1690.
Massachusetts attacks Quebec.
English Schemes • Capture of Port Royal • Acadia reduced • Conduct of
Phips • His History and Character • Boston in Arms • A Puritan Crusade •
The March from Albany • Frontenac and the Council • Frontenac at
Montreal • His War Dance • An Abortive Expedition • An English Raid •
Frontenac at Quebec • Defences of the Town • The Enemy arrives.
When Frontenac sent his war-parties against New York and New England, it
was in the hope not only of reanimating the Canadians, but also of
teaching the Iroquois that they could not safely rely on English aid,
and of inciting the Abenakis to renew their attacks on the border
settlements. He imagined, too, that the British colonies could be
chastised into prudence and taught a policy of conciliation towards
their Canadian neighbors; but he mistook the character of these bold and
vigorous though not martial communities. The plan of a combined attack
on Canada seems to have been first proposed by the Iroquois; and New
York and the several governments of New England, smarting under French
and Indian attacks, hastened to embrace it. Early in May, a congress of
their delegates was held in the city of New York. It was agreed that the
colony of that name should furnish four hundred men, and Massachusetts,
Plymouth, and Connecticut three hundred and fifty-five jointly; while
the Iroquois afterwards added their worthless pledge to join the
expedition with nearly all their warriors. The colonial militia were to
rendezvous at Albany, and thence advance upon Montreal by way of Lake
Champlain. Mutual jealousies made it difficult to agree upon a
commander; but Winthrop of Connecticut was at length placed at the head
of the feeble and discordant band.
While Montreal was thus assailed by land, Massachusetts and the other
New England colonies were invited to attack Quebec by sea; a task
formidable in difficulty and in cost, and one that imposed on them an
inordinate share in the burden of the war. Massachusetts hesitated. She
had no money, and she was already engaged in a less remote and less
critical enterprise. During the winter, her commerce had suffered from
French cruisers, which found convenient harborage at Port Royal, whence
also the hostile Indians were believed to draw supplies. Seven vessels,
with two hundred and eighty-eight sailors, were impressed, and from four
to five hundred militia-men were drafted for the service. [1] That
rugged son of New England, Sir William Phips, was appointed to the
command. He sailed from Nantasket at the end of April, reached Port
Royal on the eleventh of May, landed his militia, and summoned Meneval,
the governor, to surrender. The fort, though garrisoned by about seventy
soldiers, was scarcely in condition to repel an assault; and Meneval
yielded without resistance, first stipulating, according to French
accounts, that private property should be respected, the church left
untouched, and the troops sent to Quebec or to France. [2] It was found,
however, that during the parley a quantity of goods, belonging partly to
the king and partly to merchants of the place, had been carried off and
hidden in the woods. [3] Phips thought this a sufficient pretext for
plundering the merchants, imprisoning the troops, and desecrating the
church. "We cut down the cross," writes one of his followers, "rifled
their church, pulled down their high altar, and broke their images." [4]
The houses of the two priests were also pillaged. The people were
promised security to life, liberty, and property, on condition of
swearing allegiance to King William and Queen Mary; "which," says the
journalist, "they did with great acclamation," and thereupon they were
left unmolested. [5] The lawful portion of the booty included twenty-one
pieces of cannon, with a considerable sum of money belonging to the
king. The smaller articles, many of which were taken from the merchants
and from such of the settlers as refused the oath, were packed in
hogsheads and sent on board the ships. Phips took no measures to secure
his conquest, though he commissioned a president and six councillors,
chosen from the inhabitants, to govern the settlement till farther
orders from the crown or from the authorities of Massachusetts. The
president was directed to constrain nobody in the matter of religion;
and he was assured of protection and support so long as he remained
"faithful to our government," that is, the government of Massachusetts.
[6] The little Puritan commonwealth already gave itself airs of
sovereignty.
[1] Summary of Muster Roll, appended to A Journal of the Expedition from
Boston against Port Royal, among the papers of George Chalmers in the
Library of Harvard College.
[2] Relation de la Prise du Port Royal par les Anglois de Baston, pièce
anonyme, 27 Mai, 1690.
[3] Journal of the Expedition from Boston against Port Royal.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Relation de Monseignat. Nevertheless, a considerable number seem to
have refused the oath, and to have been pillaged. The Relation de la
Prise du Port Royal par les Anglois de Baston, written on the spot
immediately after the event, says that, except that nobody was killed,
the place was treated as if taken by assault. Meneval also says that the
inhabitants were pillaged. Meneval au Ministre, 29 Mai, 1690; also
Rapport de Champigny, Oct., 1690. Meneval describes the New England men
as excessively irritated at the late slaughter of settlers at Salmon
Falls and elsewhere.
