. 48. Charlevoix, Histoire, &c., II. 76.

Oct. 4.

The English

Quebec.

When by a hasty and perilous passage down the river Frontenac reached his capital, he learned that the English fleet was already close upon him. Major Provot, a capable officer in command there, had used actively the little time since the first alarm in fleet before constructing defences, and making dispositions of the neighboring militia, who were directed not to retreat into the fort till they should have done their best to repulse any landing which might be attempted below. Frontenac had left orders with the commander at Montreal to follow him with all speed with the soldiers who could be spared from that place, and with as many militia as he could collect by the way. The day after the Governor's arrival, the English ships were only four leagues from the town; and at dawn of the day following they doubled Point Levi, and came to Oct. 6. anchor beneath that magnificent cliff which now bears the name of Cape Diamond. According to the French Governor's official account, they "numbered thirtyfour sail, four of which were large ships, some others of inferior size, and the remainder small vessels." He supposed them to have brought "no less than three thousand men."

Oct. 5.

Early in the forenoon a boat showing a white flag put off from the admiral's ship with a messenger, who, when brought blindfolded to head-quarters, through streets which were made to seem to him thronged with people and noisy with notes of preparation, delivered a summons expressed in peremptory terms. Phips wrote that, without regard to the war between the two crowns, "the destruction made by the French and Indians upon the persons and estates of their Majesties' subjects of New England. might, upon the present opportunity, prompt unto a severe revenge," but that he, acting for "their most excellent Majesties William and Mary, King and Queen of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, Defenders of

the Faith, and by order of their aforesaid Majesties' government of the Massachusetts Colony in New England," desired to avoid unnecessary carnage in obtaining the unconditional surrender of the garrison with its stores and "the persons and estates" of the colonists. This surrender made, he added, " You may expect mercy from me as a Christian, according to what shall be found for their Majesties' service and their subjects' security. Which if you refuse forthwith to do, I am come provided, and am resolved, by the help of God in whom I trust, by force of arms to revenge all wrongs and injuries offered, and bring you under subjection to the crown of England, and, when too late, make you wish you had accepted of the favors tendered." And " And "upon the peril that would ensue ensue" a positive answer was demanded within an hour. The messenger showed his watch, which indicated ten o'clock, and said he could not wait after eleven.1

Frontenac replied that he would not trouble him to stay so long. "Tell your general," said he, "that I do not acknowledge your King William, and that the Prince of Orange is a usurper who has violated the most sacred rights of blood in wishing to dethrone his father-in-law. Though your general had offered me better terms, and I was disposed to accept them, how could he suppose that so many brave men as there are here [the Governor stood surrounded by his officers] would advise me to place confidence in the word of a man who has violated the capitulation he had entered into with the Governor of Port Royal; a rebel who has failed in the fidelity he owed to his lawful king, forgetful of all the favors conferred upon him?" The messenger asked for a written answer. "No," said the spirited Governor, "I have no answer to

2

1 O'Callaghan, IX. 455, 462, 484; La Hontan, Voyages, &c., I. 338, 339.

The particulars of Phips's al

leged violation of the capitulation of Port Royal are given by Charlevoix (II. 68).