1704-1710.
ACADIA CHANGES HANDS.
Reprisal for Deerfield.--Major Benjamin Church: his Ravages at
Grand-Pré.--Port Royal Expedition.--Futile Proceedings.--A Discreditable
Affair.--French Successes in Newfoundland.--Schemes of Samuel Vetch.--A
Grand Enterprise.--Nicholson's Advance.--An Infected Camp.--Ministerial
Promises Broken.--A New Scheme.--Port Royal Attacked.--Acadia Conquered.
When war-parties from Canada struck the English borders, reprisal was
difficult against those who had provoked it. Canada was made almost
inaccessible by a hundred leagues of pathless forest, prowled by her
Indian allies, who were sure to give the alarm of an approaching foe;
while, on the other hand, the New Englanders could easily reach Acadia
by their familiar element, the sea; and hence that unfortunate colony
often made vicarious atonement for the sins of her northern sister. It
was from French privateers and fishing-vessels on the Acadian seas that
Massachusetts drew most of the prisoners whom she exchanged for her own
people held captive in Canada.
Major Benjamin Church, the noted Indian fighter of King Philip's War,
was at Tiverton in Rhode Island when he heard of Hertel de Rouville's
attack on Deerfield. Boiling with rage, he mounted his horse and rode to
Boston to propose a stroke of retaliation. Church was energetic,
impetuous, and bull-headed, sixty-five years old, and grown so fat that
when pushing through the woods on the trail of Indians, he kept a stout
sergeant by him to hoist him over fallen trees. Governor Dudley approved
his scheme, and appointed him to command the expedition, with the rank
of colonel. Church repaired to his native Duxbury; and here, as well as
in Plymouth and other neighboring settlements, the militia were called
out, and the veteran readily persuaded a sufficient number to volunteer
under him. With the Indians of Cape Cod he found more difficulty, they
being, as his son observes, "a people that need much treating,
especially with drink." At last, however, some of them were induced to
join him. Church now returned to Boston, and begged that an attack on
Port Royal might be included in his instructions,--which was refused, on
the ground that a plan to that effect had been laid before the Queen,
and that nothing could be done till her answer was received. The
governor's enemies seized the occasion to say that he wished Port Royal
to remain French, in order to make money by trading with it.
The whole force, including Indians and sailors, amounted to about seven
hundred men; they sailed to Matinicus in brigs and sloops, the province
galley, and two British frigates. From Matinicus most of the
sailing-vessels were sent to Mount Desert to wait orders, while the main
body rowed eastward in whale-boats. Touching at Saint-Castin's fort,
where the town of Castine now stands, they killed or captured everybody
they found there. Receiving false information that there was a large
war-party on the west side of Passamaquoddy Bay, they hastened to the
place, reached it in the night, and pushed into the woods in hope of
surprising the enemy. The movement was difficult; and Church's men,
being little better than a mob, disregarded his commands, and fell into
disorder. He raged and stormed; and presently, in the darkness and
confusion, descrying a hut or cabin on the farther side of a small
brook, with a crowd gathered about it, he demanded what was the matter,
and was told that there were Frenchmen inside who would not come out.
"Then knock them in the head," shouted the choleric old man; and he was
obeyed. It was said that the victims belonged to a party of Canadians
captured just before, under a promise of life. Afterwards, when Church
returned to Boston, there was an outcry of indignation against him for
this butchery. In any case, however, he could have known nothing of the
alleged promise of quarter.
To hunt Indians with an endless forest behind them was like chasing
shadows. The Acadians were surer game. Church sailed with a part of his
force up the Bay of Fundy, and landed at Grand Pré,--a place destined to
a dismal notoriety half a century later. The inhabitants of this and the
neighboring settlements made some slight resistance, and killed a
lieutenant named Baker, and one soldier, after which they fled; when
Church, first causing the houses to be examined, to make sure that
nobody was left in them, ordered them to be set on fire. The dikes were
then broken, and the tide let in upon the growing crops.[110] In spite
of these harsh proceedings, he fell far short in his retaliation for the
barbarities at Deerfield, since he restrained his Indians and permitted
no woman or child to be hurt,--at the same time telling his prisoners
that if any other New England village were treated as Deerfield had
been, he would come back with a thousand Indians and leave them free to
do what they pleased. With this bluster, he left the unfortunate
peasants in the extremity of terror, after carrying off as many of them
as were needed for purposes of exchange. A small detachment was sent to
Beaubassin, where it committed similar havoc.
Church now steered for Port Royal, which he had been forbidden to
attack. The two frigates and the transports had by this time rejoined
him, and in spite of Dudley's orders to make no attempt on the French
fort, the British and provincial officers met in council to consider
whether to do so. With one voice they decided in the negative, since
they had only four hundred men available for landing, while the French
garrison was no doubt much stronger, having had ample time to call the
inhabitants to its aid. Church, therefore, after trying the virtue of a
bombastic summons to surrender, and destroying a few houses, sailed back
to Boston. It was a miserable retaliation for a barbarous outrage; as
the guilty were out of reach, the invaders turned their ire on the
innocent.[111]
If Port Royal in French hands was a source of illicit gain to some
persons in Boston, it was also an occasion of loss by the privateers and
corsairs it sent out to prey on trading and fishing vessels, while at
the same time it was a standing menace as the possible naval base for
one of those armaments against the New England capital which were often
threatened, though never carried into effect. Hence, in 1707 the New
England colonists made, in their bungling way, a serious attempt to get
possession of it.
Dudley's enemies raised the old cry that at heart he wished Port Royal
to remain French, and was only forced by popular clamor to countenance
an attack upon it. The charge seems a malicious slander. Early in March
he proposed the enterprise to the General Court; and the question being
referred to a committee, they reported that a thousand soldiers should
be raised, vessels impressed, and her Majesty's frigate "Deptford," with
the province galley, employed to convoy them. An Act was passed
accordingly.[112] Two regiments were soon afoot, one uniformed in red,
and the other in blue; one commanded by Colonel Francis Wainwright, and
the other by Colonel Winthrop Hilton. Rhode Island sent eighty more men,
and New Hampshire sixty, while Connecticut would do nothing. The
expedition sailed on the thirteenth of May, and included one thousand
and seventy-six soldiers, with about four hundred and fifty sailors.
