1690.
Defence of Quebec.
Phips on the St. Lawrence • Phips at Quebec • A Flag of Truce • Scene at
the Château • The Summons and the Answer • Plan of Attack • Landing of
the English • The Cannonade • The Ships repulsed • The Land Attack •
Retreat of Phips • Condition of Quebec • Rejoicings of the French •
Distress at Boston.
The delay at Boston, waiting aid from England that never came, was not
propitious to Phips; nor were the wind and the waves. The voyage to the
St. Lawrence was a long one; and when he began, without a pilot, to
grope his way up the unknown river, the weather seemed in league with
his enemies. He appears, moreover, to have wasted time. What was most
vital to his success was rapidity of movement; yet, whether by his fault
or his misfortune, he remained three weeks within three days' sail of
Quebec. [1] While anchored off Tadoussac, with the wind ahead, he passed
the idle hours in holding councils of war and framing rules for the
government of his men; and, when at length the wind veered to the east,
it is doubtful if he made the best use of his opportunity. [2]
[1] Journal of Major Walley, in Hutchinson, Hist. Mass., I. 470.
[2] "Ils ne profitèrent pas du vent favorable pour nous surprendre comme
ils auroient pu faire." Juchereau, 320.
He presently captured a small vessel, commanded by Granville, an officer
whom Prévost had sent to watch his movements. He had already captured,
near Tadoussac, another vessel, having on board Madame Lalande and
Madame Joliet, the wife and the mother-in-law of the discoverer of the
Mississippi. [3] When questioned as to the condition of Quebec, they
told him that it was imperfectly fortified, that its cannon were
dismounted, and that it had not two hundred men to defend it. Phips was
greatly elated, thinking that, like Port Royal, the capital of Canada
would fall without a blow. The statement of the two prisoners was true,
for the most part, when it was made; but the energy of Prévost soon
wrought a change.
[3] "Les Demoiselles Lalande et Joliet." The title of madame was at this
time restricted to married women of rank. The wives of the bourgeois,
and even of the lesser nobles, were called demoiselles.
Phips imagined that the Canadians would offer little resistance to the
Puritan invasion; for some of the Acadians had felt the influence of
their New England neighbors, and shown an inclination to them. It was
far otherwise in Canada, where the English heretics were regarded with
abhorrence. Whenever the invaders tried to land at the settlements along
the shore, they were met by a rebuff. At the river Ouelle, Francheville,
the curé put on a cap and capote, took a musket, led his parishioners to
the river, and hid with them in the bushes. As the English boats
approached their ambuscade, they gave the foremost a volley, which
killed nearly every man on board; upon which the rest sheared off. It
was the same when the fleet neared Quebec. Bands of militia, vigilant,
agile, and well commanded, followed it along the shore, and repelled
with showers of bullets every attempt of the enemy to touch Canadian
soil.
When, after his protracted voyage, Phips sailed into the Basin of
Quebec, one of the grandest scenes on the western continent opened upon
his sight: the wide expanse of waters, the lofty promontory beyond, and
the opposing heights of Levi; the cataract of Montmorenci, the distant
range of the Laurentian Mountains, the warlike rock with its diadem of
walls and towers, the roofs of the Lower Town clustering on the strand
beneath, the Château St. Louis perched at the brink of the cliff, and
over it the white banner, spangled with fleurs-de-lis, flaunting
defiance in the clear autumnal air. Perhaps, as he gazed, a suspicion
seized him that the task he had undertaken was less easy than he had
thought; but he had conquered once by a simple summons to surrender, and
he resolved to try its virtue again.
The fleet anchored a little below Quebec; and towards ten o'clock the
French saw a boat put out from the admiral's ship, bearing a flag of
truce. Four canoes went from the Lower Town, and met it midway. It
brought a subaltern officer, who announced himself as the bearer of a
letter from Sir William Phips to the French commander. He was taken into
one of the canoes and paddled to the quay, after being completely
blindfolded by a bandage which covered half his face. Prévost received
him as he landed, and ordered two sergeants to take him by the arms and
lead him to the governor. His progress was neither rapid nor direct.