[6] Journal of the Expedition, etc.
Phips now sent Captain Alden, who had already taken possession of
Saint-Castin's post at Penobscot, to seize upon La Hêve, Chedabucto, and
other stations on the southern coast. Then, after providing for the
reduction of the settlements at the head of the Bay of Fundy, he sailed,
with the rest of the fleet, for Boston, where he arrived triumphant on
the thirtieth of May, bringing with him, as prisoners, the French
governor, fifty-nine soldiers, and the two priests, Petit and Trouvé.
Massachusetts had made an easy conquest of all Acadia; a conquest,
however, which she had neither the men nor the money to secure by
sufficient garrisons.
The conduct of the New England commander in this affair does him no
credit. It is true that no blood was spilt, and no revenge taken for the
repeated butcheries of unoffending and defenceless settlers. It is true,
also, that the French appear to have acted in bad faith. But Phips, on
the other hand, displayed a scandalous rapacity. Charlevoix says that he
robbed Meneval of all his money; but Meneval himself affirms that he
gave it to the English commander for safe keeping, and that Phips and
his wife would return neither the money nor various other articles
belonging to the captive governor, whereof the following are specified:
"Six silver spoons, six silver forks, one silver cup in the shape of a
gondola, a pair of pistols, three new wigs, a gray vest, four pair of
silk garters, two dozen of shirts, six vests of dimity, four nightcaps
with lace edgings, all my table service of fine tin, all my kitchen
linen," and many other items which give an amusing insight into
Meneval's housekeeping. [7]
[7] An Account of the Silver and Effects which Mr. Phips keeps back from
Mr. Meneval, in 3 Mass. Hist. Coll., I. 115.
Monseignat and La Potherie describe briefly this expedition against Port
Royal. In the archives of Massachusetts are various papers concerning
it, among which are Governor Bradstreet's instructions to Phips, and a
complete invoice of the plunder. Extracts will be found in Professor
Bowen's Life of Phips, in Sparks's American Biography, VII. There is
also an order of council, "Whereas the French soldiers lately brought to
this place from Port Royal did surrender on capitulation," they shall be
set at liberty. Meneval, Lettre au Ministre, 29 Mai, 1690, says that
there was a capitulation, and that Phips broke it. Perrot, former
governor of Acadia, accuses both Meneval and the priest Petit of being
in collusion with the English. Perrot à de Chevry, 2 Juin, 1690. The
same charge is made as regards Petit in Mémoire sur l'Acadie, 1691.
Charlevoix's account of this affair is inaccurate. He ascribes to Phips
acts which took place weeks after his return, such as the capture of
Chedabucto.
Meneval, with the two priests, was confined in a house at Boston, under
guard. He says that he petitioned the governor and council for redress;
"but, as they have little authority and stand in fear of Phips, who is
supported by the rabble, to which he himself once belonged, and of which
he is now the chief, they would do nothing for me." [8] This statement
of Meneval is not quite correct: for an order of the council is on
record, requiring Phips to restore his chest and clothes; and, as the
order received no attention, Governor Bradstreet wrote to the refractory
commander a note, enjoining him to obey it at once. [9] Phips thereupon
gave up some of the money and the worst part of the clothing, still
keeping the rest. [10] After long delay, the council released Meneval:
upon which, Phips and the populace whom he controlled demanded that he
should be again imprisoned; but the "honest people" of the town took his
part, his persecutor was forced to desist, and he set sail covertly for
France. [11] This, at least, is his own account of the affair.
[8] Mémoire présenté à M. de Ponchartrain par M. de Meneval, 6 Avril,
1691.
[9] This note, dated 7 Jan., 1691, is cited by Bowen in his Life of
Phips, Sparks's American Biography, VII.
[10] Mémoire de Meneval.
[11] Ibid.
As Phips was to play a conspicuous part in the events that immediately
followed, some notice of him will not be amiss. He is said to have been
one of twenty-six children, all of the same mother, and was born in 1650
at a rude border settlement, since called Woolwich, on the Kennebec. His
parents were ignorant and poor; and till eighteen years of age he was
employed in keeping sheep. Such a life ill suited his active and
ambitious nature. To better his condition, he learned the trade of
ship-carpenter, and, in the exercise of it, came to Boston, where he
married a widow with some property, beyond him in years, and much above
him in station. About this time, he learned to read and write, though
not too well, for his signature is like that of a peasant. Still
aspiring to greater things, he promised his wife that he would one day
command a king's ship and own a "fair brick house in the Green Lane of
North Boston," a quarter then occupied by citizens of the better class.