The soldiers were nearly all volunteers from the rural militia, and
their training and discipline were such as they had acquired in the
uncouth frolics and plentiful New England rum of the periodical "muster
days." There chanced to be one officer who knew more or less of the work
in hand. This was the English engineer Rednap, sent out to look after
the fortifications of New York and New England. The commander-in-chief
was Colonel John March, of Newbury, who had popular qualities, had seen
frontier service, and was personally brave, but totally unfit for his
present position. Most of the officers were civilians from country
towns,--Ipswich, Topsfield, Lynn, Salem, Dorchester, Taunton, or
Weymouth.[113] In the province galley went, as secretary of the
expedition, that intelligent youth, William Dudley, son of the governor.
New England has been blamed for not employing trained officers to
command her levies; but with the exception of Rednap, and possibly of
Captain Samuel Vetch, there were none in the country, nor were they
wanted. In their stubborn and jealous independence, the sons of the
Puritans would have resented their presence. The provincial officers
were, without exception, civilians. British regular officers, good, bad,
or indifferent, were apt to put on airs of superiority which galled the
democratic susceptibilities of the natives, who, rather than endure a
standing military force imposed by the mother-country, preferred to
suffer if they must, and fight their own battles in their own crude way.
Even for irregular warfare they were at a disadvantage; Canadian
feudalism developed good partisan leaders, which was rarely the case
with New England democracy. Colonel John March was a tyro set over a
crowd of ploughboys, fishermen, and mechanics, officered by tradesmen,
farmers, blacksmiths, village magnates, and deacons of the church,--for
the characters of deacon and militia officer were often joined in one.
These improvised soldiers commonly did well in small numbers, and very
ill in large ones.
Early in June the expedition sailed into Port Royal Basin, and
Lieutenant-Colonel Appleton, with three hundred and fifty men, landed on
the north shore, four or five miles below the fort, marched up to the
mouth of the Annapolis, and was there met by an ambushed body of French,
who, being outnumbered, presently took to their boats and retreated to
the fort. Meanwhile, March, with seven hundred and fifty men, landed on
the south shore and pushed on to the meadows of Allen's River, which
they were crossing in battle array when a fire blazed out upon them from
a bushy hill on the farther bank, where about two hundred French lay in
ambush under Subercase, the governor. March and his men crossed the
stream, and after a skirmish that did little harm to either side, the
French gave way. The English then advanced to a hill known as the Lion
Rampant, within cannon-shot of the fort, and here began to intrench
themselves, stretching their lines right and left towards the Annapolis
on the one hand, and Allen's River on the other, so as to form a
semicircle before the fort, where all the inhabitants had by this time
taken refuge.
Soon all was confusion in the New England camp,--the consequence of
March's incapacity for a large command, and the greenness and ignorance
of both himself and his subordinates. There were conflicting opinions,
wranglings, and disputes. The men, losing all confidence in their
officers, became unmanageable. "The devil was at work among us," writes
one of those present. The engineer, Rednap, the only one of them who
knew anything of the work in hand, began to mark out the batteries; but
he soon lost temper, and declared that "it was not for him to venture
his reputation with such ungovernable and undisciplined men and
inconstant officers."[114] He refused to bring up the cannon, saying
that it could not be done under the fire of the fort; and the naval
captains were of the same opinion.
One of the chaplains, Rev. John Barnard, being of a martial turn and
full of zeal, took it upon himself to make a plan of the fort; and to
that end, after providing himself with pen, ink, paper, and a
horse-pistol, took his seat at a convenient spot; but his task was
scarcely begun when it was ended by a cannon-ball that struck the ground
beside him, peppered him with gravel, and caused his prompt
retreat.[115]
French deserters reported that there were five hundred men in the fort,
with forty-two heavy cannon, and that four or five hundred more were
expected every day. This increased the general bewilderment of the
besiegers. There was a council of war. Rednap declared that it would be
useless to persist; and after hot debate and contradiction, it was
resolved to decamp. Three days after, there was another council, which
voted to bring up the cannon and open fire, in spite of Rednap and the
naval captains; but in the next evening a third council resolved again
to raise the siege as hopeless. This disgusted the rank and file, who
were a little soothed by an order to destroy the storehouse and other
buildings outside the fort; and, ill led as they were, they did the work
thoroughly. "Never did men act more boldly," says the witness before
quoted; "they threatened the enemy to his nose, and would have taken the
fort if the officers had shown any spirit. They found it hard to bring
them off. At the end we broke up with the confusion of Babel, and went
about our business like fools."[116]
The baffled invaders sailed crestfallen to Casco Bay, and a vessel was
sent to carry news of the miscarriage to Dudley, who, vexed and
incensed, ordered another attempt. March was in a state of helpless
indecision, increased by a bad cold; but the governor would not recall
him, and chose instead the lamentable expedient of sending three members
of the provincial council to advise and direct him. Two of them had
commissions in the militia; the third, John Leverett, was a learned
bachelor of divinity, formerly a tutor in Harvard College, and soon
after its president,--capable, no doubt, of preaching Calvinistic
sermons to the students, but totally unfit to command men or conduct a
siege.
