ing deserters did not prevent the admiral from complaining, with an arrogance which has sometimes been observed in the English naval service, and demanding that there should be a press of seamen to make up his loss, a demand, however, with which it was not thought prudent to attempt to comply. The admiral could not himself impress seamen in New England, by reason 1696. of a standing prohibition of the Privy Dec. 3. Council to this effect.

1711.

Aug. 20.

The provisioning was done with extraorJuly 30. dinary expedition, and the fleet left Boston Harbor, conveying seven thousand well-appointed troops, regular and provincial. Lord Hill, brother of the lady of the bedchamber to the weak Queen, was the incompetent commander. In three weeks the fleet was at the mouth of the St. Lawrence. Proceeding up that river, it lost its way in a fog, and then a high wind began to set the ships towards the northern bank. The pilots, New England ship-masters, had undertaken their task unwillingly, not pretending to much knowledge of the eddies and soundings of the stream. When they were some thirty miles up the river, the admiral gave orders for the ships to lie to, heading towards the south. The pilots afterwards insisted that this was contrary to their judgment. The fate of the superb expedition was settled without much delay. By midnight of the second day ten or eleven ships had drifted upon ledges of rock,

Aug. 22.

where they went to pieces, and more than a thousand persons were drowned, among whom were thirty-one commissioned officers of various rank, and thirty-five women. With the vessels which escaped, including all that belonged to the Aug. 25. royal navy, the disheartened admiral sailed down to the mouth of the river. He and his captains still hoped to cover their disgrace by an attempt upon Placentia in Newfoundland; but on a reconsideration they determined unanimously in a council of war of nine navy officers and nine colonels, with the general and admiral, that this scheme also must be given up, for lack of a sufficiency of provisions. What remained of the provincial force sailed for Boston, to excite loud complaints of the admiral's mismanagement, while he and the general went to England to excuse themselves by representing that the Massachusetts people had been tardy and penurious in fitting out the fleet.

Sept. 8.

Sept. 16.

Nicholson, who, in accordance with the method. before pursued on the like occasion, had led a force towards Lake Champlain to operate against Montreal, received intelligence of the disaster lower down the river, in season to withdraw out of reach of the attack which Vaudreuil was preparing to make upon him with his undivided force, as soon as the danger at Quebec should be over. The shipmasters who acted as pilots had been impressed by Dudley in Boston and other ports. This coercion was necessary, because they

felt themselves to be incompetent, by reason of their little acquaintance with the river. Three of them were sent to England, where, however, no questions were put to them; perhaps because the Ministry thought they might tell what it was as well for those in power that the people of England should not know, and especially it might not be agreeable to the sovereign that in the circumstances they should draw attention to the commander of the land forces.

In Massachusetts the consternation, as well as the disappointment, was extreme. The expedition having so miserably failed, the cost of it

appeared all but ruinous. The General Oct. 17. Court, however, never giving way to despair, sent an Address to the Queen, praying for a further renewal of the repeatedly frustrated enterprise. As to their own capacity for contributions to it, they prayed for some forbearance, "because of their enfeebled and impoverished state." As one proof that it was not zeal in

which they were wanting, they represented Oct. 24. that one man out of every five in their jurisdiction, capable of bearing arms, had been doing military service in the past year. While their agent in England was "to vindicate and justify the government," they magnanimously or prudently instructed him not to "fault or impeach others for want of doing their duty, or for their conduct in that affair." Some little consolation was derived from the knowledge that a plan

entertained by the French for the retaking of Port Royal had been disconcerted by the necessity of concentrating their forces for the strengthening of Quebec.

1712.

March 31.

In the following year some of the customary inroads of Indians, varied by no novel circumstances, took place along the northeastern border. On the whole, in the discouragement which prevailed, the intelligence of the peace of Utrecht was received with wel- 1713. come in Massachusetts. The Indians proposed to the officer commanding at Casco to make a treaty on their own account. Dudley kept up his dignity by answering that they must come to him at Portsmouth; and there accordingly they made another of their untrustworthy pacifications, professing themselves loyal subjects of the British Queen, and imploring forgiveness for their past misdeeds and perfidies. It was estimated that the eastern tribes had lost one third part of the whole number of their warriors during the past ten years, and that the proportion of lives sacrificed had been little, if at all, less among the English population of Maine.

July 11.

CHAPTER IX.

ADMINISTRATION OF DUDLEY, CONTINUED.

THE renewal of the Indian war at the beginning of Dudley's administration, while it invited harmonious action between him and the General Court, did not suspend their jealousy of one another. He called the Court together to con1703. sult on the state of affairs, informing them Sept. 1. that he had already marched four hundred troops into Maine, a sufficient force, as he still hoped, to restore tranquillity. It was not unnatural that he should regard a moment when he felt his importance to the people to be great, as being a favorable one for the introduction of measures which he knew to be disrelished by them; and he read a letter from the Queen

April 8.

urging anew the matter of stated salaries for the high officials. The House replied that, in the absence of many of its members, kept at home by the existing alarm, they could not prudently proceed to consider a subject of such moment. The importance of a stated and permanent salary for the governors had been seen clearly both by them and by their masters from the institution of the provincial government, by the Min