He kept his word at both points. Fortune was inauspicious to him for
several years; till at length, under the pressure of reverses, he
conceived the idea of conquering fame and wealth at one stroke, by
fishing up the treasure said to be stored in a Spanish galleon wrecked
fifty years before somewhere in the West Indian seas. Full of this
project, he went to England, where, through influences which do not
plainly appear, he gained a hearing from persons in high places, and
induced the admiralty to adopt his scheme. A frigate was given him, and
he sailed for the West Indies; whence, after a long search, he returned
unsuccessful, though not without adventures which proved his mettle. It
was the epoch of the buccaneers; and his crew, tired of a vain and
toilsome search, came to the quarterdeck, armed with cutlasses, and
demanded of their captain that he should turn pirate with them. Phips, a
tall and powerful man, instantly fell upon them with his fists, knocked
down the ringleaders, and awed them all into submission. Not long after,
there was a more formidable mutiny; but, with great courage and address,
he quelled it for a time, and held his crew to their duty till he had
brought the ship into Jamaica, and exchanged them for better men.
Though the leaky condition of the frigate compelled him to abandon the
search, it was not till he had gained information which he thought would
lead to success; and, on his return, he inspired such confidence that
the Duke of Albemarle, with other noblemen and gentlemen, gave him a
fresh outfit, and despatched him again on his Quixotic errand. This time
he succeeded, found the wreck, and took from it gold, silver, and jewels
to the value of three hundred thousand pounds sterling. The crew now
leagued together to seize the ship and divide the prize; and Phips,
pushed to extremity, was compelled to promise that every man of them
should have a share in the treasure, even if he paid it himself. On
reaching England, he kept his pledge so well that, after redeeming it,
only sixteen thousand pounds was left as his portion, which, however,
was an ample fortune in the New England of that day. He gained, too,
what he valued almost as much, the honor of knighthood. Tempting offers
were made him of employment in the royal service; but he had an ardent
love for his own country, and thither he presently returned.
Phips was a rude sailor, bluff, prompt, and choleric. He never gave
proof of intellectual capacity; and such of his success in life as he
did not owe to good luck was due probably to an energetic and
adventurous spirit, aided by a blunt frankness of address that pleased
the great, and commended him to their favor. Two years after the
expedition to Port Royal, the king, under the new charter, made him
governor of Massachusetts, a post for which, though totally unfit, he
had been recommended by the elder Mather, who, like his son Cotton,
expected to make use of him. He carried his old habits into his new
office, cudgelled Brinton, the collector of the port, and belabored
Captain Short of the royal navy with his cane. Far from trying to hide
the obscurity of his origin, he leaned to the opposite foible, and was
apt to boast of it, delighting to exhibit himself as a self-made man.
New England writers describe him as honest in private dealings; but, in
accordance with his coarse nature, he seems to have thought that any
thing is fair in war. On the other hand, he was warmly patriotic, and
was almost as ready to serve New England as to serve himself. [12]
[12] An excellent account of Phips will be found in Professor Bowen's
biographical notice, already cited. His Life by Cotton Mather is
excessively eulogistic.
When he returned from Port Royal, he found Boston alive with martial
preparation. A bold enterprise was afoot. Massachusetts of her own
motion had resolved to attempt the conquest of Quebec. She and her
sister colonies had not yet recovered from the exhaustion of Philip's
war, and still less from the disorders that attended the expulsion of
the royal governor and his adherents. The public treasury was empty, and
the recent expeditions against the eastern Indians had been supported by
private subscription. Worse yet, New England had no competent military
commander. The Puritan gentlemen of the original emigration, some of
whom were as well fitted for military as for civil leadership, had
passed from the stage; and, by a tendency which circumstances made
inevitable, they had left none behind them equally qualified. The great
Indian conflict of fifteen years before had, it is true, formed good
partisan chiefs, and proved that the New England yeoman, defending his
family and his hearth, was not to be surpassed in stubborn fighting;
but, since Andros and his soldiers had been driven out, there was
scarcely a single man in the colony of the slightest training or
experience in regular war. Up to this moment, New England had never
asked help of the mother country. When thousands of savages burst on her
defenceless settlements, she had conquered safety and peace with her own
blood and her own slender resources; but now, as the proposed capture of
Quebec would inure to the profit of the British crown, Bradstreet and
his council thought it not unfitting to ask for a supply of arms and
ammunition, of which they were in great need. [13] The request was
refused, and no aid of any kind came from the English government, whose
resources were engrossed by the Irish war.
[13] Bradstreet and Council to the Earl of Shrewsbury, 29 Mar., 1690;
Danforth to Sir H. Ashurst, 1 April, 1690.