Young William Dudley was writing meanwhile to his father how jealousies
and quarrels were rife among the officers, how their conduct bred
disorder and desertion among the soldiers, and how Colonel March and
others behaved as if they had nothing to do but make themselves
popular.[117] Many of the officers seem, in fact, to have been small
politicians in search of notoriety, with an eye to votes or
appointments. Captain Stuckley, of the British frigate, wrote to the
governor in great discontent about the "nonsensical malice" of
Lieutenant-Colonel Appleton, and adds, "I don't see what good I can do
by lying here, where I am almost murdered by mosquitoes."[118]
The three commissioners came at last, with a reinforcement of another
frigate and a hundred recruits, which did not supply losses, as the
soldiers had deserted by scores. In great ill-humor, the expedition
sailed back to Port Royal, where it was found that reinforcements had
also reached the French, including a strongly manned privateer from
Martinique. The New England men landed, and there was some sharp
skirmishing in an orchard. Chaplain Barnard took part in the fray. "A
shot brushed my wig," he says, "but I was mercifully preserved. We soon
drove them out of the orchard, killed a few of them, desperately wounded
the privateer captain, and after that we all embarked and returned to
Boston as fast as we could." This summary statement is imperfect, for
there was a good deal of skirmishing from the thirteenth August to the
twentieth, when the invaders sailed for home. March was hooted as he
walked Boston streets, and children ran after him crying, "Wooden
sword!" There was an attempt at a court-martial; but so many officers
were accused, on one ground or another, that hardly enough were left to
try them, and the matter was dropped. With one remarkable exception, the
New England militia reaped scant laurels on their various expeditions
eastward; but of all their shortcomings, this was the most
discreditable.[119]
Meanwhile events worthy of note were passing in Newfoundland. That
island was divided between the two conflicting powers,--the chief
station of the French being at Placentia, and that of the English at St.
John. In January, 1705, Subercase, who soon after became governor of
Acadia, marched with four hundred and fifty soldiers, Canadians, and
buccaneers, aided by a band of Indians, against St. John,--a
fishing-village defended by two forts, the smaller, known as the castle,
held by twelve men, and the larger, called Fort William, by forty men
under Captain Moody. The latter was attacked by the French, who were
beaten off; on which they burned the unprotected houses and fishing-huts
with a brutality equal to that of Church in Acadia, and followed up the
exploit by destroying the hamlet at Ferryland and all the defenceless
hovels and fish-stages along the shore towards Trinity Bay and
Bonavista.[120]
Four years later, the Sieur de Saint-Ovide, a nephew of Brouillan, late
governor at Port Royal, struck a more creditable blow. He set out from
Placentia on the thirteenth of December, 1708, with one hundred and
sixty-four men, and on the first of January approached Fort William two
hours before day, found the gate leading to the covered way open,
entered with a band of volunteers, rapidly crossed the ditch, planted
ladders against the wall, and leaped into the fort, then, as he
declares, garrisoned by a hundred men. His main body followed close. The
English were taken unawares; their commander, who showed great courage,
was struck down by three shots, and after some sharp fighting the place
was in the hands of the assailants. The small fort at the mouth of the
harbor capitulated on the second day, and the palisaded village of the
inhabitants, which, if we are to believe Saint-Ovide, contained nearly
six hundred men, made little resistance. St. John became for the moment
a French possession; but Costebelle, governor at Placentia, despaired of
holding it, and it was abandoned in the following summer.[121]
About this time a scheme was formed for the permanent riddance of New
England from war-parties by the conquest of Canada.[122] The prime mover
in it was Samuel Vetch, whom we have seen as an emissary to Quebec for
the exchange of prisoners, and also as one of the notables fined for
illicit trade with the French. He came of a respectable Scotch family.
His grandfather, his father, three of his uncles, and one of his
brothers were Covenanting ministers, who had suffered some persecution
under Charles II. He himself was destined for the ministry; but his
inclinations being in no way clerical, he and his brother William got
commissions in the army, and took an active part in the war that ended
with the Peace of Ryswick.
In the next year the two brothers sailed for the Isthmus of Panama as
captains in the band of adventurers embarked in the disastrous
enterprise known as the Darien Scheme. William Vetch died at sea, and
Samuel repaired to New York, where he married a daughter of Robert
Livingston, one of the chief men of the colony, and engaged largely in
the Canadian trade. From New York he went to Boston, where we find him
when the War of the Spanish Succession began. During his several visits
to Canada he had carefully studied the St. Lawrence and its shores, and
boasted that he knew them better than the Canadians themselves.[123] He
was impetuous, sanguine, energetic, and headstrong, astute withal, and
full of ambition. A more vigorous agent for the execution of the
proposed plan of conquest could not have been desired. The General Court
of Massachusetts, contrary to its instinct and its past practice,
resolved, in view of the greatness of the stake, to ask this time for
help from the mother-country, and Vetch sailed for England, bearing an
address to the Queen, begging for an armament to aid in the reduction of
Canada and Acadia. The scheme waxed broader yet in the ardent brain of
the agent; he proposed to add Newfoundland to the other conquests, and
when all was done in the North, to sail to the Gulf of Mexico and wrest
Pensacola from the Spaniards; by which means, he writes, "Her Majesty
shall be sole empress of the vast North American continent." The idea
was less visionary than it seems. Energy, helped by reasonable good
luck, might easily have made it a reality, so far as concerned the
possessions of France.
The court granted all that Vetch asked. On the eleventh of March he
sailed for America, fully empowered to carry his plans into execution,
and with the assurance that when Canada was conquered, he should be its
governor. A squadron bearing five regiments of regular troops was
promised. The colonies were to muster their forces in all haste. New
York was directed to furnish eight hundred men; New Jersey, two hundred;
Pennsylvania, one hundred and fifty; and Connecticut, three hundred and
fifty,--the whole to be at Albany by the middle of May, and to advance
on Montreal by way of Wood Creek and Lake Champlain, as soon as they
should hear that the squadron had reached Boston. Massachusetts, New
Hampshire, and Rhode Island were to furnish twelve hundred men, to join
the regulars in attacking Quebec by way of the St. Lawrence.[124]
Vetch sailed from Portsmouth in the ship "Dragon," accompanied by
Colonel Francis Nicholson, late lieutenant-governor of New York, who was
to take an important part in the enterprise. The squadron with the five
regiments was to follow without delay. The weather was bad, and the
"Dragon," beating for five weeks against headwinds, did not enter Boston
harbor till the evening of the twenty-eighth of April. Vetch, chafing
with impatience, for every moment was precious, sent off expresses that
same night to carry the Queen's letters to the governors of Rhode
Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Dudley and his
council met the next morning, and to them Vetch delivered the royal
message, which was received, he says, "with the dutiful obedience
becoming good subjects, and all the marks of joy and thankfulness."[125]
Vetch, Nicholson, and the Massachusetts authorities quickly arranged
their plans. An embargo was laid on the shipping; provision was made for
raising men and supplies and providing transportation. When all was in
train, the two emissaries hired a sloop for New York, and touching by
the way at Rhode Island, found it in the throes of the annual election
of governor. Yet every warlike preparation was already made, and Vetch
and his companion sailed at once for New Haven to meet Saltonstall, the
newly elected governor of Connecticut. Here too, all was ready, and the
envoys, well pleased, continued their voyage to New York, which they
reached on the eighteenth of May. The governor, Lord Lovelace, had
lately died, and Colonel Ingoldsby, the lieutenant-governor, acted in
his place. The Assembly was in session, and being summoned to the
council-chamber, the members were addressed by Vetch and Nicholson with
excellent effect.