While waiting for the reply, the colonial authorities urged on their
preparations, in the hope that the plunder of Quebec would pay the
expenses of its conquest. Humility was not among the New England
virtues, and it was thought a sin to doubt that God would give his
chosen people the victory over papists and idolaters; yet no pains were
spared to ensure the divine favor. A proclamation was issued, calling
the people to repentance; a day of fasting was ordained; and, as Mather
expresses it, "the wheel of prayer was kept in continual motion." [14]
The chief difficulty was to provide funds. An attempt was made to
collect a part of the money by private subscription; [15] but, as this
plan failed, the provisional government, already in debt, strained its
credit yet farther, and borrowed the needful sums. Thirty-two trading
and fishing vessels, great and small, were impressed for the service.
The largest was a ship called the "Six Friends," engaged in the
dangerous West India trade, and carrying forty-four guns. A call was
made for volunteers, and many enrolled themselves; but, as more were
wanted, a press was ordered to complete the number. So rigorously was it
applied that, what with voluntary and enforced enlistment, one town,
that of Gloucester, was deprived of two-thirds of its fencible men. [16]
There was not a moment of doubt as to the choice of a commander, for
Phips was imagined to be the very man for the work. One John Walley, a
respectable citizen of Barnstable, was made second in command with the
modest rank of major; and a sufficient number of ship-masters,
merchants, master mechanics, and substantial farmers, were commissioned
as subordinate officers. About the middle of July, the committee charged
with the preparations reported that all was ready. Still there was a
long delay. The vessel sent early in spring to ask aid from England had
not returned. Phips waited for her as long as he dared, and the best of
the season was over when he resolved to put to sea. The rustic warriors,
duly formed into companies, were sent on board; and the fleet sailed
from Nantasket on the ninth of August. Including sailors, it carried
twenty-two hundred men, with provisions for four months, but
insufficient ammunition and no pilot for the St. Lawrence. [17]
[14] Mass. Colonial Records, 12 Mar., 1690; Mather, Life of Phips.
[15] Proposals for an Expedition against Canada, in 3 Mass. Hist. Coll.,
X. 119.
[16] Rev. John Emerson to Wait Winthrop, 26 July, 1690. Emerson was the
minister of Gloucester. He begs for the release of the impressed men.
[17] Mather, Life of Phips, gives an account of the outfit. Compare the
Humble Address of Divers of the Gentry, Merchants and others inhabiting
in Boston, to the King's Most Excellent Majesty. Two officers of the
expedition, Walley and Savage, have left accounts of it, as Phips would
probably have done, had his literary acquirements been equal to the
task.
While Massachusetts was making ready to conquer Quebec by sea, the
militia of the land expedition against Montreal had mustered at Albany.
Their strength was even less than was at first proposed; for, after the
disaster at Casco, Massachusetts and Plymouth had recalled their
contingents to defend their frontiers. The rest, decimated by dysentery
and small-pox, began their march to Lake Champlain, with bands of
Mohawk, Oneida, and Mohegan allies. The western Iroquois were to join
them at the lake, and the combined force was then to attack the head of
the colony, while Phips struck at its heart.
Frontenac was at Quebec during most of the winter and the early spring.
When he had despatched the three war-parties, whose hardy but murderous
exploits were to bring this double storm upon him, he had an interval of
leisure, of which he made a characteristic use. The English and the
Iroquois were not his only enemies. He had opponents within as well as
without, and he counted as among them most of the members of the supreme
council. Here was the bishop, representing that clerical power which had
clashed so often with the civil rule; here was that ally of the Jesuits,
the intendant Champigny, who, when Frontenac arrived, had written
mournfully to Versailles that he would do his best to live at peace with
him; here were Villeray and Auteuil, whom the governor had once
banished, Damours, whom he had imprisoned, and others scarcely more
agreeable to him. They and their clerical friends had conspired for his
recall seven or eight years before; they had clung to Denonville, that
faithful son of the Church, in spite of all his failures; and they had
seen with troubled minds the return of King Stork in the person of the
haughty and irascible count. He on his part felt his power. The country
was in deadly need of him, and looked to him for salvation; while the
king had shown him such marks of favor, that, for the moment at least,
his enemies must hold their peace. Now, therefore, was the time to teach
them that he was their master. Whether trivial or important the occasion
mattered little. What he wanted was a conflict and a victory, or
submission without a conflict.
The supreme council had held its usual weekly meetings since Frontenac's
arrival; but as yet he had not taken his place at the board, though his
presence was needed. Auteuil, the attorney-general, was thereupon
deputed to invite him. He visited the count at his apartment in the
château, but could get from him no answer, except that the council was
able to manage its own business, and that he would come when the king's
service should require it. The councillors divined that he was waiting
for some assurance that they would receive him with befitting ceremony;
and, after debating the question, they voted to send four of their
number to repeat the invitation, and beg the governor to say what form
of reception would be agreeable to him. Frontenac answered that it was
for them to propose the form, and that, when they did so, he would take
the subject into consideration. The deputies returned, and there was
another debate. A ceremony was devised, which it was thought must needs
be acceptable to the count; and the first councillor, Villeray, repaired
to the château to submit it to him. After making him an harangue of
compliment, and protesting the anxiety of himself and his colleagues to
receive him with all possible honor, he explained the plan, and assured
Frontenac that, if not wholly satisfactory, it should be changed to suit
his pleasure. "To which," says the record, "Monsieur the governor only
answered that the council could consult the bishop and other persons
acquainted with such matters." The bishop was consulted, but pleaded
ignorance. Another debate followed; and the first councillor was again
despatched to the château, with proposals still more deferential than
the last, and full power to yield, in addition, whatever the governor
might desire. Frontenac replied that, though they had made proposals for
his reception when he should present himself at the council for the
first time, they had not informed him what ceremony they meant to
observe when he should come to the subsequent sessions. This point also
having been thoroughly debated, Villeray went again to the count, and
with great deference laid before him the following plan: That, whenever
it should be his pleasure to make his first visit to the council, four
of its number should repair to the château, and accompany him, with
every mark of honor, to the palace of the intendant, where the sessions
were held; and that, on his subsequent visits, two councillors should
meet him at the head of the stairs, and conduct him to his seat. The
envoy farther protested that, if this failed to meet his approval, the
council would conform itself to all his wishes on the subject. Frontenac
now demanded to see the register in which the proceedings on the
question at issue were recorded. Villeray was directed to carry it to
him. The records had been cautiously made; and, after studying them
carefully, he could find nothing at which to cavil.
He received the next deputation with great affability, told them that he
was glad to find that the council had not forgotten the consideration
due to his office and his person, and assured them, with urbane irony,
that, had they offered to accord him marks of distinction greater than
they felt were due, he would not have permitted them thus to compromise
their dignity, having too much regard for the honor of a body of which
he himself was the head. Then, after thanking them collectively and
severally, he graciously dismissed them, saying that he would come to
the council after Easter, or in about two months. [18] During four
successive Mondays, he had forced the chief dignitaries of the colony to
march in deputations up and down the rugged road from the intendant's
palace to the chamber of the château where he sat in solitary state. A
disinterested spectator might see the humor of the situation; but the
council felt only its vexations. Frontenac had gained his point: the
enemy had surrendered unconditionally.
[18] "M. le Gouverneur luy a répondu qu'il avoit reconnu avec plaisir
que la Compagnie (le Conseil) conservoit la considération qu'elle avoit
pour son caractère et pour sa personne, et qu'elle pouvoit bien
s'assurer qu'encore qu'elle luy eust fait des propositions au delà de ce
qu'elle auroit cru devoir faire pour sa reception au Conseil, il ne les
auroit pas acceptées, l'honneur de la Compagnie luy estant d'autant plus
considérable, qu'en estant le chef, il n'auroit rien voulu souffrir qui
peust estre contraire à sa dignité." Registre du Conseil Souverain,
séance du 13 Mars, 1690. The affair had occupied the preceding sessions
of 20 and 27 February and 6 March. The submission of the councillors did
not prevent them from complaining to the minister. Champigny au
Ministre, 10 Mai, 1691; Mémoire instructif sur le Canada, 1691.
Having settled this important matter to his satisfaction, he again
addressed himself to saving the country. During the winter, he had
employed gangs of men in cutting timber in the forests, hewing it into
palisades, and dragging it to Quebec. Nature had fortified the Upper
Town on two sides by cliffs almost inaccessible, but it was open to
attack in the rear; and Frontenac, with a happy prevision of approaching
danger, gave his first thoughts to strengthening this, its only weak
side. The work began as soon as the frost was out of the ground, and
before midsummer it was well advanced. At the same time, he took every
precaution for the safety of the settlements in the upper parts of the
colony, stationed detachments of regulars at the stockade forts, which
Denonville had built in all the parishes above Three Rivers, and kept
strong scouting parties in continual movement in all the quarters most
exposed to attack. Troops were detailed to guard the settlers at their
work in the fields, and officers and men were enjoined to use the utmost
vigilance. Nevertheless, the Iroquois war-parties broke in at various
points, burning and butchering, and spreading such terror that in some
districts the fields were left untilled and the prospects of the harvest
ruined.