In accepting the plan of conquest, New York completely changed front.
She had thus far stood neutral, leaving her neighbors to defend
themselves, and carrying on an active trade with the French and their
red allies. Still, it was her interest that Canada should become
English, thus throwing open to her the trade of the Western tribes; and
the promises of aid from England made the prospects of the campaign so
flattering that she threw herself into the enterprise, though not
without voices of protest,--for while the frontier farmers and some
prominent citizens like Peter Schuyler thought that the time for action
had come, the Albany traders and their allies, who fattened on Canadian
beaver, were still for peace at any price.[126]
With Pennsylvania and New Jersey the case was different. The one,
controlled by non-combatant Quakers and safe from French war-parties,
refused all aid; while the other, in less degree under the same military
blight, would give no men, though granting a slow and reluctant
contribution of £3,000, taking care to suppress on the record every
indication that the money was meant for military uses. New York, on the
other hand, raised her full contingent, and Massachusetts and New
Hampshire something more, being warm in the faith that their borders
would be plagued with war-parties no longer.
It remained for New York to gain the help of the Five Nations of the
Iroquois, to which end Abraham Schuyler went to Onondaga, well supplied
with presents. The Iroquois capital was now, as it had been for years,
divided between France and England. French interests were represented by
the two Jesuits, Mareuil and Jacques Lamberville. The skilful management
of Schuyler, joined to his gifts and his rum, presently won over so many
to the English party, and raised such excitement in the town that
Lamberville thought it best to set out for Montreal with news of what
was going on. The intrepid Joncaire, agent of France among the Senecas,
was scandalized at what he calls the Jesuit's flight, and wrote to the
commandant of Fort Frontenac that its effect on the Indians was such
that he, Joncaire, was in peril of his life.[127] Yet he stood his
ground, and managed so well that he held the Senecas firm in their
neutrality. Lamberville's colleague, Mareuil, whose position was still
more critical, was persuaded by Schuyler that his only safety was in
going with him to Albany, which he did; and on this the Onondagas,
excited by rum, plundered and burned the Jesuit mission-house and
chapel.[128] Clearly, the two priests at Onondaga were less hungry for
martyrdom than their murdered brethren Jogues, Brébeuf, Lalemant, and
Charles Garnier; but it is to be remembered that the Canadian Jesuit of
the first half of the seventeenth century was before all things an
apostle, and his successor of a century later was before all things a
political agent.
As for the Five Nations, that once haughty confederacy, in spite of
divisions and waverings, had conceived the idea that its true policy
lay, not in siding with either of the European rivals, but in making
itself important to both, and courted and caressed by both. While some
of the warriors sang the war-song at the prompting of Schuyler, they had
been but half-hearted in doing so; and even the Mohawks, nearest
neighbors and best friends of the English, sent word to their Canadian
kindred, the Caughnawagas, that they took up the hatchet only because
they could not help it.
The attack on Canada by way of the Hudson and Lake Champlain was to have
been commanded by Lord Lovelace or some officer of his choice; but as he
was dead, Ingoldsby, his successor in the government of the province,
jointly with the governors of several adjacent colonies who had met at
New York, appointed Colonel Nicholson in his stead.[129] Nicholson went
to Albany, whence, with about fifteen hundred men, he moved up the
Hudson, built a stockade fort opposite Saratoga, and another at the spot
known as the Great Carrying Place. This latter he called Fort
Nicholson,--a name which it afterwards exchanged for that of Fort
Lydius, and later still for that of Fort Edward, which the town that
occupies the site owns to this day.[130] Thence he cut a rough roadway
through the woods to where Wood Creek, choked with beaver dams, writhed
through flat green meadows, walled in by rock and forest. Here he built
another fort, which was afterwards rebuilt and named Fort Anne. Wood
Creek led to Lake Champlain, and Lake Champlain to Chambly and
Montreal,--the objective points of the expedition. All was astir at the
camp. Flat-boats and canoes were made, and stores brought up from
Albany, till everything was ready for an advance the moment word should
come that the British fleet had reached Boston. Vetch, all impatience,
went thither to meet it, as if his presence could hasten its arrival.
Reports of Nicholson's march to Wood Creek had reached Canada, and
Vaudreuil sent Ramesay, governor of Montreal, with fifteen hundred
troops, Canadians, and Indians, to surprise his camp. Ramesay's fleet of
canoes had reached Lake Champlain, and was halfway to the mouth of Wood
Creek, when his advance party was discovered by English scouts, and the
French commander began to fear that he should be surprised in his turn;
in fact, some of his Indians were fired upon from an ambuscade. All was
now doubt, perplexity, and confusion. Ramesay landed at the narrows of
the lake, a little south of the place now called Crown Point. Here, in
the dense woods, his Indians fired on some Canadians whom they took for
English. This was near producing a panic. "Every tree seemed an enemy,"
writes an officer present. Ramesay lost himself in the woods, and could
not find his army. One Deruisseau, who had gone out as a scout, came
back with the report that nine hundred Englishmen were close at hand.