Towards the end of July, Frontenac left Major Prévost to finish the
fortifications, and, with the intendant Champigny, went up to Montreal,
the chief point of danger. Here he arrived on the thirty-first; and, a
few days after, the officer commanding the fort at La Chine sent him a
messenger in hot haste with the startling news that Lake St. Louis was
"all covered with canoes." [19] Nobody doubted that the Iroquois were
upon them again. Cannon were fired to call in the troops from the
detached posts; when alarm was suddenly turned to joy by the arrival of
other messengers to announce that the new comers were not enemies, but
friends. They were the Indians of the upper lakes descending from
Michillimackinac to trade at Montreal. Nothing so auspicious had
happened since Frontenac's return. The messages he had sent them in the
spring by Louvigny and Perrot, reinforced by the news of the victory on
the Ottawa and the capture of Schenectady, had had the desired effect;
and the Iroquois prisoner whom their missionary had persuaded them to
torture had not been sacrificed in vain. Despairing of an English market
for their beaver skins, they had come as of old to seek one from the
French.
[19] "Que le lac estoit tout convert de canots." Frontenac au Ministre,
9 et 12 Nov., 1690.
On the next day, they all came down the rapids, and landed near the
town. There were fully five hundred of them, Hurons, Ottawas, Ojibwas,
Pottawatamies, Crees, and Nipissings, with a hundred and ten canoes
laden with beaver skins to the value of nearly a hundred thousand
crowns. Nor was this all; for, a few days after, La Durantaye, late
commander at Michillimackinac, arrived with fifty-five more canoes,
manned by French traders, and filled with valuable furs. The stream of
wealth dammed back so long was flowing upon the colony at the moment
when it was most needed. Never had Canada known a more prosperous trade
than now in the midst of her danger and tribulation. It was a triumph
for Frontenac. If his policy had failed with the Iroquois, it had found
a crowning success among the tribes of the lakes.
Having painted, greased, and befeathered themselves, the Indians
mustered for the grand council which always preceded the opening of the
market. The Ottawa orator spoke of nothing but trade, and, with a
regretful memory of the cheapness of English goods, begged that the
French would sell them at the same rate. The Huron touched upon politics
and war, declaring that he and his people had come to visit their old
father and listen to his voice, being well assured that he would never
abandon them, as others had done, nor fool away his time, like
Denonville, in shameful negotiations for peace; and he exhorted
Frontenac to fight, not the English only, but the Iroquois also, till
they were brought to reason. "If this is not done," he said, "my father
and I shall both perish; but, come what may, we will perish together."
[20] "I answered," writes Frontenac, "that I would fight the Iroquois
till they came to beg for peace, and that I would grant them no peace
that did not include all my children, both white and red, for I was the
father of both alike."
[20] La Potherie, III. 94; Monseignat, Relation; Frontenac au Ministre,
9 et 12 Nov., 1690.
Now ensued a curious scene. Frontenac took a hatchet, brandished it in
the air and sang the war-song. The principal Frenchmen present followed
his example. The Christian Iroquois of the two neighboring missions rose
and joined them, and so also did the Hurons and the Algonquins of Lake
Nipissing, stamping and screeching like a troop of madmen; while the
governor led the dance, whooping like the rest. His predecessor would
have perished rather than play such a part in such company; but the
punctilious old courtier was himself half Indian at heart, as much at
home in a wigwam as in the halls of princes. Another man would have lost
respect in Indian eyes by such a performance. In Frontenac, it roused
his audience to enthusiasm. They snatched the proffered hatchet and
promised war to the death. [21]
[21] "Je leur mis moy-mesme la hache à la main en chantant la chanson de
guerre pour m'accommoder à leurs façons de faire." Frontenac au
Ministre, 9 et 12 Nov., 1690.
"Monsieur de Frontenac commença la Chanson de guerre, la Hache à la
main, les principaux Chefs des François se joignant a luy avec de
pareilles armes, la chanterent ensemble. Les Iroquois du Saut et de la
Montagne, les Hurons et les Nipisiriniens donnerent encore le branle:
l'on eut dit, Monsieur, que ces Acteurs étoient des possedez par les
gestes et les contorsions qu'ils faisoient. Les Sassakouez, où les cris
et les hurlemens que Mr. de Frontenac étoit obligé de faire pour se
conformer à leur manière, augmentoit encore la fureur bachique." La
Potherie, III. 97.
Then came a solemn war-feast. Two oxen and six large dogs had been
chopped to pieces for the occasion, and boiled with a quantity of
prunes. Two barrels of wine with abundant tobacco were also served out
to the guests, who devoured the meal in a species of frenzy. [22] All
seemed eager for war except the Ottawas, who had not forgotten their
late dalliance with the Iroquois. A Christian Mohawk of the Saut St.
Louis called them to another council, and demanded that they should
explain clearly their position. Thus pushed to the wall, they no longer
hesitated, but promised like the rest to do all that their father should
ask.
[22] La Potherie, III. 96, 98.