Seven English canoes did in fact appear, supported, as the French in
their excitement imagined, by a numerous though invisible army in the
forest; but being fired upon, and seeing that they were entering a
hornet's nest, the English sheered off. Ramesay having at last found his
army, and order being gradually restored, a council of war was held,
after which the whole force fell back to Chambly, having accomplished
nothing.[131]
Great was the alarm in Canada when it became known that the enemy aimed
at nothing less than the conquest of the colony. One La Plaine spread a
panic at Quebec by reporting that, forty-five leagues below, he had seen
eight or ten ships under sail and heard the sound of cannon. It was
afterwards surmised that the supposed ships were points of rocks seen
through the mist at low tide, and the cannon the floundering of whales
at play.[132] Quebec, however, was all excitement, in expectation of
attack. The people of the Lower Town took refuge on the rock above; the
men of the neighboring parishes were ordered within the walls; and the
women and children, with the cattle and horses, were sent to
hiding-places in the forest. There had been no less consternation at
Montreal, caused by exaggerated reports of Iroquois hostility and the
movements of Nicholson. It was even proposed to abandon Chambly and Fort
Frontenac, and concentrate all available force to defend the heart of
the colony. "A most bloody war is imminent," wrote Vaudreuil to the
minister, Ponchartrain.
Meanwhile, for weeks and months Nicholson's little army lay in the
sultry valley of Wood Creek, waiting those tidings of the arrival of
the British squadron at Boston which were to be its signal of advance.
At length a pestilence broke out. It is said to have been the work of
the Iroquois allies, who thought that the French were menaced with ruin,
and who, true to their policy of balancing one European power against
the other, poisoned the waters of the creek by throwing into it, above
the camp, the skins and offal of the animals they had killed in their
hunting. The story may have some foundation, though it rests only on the
authority of Charlevoix. No contemporary writer mentions it; and
Vaudreuil says that the malady was caused by the long confinement of the
English in their fort. Indeed, a crowd of men, penned up through the
heats of midsummer in a palisaded camp, ill-ordered and unclean as the
camps of the raw provincials usually were, and infested with pestiferous
swarms of flies and mosquitoes, could hardly have remained in health.
Whatever its cause, the disease, which seems to have been a malignant
dysentery, made more havoc than the musket and the sword. A party of
French who came to the spot late in the autumn, found it filled with
innumerable graves.
The British squadron, with the five regiments on board, was to have
reached Boston at the middle of May. On the twentieth of that month the
whole contingent of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island was
encamped by Boston harbor, with transports and stores, ready to embark
for Quebec at ten hours' notice.[133] When Vetch, after seeing
everything in readiness at New York, returned to Boston on the third of
July, he found the New England levies encamped there still, drilled
diligently every day by officers whom he had brought from England for
the purpose. "The bodies of the men," he writes to Lord Sunderland, "are
in general better than in Europe, and I hope their courage will prove so
too; so that nothing in human probability can prevent the success of
this glorious enterprise but the too late arrival of the fleet."[134]
But of the fleet there was no sign. "The government here is put to vast
expense," pursues Vetch, "but they cheerfully pay it, in hopes of being
freed from it forever hereafter. All that they can do now is to fast and
pray for the safe and speedy arrival of the fleet, for which they have
already had two public fast-days kept."
If it should not come in time, he continues, "it would be the last
disappointment to her Majesty's colonies, who have so heartily complied
with her royal order, and would render them much more miserable than if
such a thing had never been undertaken." Time passed, and no ships
appeared. Vetch wrote again: "I shall only presume to acquaint your
Lordship how vastly uneasy all her Majesty's loyall subjects here on
this continent are. Pray God hasten the fleet."[135] Dudley, scarcely
less impatient, wrote to the same effect. It was all in vain, and the
soldiers remained in their camp, monotonously drilling day after day
through all the summer and half the autumn. At length, on the eleventh
of October, Dudley received a letter from Lord Sunderland, informing him
that the promised forces had been sent to Portugal to meet an exigency
of the European war. They were to have reached Boston, as we have seen,
by the middle of May. Sunderland's notice of the change of destination
was not written till the twenty-seventh of July, and was eleven weeks on
its way, thus imposing on the colonists a heavy and needless tax in
time, money, temper, and, in the case of the expedition against
Montreal, health and life.[136] What was left of Nicholson's force had
fallen back before Sunderland's letter came, making a scapegoat of the
innocent Vetch, cursing him, and wishing him hanged.
In New England the disappointment and vexation were extreme; but, not to
lose all the fruits of their efforts, the governors of Massachusetts,
Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island met and resolved to attack
Port Royal if the captains of several British frigates then at New York
and Boston would take part in the enterprise. To the disgust of the
provincials, the captains, with one exception, refused, on the score of
the late season and the want of orders.
A tenacious energy has always been a characteristic of New England, and
the hopes of the colonists had been raised too high to be readily
abandoned. Port Royal was in their eyes a pestilent nest of privateers
and pirates that preyed on the New England fisheries; and on the refusal
of the naval commanders to join in an immediate attack, they offered to
the court to besiege the place themselves next year, if they could count
on the help of four frigates and five hundred soldiers, to be at Boston
by the end of March.[137] The Assembly of Massachusetts requested
Nicholson, who was on the point of sailing for Europe, to beg her
Majesty to help them in an enterprise which would be so advantageous to
the Crown, "and which, by the long and expensive war, we are so
impoverished and enfeebled as not to be in a capacity to effect."[138]
Nicholson sailed in December, and Peter Schuyler soon followed. New
York, having once entered on the path of war, saw that she must
continue in it; and to impress the Five Nations with the might and
majesty of the Queen, and so dispose them to hold fast to the British
cause, Schuyler took five Mohawk chiefs with him to England. One died on
the voyage; the rest arrived safe, and their appearance was the
sensation of the hour. They were clad, at the Queen's expense, in
strange and gay attire, invented by the costumer of one of the theatres;
were lodged and feasted as the guests of the nation, driven about London
in coaches with liveried servants, conducted to dockyards, arsenals, and
reviews, and saluted with cannon by ships of war. The Duke of Shrewsbury
presented them to Queen Anne,--one as emperor of the Mohawks, and the
other three as kings,--and the Archbishop of Canterbury solemnly gave
each of them a Bible. Steele and Addison wrote essays about them, and
the Dutch artist Verelst painted their portraits, which were engraved in
mezzotint.[139] Their presence and the speech made in their name before
the court seem to have had no small effect in drawing attention to the
war in America and inclining the ministry towards the proposals of
Nicholson. These were accepted, and he sailed for America commissioned
to command the enterprise against Port Royal, with Vetch as
adjutant-general.[140]
Colonel Francis Nicholson had held some modest military positions, but
never, it is said, seen active service. In colonial affairs he had
played an important part, and in the course of his life governed, at
different times, Virginia, New York, Maryland, and Carolina. He had a
robust, practical brain, capable of broad views and large schemes. One
of his plans was a confederacy of the provinces to resist the French,
which, to his great indignation, Virginia rejected. He had Jacobite
leanings, and had been an adherent of James II.; but being no idealist,
and little apt to let his political principles block the path of his
interests, he turned his back on the fallen cause and offered his
services to the Revolution. Though no pattern of domestic morals, he
seems to have been officially upright, and he wished well to the
colonies, saving always the dominant interests of England. He was bold,
ambitious, vehement, and sometimes headstrong and perverse.
Though the English ministry had promised aid, it was long in coming. The
Massachusetts Assembly had asked that the ships should be at Boston
before the end of March; but it was past the middle of May before they
sailed from Plymouth. Then, towards midsummer, a strange spasm of
martial energy seems to have seized the ministry, for Viscount Shannon
was ordered to Boston with an additional force, commissioned to take the
chief command and attack, not Port Royal, but Quebec.[141] This
ill-advised change of plan seems to have been reconsidered; at least, it
came to nothing.[142]
Meanwhile, the New England people waited impatiently for the retarded
ships. No order had come from England for raising men, and the colonists
resolved this time to risk nothing till assured that their labor and
money would not be wasted. At last, not in March, but in July, the ships
appeared. Then all was astir with preparation. First, the House of
Representatives voted thanks to the Queen for her "royal aid." Next, it
was proclaimed that no vessel should be permitted to leave the harbor
"till the service is provided;" and a committee of the House proceeded
to impress fourteen vessels to serve as transports. Then a vote was
passed that nine hundred men be raised as the quota of Massachusetts,
and a month's pay in advance, together with a coat worth thirty
shillings, was promised to volunteers; a committee of three being at the
same time appointed to provide the coats. On the next day appeared a
proclamation from the governor announcing the aforesaid
"encouragements," calling on last year's soldiers to enlist again,
promising that all should return home as soon as Port Royal was taken,
and that each might keep as his own forever the Queen's musket that
would be furnished him. Now came an order to colonels of militia to
muster their regiments on a day named, read the proclamation at the head
of each company, and if volunteers did not come forward in sufficient
number, to draft as many men as might be wanted, appointing, at the same
time, officers to conduct them to the rendezvous at Dorchester or
Cambridge; and, by a stringent and unusual enactment, the House ordered
that they should be quartered in private houses, with or without the
consent of the owners, "any law or usage to the contrary
notwithstanding." Sailors were impressed without ceremony to man the
transports; and, finally, it was voted that a pipe of wine, twenty
sheep, five pigs, and one hundred fowls be presented to the Honorable
General Nicholson for his table during the expedition.[143] The above,
with slight variation, may serve as an example of the manner in which,
for several generations, men were raised in Massachusetts to serve
against the French.
Autumn had begun before all was ready. Connecticut, New Hampshire, and
Rhode Island sent their contingents; there was a dinner at the Green
Dragon Tavern in honor of Nicholson, Vetch, and Sir Charles Hobby, the
chief officers of the expedition; and on the eighteenth of September the
whole put to sea.
On the twenty-fourth the squadron sailed into the narrow entrance of
Port Royal, where the tide runs like a mill-stream. One vessel was
driven upon the rocks, and twenty-six men were drowned. The others got
in safely, and anchored above Goat Island, in sight of the French fort.
They consisted of three fourth-rates,--the "Dragon," the "Chester," and
the "Falmouth;" two fifth-rates,--the "Lowestoffe" and the "Feversham;"
the province galley, one bomb-ketch, twenty-four small transports, two
or three hospital ships, a tender, and several sloops carrying timber to
make beds for cannon and mortars. The landing force consisted of four
hundred British marines, and about fifteen hundred provincials, divided
into four battalions.[144] Its unnecessary numbers were due to the
belief of Nicholson that the fort had been reinforced and strengthened.
In the afternoon of the twenty-fifth they were all on shore,--Vetch with
his two battalions on the north side, and Nicholson with the other two
on the south. Vetch marched to his camping-ground, on which, in the
words of Nicholson's journal, "the French began to fire pretty thick."
On the next morning Nicholson's men moved towards the fort, hacking
their way through the woods and crossing the marshes of Allen's River,
while the French fired briskly with cannon from the ramparts, and
small-arms from the woods, houses, and fences. They were driven back,
and the English advance guard intrenched itself within four hundred
yards of the works. Several days passed in landing artillery and stores,
cannonading from the fort and shelling from the English bomb-ketch, when
on the twenty-ninth, Ensign Perelle, with a drummer and a flag of truce,
came to Nicholson's tent, bringing a letter from Subercase, who begged
him to receive into his camp and under his protection certain ladies of
the fort who were distressed by the bursting of the English shells. The
conduct of Perelle was irregular, as he had not given notice of his
approach by beat of drum and got himself and attendants blindfolded
before entering the camp. Therefore Nicholson detained him, sending back
an officer of his own with a letter to the effect that he would receive
the ladies and lodge them in the same house with the French ensign, "for
the queen, my royal mistress, hath not sent me hither to make war
against women." Subercase on his part detained the English officer, and
wrote to Nicholson,--
Sir,--You have one of my officers, and I have one of yours; so that
now we are equal. However, that hinders me not from believing that
once you have given me your word, you will keep it very exactly.