Their sincerity was soon put to the test. An Iroquois convert called La
Plaque, a notorious reprobate though a good warrior, had gone out as a
scout in the direction of Albany. On the day when the market opened and
trade was in full activity, the buyers and sellers were suddenly
startled by the sound of the death-yell. They snatched their weapons,
and for a moment all was confusion; when La Plaque, who had probably
meant to amuse himself at their expense, made his appearance, and
explained that the yells proceeded from him. The news that he brought
was, however, sufficiently alarming. He declared that he had been at
Lake St. Sacrement, or Lake George, and had seen there a great number of
men making canoes as if about to advance on Montreal. Frontenac,
thereupon, sent the Chevalier de Clermont to scout as far as Lake
Champlain. Clermont soon sent back one of his followers to announce that
he had discovered a party of the enemy, and that they were already on
their way down the Richelieu. Frontenac ordered cannon to be fired to
call in the troops, crossed the St. Lawrence followed by all the
Indians, and encamped with twelve hundred men at La Prairie to meet the
expected attack. He waited in vain. All was quiet, and the Ottawa scouts
reported that they could find no enemy. Three days passed. The Indians
grew impatient, and wished to go home. Neither English nor Iroquois had
shown themselves; and Frontenac, satisfied that their strength had been
exaggerated, left a small force at La Prairie, recrossed the river, and
distributed the troops again among the neighboring parishes to protect
the harvesters. He now gave ample presents to his departing allies,
whose chiefs he had entertained at his own table, and to whom, says
Charlevoix, he bade farewell "with those engaging manners which he knew
so well how to assume when he wanted to gain anybody to his interest."
Scarcely were they gone, when the distant cannon of La Prairie boomed a
sudden alarm.
The men whom La Plaque had seen near Lake George were a part of the
combined force of Connecticut and New York, destined to attack Montreal.
They had made their way along Wood Creek to the point where it widens
into Lake Champlain, and here they had stopped. Disputes between the men
of the two colonies, intestine quarrels in the New York militia, who
were divided between the two factions engendered by the late revolution,
the want of provisions, the want of canoes, and the ravages of
small-pox, had ruined an enterprise which had been mismanaged from the
first. There was no birch bark to make more canoes, and owing to the
lateness of the season the bark of the elms would not peel. Such of the
Iroquois as had joined them were cold and sullen; and news came that the
three western tribes of the confederacy, terrified by the small-pox, had
refused to move. It was impossible to advance; and Winthrop, the
commander, gave orders to return to Albany, leaving Phips to conquer
Canada alone. [23] But first, that the campaign might not seem wholly
futile, he permitted Captain John Schuyler to make a raid into Canada
with a band of volunteers. Schuyler left the camp at Wood Creek with
twenty-nine whites and a hundred and twenty Indians, passed Lake
Champlain, descended the Richelieu to Chambly, and fell suddenly on the
settlement of La Prairie, whence Frontenac had just withdrawn with his
forces. Soldiers and inhabitants were reaping in the wheat-fields.
Schuyler and his followers killed or captured twenty-five, including
several women. He wished to attack the neighboring fort, but his Indians
refused; and after burning houses, barns, and hay-ricks, and killing a
great number of cattle, he seated himself with his party at dinner in
the adjacent woods, while cannon answered cannon from Chambly, La
Prairie, and Montreal, and the whole country was astir. "We thanked the
Governor of Canada," writes Schuyler, "for his salute of heavy artillery
during our meal." [24]
[23] On this expedition see the Journal of Major General Winthrop, in N.
Y. Col. Docs., IV. 193; Publick Occurrences, 1690, in Historical
Magazine, I. 228; and various documents in N. Y. Col. Docs., III. 727,
752, and in Doc. Hist. N. Y., II. 266, 288. Compare La Potherie, III.
126, and N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 513. These last are French statements. A
Sokoki Indian brought to Canada a greatly exaggerated account of the
English forces, and said that disease had been spread among them by
boxes of infected clothing, which they themselves had provided in order
to poison the Canadians. Bishop Laval, Lettre du 20 Nov., 1690, says
that there was a quarrel between the English and their Iroquois allies,
who, having plundered a magazine of spoiled provisions, fell ill, and
thought that they were poisoned. Colden and other English writers seem
to have been strangely ignorant of this expedition. The Jesuit Michel
Germain declares that the force of the English alone amounted to four
thousand men (Relation de la Défaite des Anglois, 1690). About one tenth
of this number seem actually to have taken the field.
[24] Journal of Captain John Schuyler, in Doc. Hist. N. Y., II. 285.
Compare La Potherie, III. 101, and Relation de Monseignat.