On that ground I now write to tell you, sir, that to prevent the
spilling of both English and French blood, I am ready to hold up
both hands for a capitulation that will be honorable to both of
us.[145]
In view of which agreement, he adds that he defers sending the ladies to
the English camp.
Another day passed, during which the captive officers on both sides were
treated with much courtesy. On the next morning, Sunday, October 1, the
siege-guns, mortars, and coehorns were in position; and after some
firing on both sides, Nicholson sent Colonel Tailor and Captain
Abercrombie with a summons to surrender the fort. Subercase replied that
he was ready to listen to proposals; the firing stopped, and within
twenty-four hours the terms were settled. The garrison were to march out
with the honors of war, and to be carried in English ships to Rochelle
or Rochefort. The inhabitants within three miles of the fort were to be
permitted to remain, if they chose to do so, unmolested, in their homes
during two years, on taking an oath of allegiance and fidelity to the
Queen.
Two hundred provincials marched to the fort gate and formed in two lines
on the right and left. Nicholson advanced between the ranks, with Vetch
on one hand and Hobby on the other, followed by all the field-officers.
Subercase came to meet them, and gave up the keys, with a few words of
compliment. The French officers and men marched out with shouldered
arms, drums beating, and colors flying, saluting the English commander
as they passed; then the English troops marched in, raised the union
flag, and drank the Queen's health amid a general firing of cannon from
the fort and ships. Nicholson changed the name of Port Royal to
Annapolis Royal; and Vetch, already commissioned as governor, took
command of the new garrison, which consisted of two hundred British
marines, and two hundred and fifty provincials who had offered
themselves for the service.
The English officers gave a breakfast to the French ladies in the fort.
Sir Charles Hobby took in Madame de Bonaventure, and the rest followed
in due order of precedence; but as few of the hosts could speak French,
and few of the guests could speak English, the entertainment could
hardly have been a lively one.
The French officers and men in the fort when it was taken were but two
hundred and fifty-eight. Some of the soldiers and many of the armed
inhabitants deserted during the siege, which, no doubt, hastened the
surrender; for Subercase, a veteran of more than thirty years' service,
had borne fair repute as a soldier.
Port Royal had twice before been taken by New England men,--once under
Major Sedgwick in 1654, and again under Sir William Phips in the last
war; and in each case it had been restored to France by treaty. This
time England kept what she had got; and as there was no other place of
strength in the province, the capture of Port Royal meant the conquest
of Acadia.[146]
FOOTNOTES:
[110] Church, _Entertaining Passages_. "Un habitant des Mines a dit
que les ennemis avaient été dans toutes les rivières, qu'il n'y
restait plus que quatre habitations en entier, le restant ayant été
brulé."--_Expéditions faites par les Anglois, 1704._ "Qu'ils avaient ...
brulé toutes les maisons à la reserve du haut des rivières."--Labat,
_Invasion des Anglois_, 1704.
[111] On this affair, Thomas Church, _Entertaining Passages_ (1716). The
writer was the son of Benjamin Church. Penhallow; Belknap, i. 266;
_Dudley to ----, 21 April, 1704_; Hutchinson, ii. 132; _Deplorable State
of New England_; _Entreprise des Anglais sur l'Acadie_, 1704;
_Expéditions faites par les Anglais de la Nouvelle Angleterre_, 1704;
Labat, _Invasion des Anglois de Baston_, 1704.
[112] _Report of a Committee to consider his Excellency's Speech, 12
March, 1707._ _Resolve for an Expedition against Port Royal_
(Massachusetts Archives).
[113] _Autobiography of Rev. John Barnard_, one of the five chaplains of
the expedition.
[114] _A Boston Gentleman to his Friend, 13 June, 1707_ (Mass.
Archives).
[115] _Autobiography of Rev. John Barnard._
[116] _A Boston Gentleman to his Friend, 13 June _(old style)_, 1707._
The final attack here alluded to took place on the night of the
sixteenth of June (new style).
[117] _William Dudley to Governor Dudley, 24 June, 1707._
[118] _Stuckley to Dudley, 28 June, 1707._
[119] A considerable number of letters and official papers on this
expedition will be found in the 51st and 71st volumes of the
Massachusetts Archives. See also Hutchinson, ii. 151, and Belknap, i.
273. The curious narrative of the chaplain, Barnard, is in _Mass. Hist.
Coll., 3d Series_, v. 189-196. The account in the _Deplorable State of
New England_ is meant solely to injure Dudley. The chief French accounts
are _Entreprise des Anglois contre l'Acadie, 26 Juin, 1707_; _Subercase
au Ministre, même date_; _Labat au Ministre, 6 Juillet, 1707_;
_Relation_ appended to Dièreville, _Voyage de l'Acadie_. The last is
extremely loose and fanciful. Subercase puts the English force at three
thousand men, whereas the official returns show it to have been,
soldiers and sailors, about half this number.
[120] Penhallow puts the French force at five hundred and fifty.
Jeremiah Dummer, _Letter to a Noble Lord concerning the late Expedition
to Canada_, says that the havoc committed occasioned a total loss of
£80,000.
[121] _Saint-Ovide au Ministre, 20 Janvier, 1709_; _Ibid., 6 Septembre,
1709_; _Rapport de Costebelle, 26 Février, 1709_. Costebelle makes the
French force one hundred and seventy-five.
[122] Some of the French officials in Acadia foresaw aggressive action
on the part of the English in consequence of the massacre at Haverhill.
"Le coup que les Canadiens viennent de faire, où Mars, plus féroce qu'en
Europe, a donné carrière à sa rage, me fait appréhender une
représaille."--_De Goutin au Ministre, 29 Décembre, 1708._
[123] Patterson, _Memoir of Hon. Samuel Vetch_, in _Collections of the
Nova Scotia Historical Society_, iv. Compare a paper by General James
Grant Wilson in _International Review_, November, 1881.
[124] _Instructions to Colonel Vetch, 1 March, 1709_; _The Earl of
Sunderland to Dudley, 28 April, 1709_; _The Queen to Lord Lovelace, 1
March, 1709_; _The Earl of Sunderland to Lord Lovelace, 28 April, 1709._
[125] _Journal of Vetch and Nicholson_ (Public Record Office). This is
in the form of a letter, signed by both, and dated at New York, 29 June,
1709.
[126] _Thomas Cockerill to Mr. Popple, 2 July, 1709._
[127] Joncaire in _N. Y. Col. Docs._, ix. 838.
[128] Mareuil in _N. Y. Col. Docs._, ix. 836, text and note. _Vaudreuil
au Ministre, 14 Novembre, 1709._
[129] "If I had not accepted the command, there would have
been insuperable difficulties" (arising from provincial
jealousies).--_Nicholson to Sunderland, 8 July, 1709._
[130] Forts Nicholson, Lydius, and Edward were not the same, but
succeeded each other on the same ground.
[131] _Mémoire sur le Canada, Année 1709._ This paper, which has been
ascribed to the engineer De Léry, is printed in _Collection de
Manuscrits relatifs à la Nouvelle France_, i. 615 (Quebec, 1883),
printed from the MS. _Paris Documents_ in the Boston State House. The
writer of the _Mémoire_ was with Ramesay's expedition. Also _Ramesay à
Vaudreuil, 19 Octobre, 1709_, and _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 14 Novembre,
1709_. Charlevoix says that Ramesay turned back because he believed that
there were five thousand English at Wood Creek; but Ramesay himself
makes their number only one thousand whites and two hundred Indians. He
got his information from two Dutchmen caught just after the alarm near
Pointe à la Chevelure (Crown Point). He turned back because he had
failed to surprise the English, and also, it seems, because there were
disagreements among his officers.
[132] _Monseigneur de Saint-Vallier et l'Hôpital Général de Québec_,
203.
[133] _Dudley to Sunderland, 14 August, 1709._
[134] _Vetch to Sunderland, 2 August, 1709._ The pay of the men was nine
shillings a week, with eightpence a day for provisions; and most of them
had received an enlistment bounty of £12.
[135] _Vetch to Sunderland, 12 August, 1709._ Dudley writes with equal
urgency two days later.
[136] _Letters of Nicholson, Dudley, and Vetch, 20 June to 24 October,
1709._
[137] _Joint Letter of Nicholson, Dudley, Vetch, and Moody to
Sunderland, 24 October, 1709_; also _Joint Letter of Dudley, Vetch, and
Moody to Sunderland, 25 October, 1709_; _Abstracts of Letters and Papers
relating to the Attack of Port Royal, 1709_ (Public Record Office);
_Address of ye Inhabitants of Boston and Parts adjacent, 1709_. Moody,
named above, was the British naval captain who had consented to attack
Port Royal.
[138] _Order of Assembly, 27 October, 1709._ Massachusetts had spent
about £22,000 on her futile expedition of 1707, and, with New Hampshire
and Rhode Island, a little more than £46,000 on that of 1709, besides
continual outlay in guarding her two hundred miles of frontier,--a heavy
expense for the place and time.
[139] See J. R. Bartlett, in _Magazine of American History_, March,
1878, and Schuyler, _Colonial New York_, ii. 34-39. The chiefs returned
to America in May on board the "Dragon." An elaborate pamphlet appeared
in London, giving an account of them and their people. A set of the
mezzotint portraits, which are large and well executed, is in the John
Carter Brown collection at Providence. For photographic reproductions,
see Winsor, _Nar. and Crit. Hist._, v. 107. Compare Smith, _Hist. N.
Y._, i. 204 (1830).
[140] _Commission of Colonel Francis Nicholson, 18 May, 1710._
_Instructions to Colonel Nicholson, same date._
[141] _Instructions to Richard Viscount Shannon, July, 1710._ A report
of the scheme reached Boston. Hutchinson, ii. 164.
[142] The troops, however, were actually embarked. _True State of the
Forces commanded by the Right Honble The Lord Viscount Shannon, as they
were Embarkd the 14th of October, 1710._ The total was three thousand
two hundred and sixty-five officers and men. Also, _Shannon to
Sunderland, 16 October, 1710_. The absurdity of the attempt at so late a
season is obvious. Yet the fleet lay some weeks more at Portsmouth,
waiting for a fair wind.
[143] _Archives of Massachusetts_, vol. lxxi., where the original papers
are preserved.
[144] _Nicholson and Vetch to the Secretary of State, 16 September,
1710_; Hutchinson, ii. 164; Penhallow. Massachusetts sent two battalions
of four hundred and fifty men each, and Connecticut one battalion of
three hundred men, while New Hampshire and Rhode Island united their
contingents to form a fourth battalion.
[145] The contemporary English translation of this letter is printed
among the papers appended to _Nicholson's Journal_ in _Collections of
the Nova Scotia Historical Society_, i.
[146] In a letter to Ponchartrain, _1 October, 1710_ (new style),
Subercase declares that he has not a sou left, nor any credit. "I have
managed to borrow enough to maintain the garrison for the last two
years, and have paid what I could by selling all my furniture."
Charlevoix's account of the siege has been followed by most writers,
both French and English; but it is extremely incorrect. It was answered
by one De Gannes, apparently an officer under Subercase, in a paper
called _Observations sur les Erreurs de la Relation du Siège du Port
Royal ... faittes sur de faux mémoires par le révérend Père Charlevoix_,
whom De Gannes often contradicts flatly. Thus Charlevoix puts the
besieging force at thirty-four hundred men, besides officers and
sailors, while De Gannes puts it at fourteen hundred; and while
Charlevoix says that the garrison were famishing, his critic says that
they were provisioned for three months. See the valuable notes to Shea's
_Charlevoix_, v. 227-232.
The journal of Nicholson was published "by authority" in the _Boston
News Letter, November, 1710_, and has been reprinted, with numerous
accompanying documents, including the French and English correspondence
during the siege, in the _Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical
Society_, i.
Vaudreuil, before the siege, sent a reinforcement to Subercase, who, by
a strange infatuation, refused it. _N. Y. Col. Docs._, ix. 853.