The English had little to boast in this affair, the paltry termination
of an enterprise from which great things had been expected. Nor was it
for their honor to adopt the savage and cowardly mode of warfare in
which their enemies had led the way. The blow that had been struck was
less an injury to the French than an insult; but, as such, it galled
Frontenac excessively, and he made no mention of it in his despatches to
the court. A few more Iroquois attacks and a few more murders kept
Montreal in alarm till the tenth of October, when matters of deeper
import engaged the governor's thoughts.
A messenger arrived in haste at three o'clock in the afternoon, and gave
him a letter from Prévost, town major of Quebec. It was to the effect
that an Abenaki Indian had just come over land from Acadia, with news
that some of his tribe had captured an English woman near Portsmouth,
who told them that a great fleet had sailed from Boston to attack
Quebec. Frontenac, not easily alarmed, doubted the report. Nevertheless,
he embarked at once with the intendant in a small vessel, which proved
to be leaky, and was near foundering with all on board. He then took a
canoe, and towards evening set out again for Quebec, ordering some two
hundred men to follow him. On the next day, he met another canoe,
bearing a fresh message from Prévost, who announced that the English
fleet had been seen in the river, and that it was already above
Tadoussac. Frontenac now sent back Captain de Ramsay with orders to
Callières, governor of Montreal, to descend immediately to Quebec with
all the force at his disposal, and to muster the inhabitants on the way.
Then he pushed on with the utmost speed. The autumnal storms had begun,
and the rain pelted him without ceasing; but on the morning of the
fourteenth he neared the town. The rocks of Cape Diamond towered before
him; the St. Lawrence lay beneath them, lonely and still; and the Basin
of Quebec outspread its broad bosom, a solitude without a sail.
Frontenac had arrived in time.
He landed at the Lower Town, and the troops and the armed inhabitants
came crowding to meet him. He was delighted at their ardor. [25] Shouts,
cheers, and the waving of hats greeted the old man as he climbed the
steep ascent of Mountain Street. Fear and doubt seemed banished by his
presence. Even those who hated him rejoiced at his coming, and hailed
him as a deliverer. He went at once to inspect the fortifications. Since
the alarm a week before, Prévost had accomplished wonders, and not only
completed the works begun in the spring, but added others to secure a
place which was a natural fortress in itself. On two sides, the Upper
Town scarcely needed defence. The cliffs along the St. Lawrence and
those along the tributary river St. Charles had three accessible points,
guarded at the present day by the Prescott Gate, the Hope Gate, and the
Palace Gate. Prévost had secured them by barricades of heavy beams and
casks filled with earth. A continuous line of palisades ran along the
strand of the St. Charles, from the great cliff called the Saut au
Matelot to the palace of the intendant. At this latter point began the
line of works constructed by Frontenac to protect the rear of the town.
They consisted of palisades, strengthened by a ditch and an embankment,
and flanked at frequent intervals by square towers of stone. Passing
behind the garden of the Ursulines, they extended to a windmill on a
hillock called Mt. Carmel, and thence to the brink of the cliffs in
front. Here there was a battery of eight guns near the present Public
Garden; two more, each of three guns, were planted at the top of the
Saut au Matelot; another at the barricade of the Palace Gate; and
another near the windmill of Mt. Carmel; while a number of light pieces
were held in reserve for such use as occasion might require. The Lower
Town had no defensive works; but two batteries, each of three guns,
eighteen and twenty-four pounders, were placed here at the edge of the
river. [26]
[25] Frontenac au Ministre, 9 et 12 Nov., 1690.
[26] Relation de Monseignat; Plan de Québec, par Villeneuve, 1690;
Relation du Mercure Galant, 1691. The summit of Cape Diamond, which
commanded the town, was not fortified till three years later, nor were
any guns placed here during the English attack.
Two days passed in completing these defences under the eye of the
governor. Men were flocking in from the parishes far and near; and on
the evening of the fifteenth about twenty-seven hundred, regulars and
militia, were gathered within the fortifications, besides the armed
peasantry of Beauport and Beaupré, who were ordered to watch the river
below the town, and resist the English, should they attempt to land.
[27] At length, before dawn on the morning of the sixteenth, the
sentinels on the Saut au Matelot could descry the slowly moving lights
of distant vessels. At daybreak the fleet was in sight. Sail after sail
passed the Point of Orleans and glided into the Basin of Quebec. The
excited spectators on the rock counted thirty-four of them. Four were
large ships, several others were of considerable size, and the rest were
brigs, schooners, and fishing craft, all thronged with men.
[27] Diary of Sylvanus Davis, prisoner in Quebec, in Mass. Hist. Coll.
3, I. 101. There is a difference of ten days in the French and English
dates, the New Style having been adopted by the former and not by the
latter.