They drew him hither and thither, delighting to make him clamber in the
dark over every possible obstruction; while a noisy crowd hustled him,
and laughing women called him Colin Maillard, the name of the chief
player in blindman's buff. [4] Amid a prodigious hubbub, intended to
bewilder him and impress him with a sense of immense warlike
preparation, they dragged him over the three barricades of Mountain
Street, and brought him at last into a large room of the château. Here
they took the bandage from his eyes. He stood for a moment with an air
of astonishment and some confusion. The governor stood before him,
haughty and stern, surrounded by French and Canadian officers,
Maricourt, Sainte-Hélène, Longueuil, Villebon, Valrenne, Bienville, and
many more, bedecked with gold lace and silver lace, perukes and powder,
plumes and ribbons, and all the martial foppery in which they took
delight, and regarding the envoy with keen, defiant eyes. [5] After a
moment, he recovered his breath and his composure, saluted Frontenac,
and, expressing a wish that the duty assigned him had been of a more
agreeable nature, handed him the letter of Phips. Frontenac gave it to
an interpreter, who read it aloud in French that all might hear. It ran
thus:--
[4] Juchereau, 323.
[5] "Tous ces Officiers s'étoient habillés le plus proprement qu'ils
pûrent, les galons d'or et d'argent, les rubans, les plumets, la poudre,
et la frisure, rien ne manquoit," etc. Ibid.
"Sir William Phips, Knight, General and Commander-in-chief in and over
their Majesties' Forces of New England, by Sea and Land, to Count
Frontenac, Lieutenant-General and Governour for the French King at
Canada; or, in his absence, to his Deputy, or him or them in chief
command at Quebeck:
"The war between the crowns of England and France doth not only
sufficiently warrant, but the destruction made by the French and
Indians, under your command and encouragement, upon the persons and
estates of their Majesties' subjects of New England, without provocation
on their part, hath put them under the necessity of this expedition for
their own security and satisfaction. And although the cruelties and
barbarities used against them by the French and Indians might, upon the
present opportunity, prompt unto a severe revenge, yet, being desirous
to avoid all inhumane and unchristian-like actions, and to prevent
shedding of blood as much as may be,
"I, the aforesaid William Phips, Knight, do hereby, in the name and in
the behalf of their most excellent Majesties, William and Mary, King and
Queen of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, Defenders of the Faith,
and by order of their said Majesties' government of the
Massachuset-colony in New England, demand a present surrender of your
forts and castles, undemolished, and the King's and other stores,
unimbezzled, with a seasonable delivery of all captives; together with a
surrender of all your persons and estates to my dispose: upon the doing
whereof, you may expect mercy from me, as a Christian, according to what
shall be found for their Majesties' service and the subjects' security.
Which, if you refuse forthwith to do, I am come provided, and am
resolved, by the help of God, in whom I trust, by force of arms to
revenge all wrongs and injuries offered, and bring you under subjection
to the Crown of England, and, when too late, make you wish you had
accepted of the favour tendered.
"Your answer positive in an hour, returned by your own trumpet, with the
return of mine, is required upon the peril that will ensue." [6]
[6] See the Letter in Mather, Magnalia, I. 186. The French kept a copy
of it, which, with an accurate translation, in parallel columns, was
sent to Versailles, and is still preserved in the Archives de la Marine.
The text answers perfectly to that given by Mather.
When the reading was finished, the Englishman pulled his watch from his
pocket, and handed it to the governor. Frontenac could not, or pretended
that he could not, see the hour. The messenger thereupon told him that
it was ten o'clock, and that he must have his answer before eleven. A
general cry of indignation arose; and Valrenne called out that Phips was
nothing but a pirate, and that his man ought to be hanged. Frontenac
contained himself for a moment, and then said to the envoy:--
"I will not keep you waiting so long. Tell your general that I do not
recognize King William; and that the Prince of Orange, who so styles
himself, is a usurper, who has violated the most sacred laws of blood in
attempting to dethrone his father-in-law. I know no king of England but
King James. Your general ought not to be surprised at the hostilities
which he says that the French have carried on in the colony of
Massachusetts; for, as the king my master has taken the king of England
under his protection, and is about to replace him on his throne by force
of arms, he might have expected that his Majesty would order me to make
war on a people who have rebelled against their lawful prince." Then,
turning with a smile to the officers about him: "Even if your general
offered me conditions a little more gracious, and if I had a mind to
accept them, does he suppose that these brave gentlemen would give their
consent, and advise me to trust a man who broke his agreement with the
governor of Port Royal, or a rebel who has failed in his duty to his
king, and forgotten all the favors he had received from him, to follow a
prince who pretends to be the liberator of England and the defender of
the faith, and yet destroys the laws and privileges of the kingdom and
overthrows its religion? The divine justice which your general invokes
in his letter will not fail to punish such acts severely."
The messenger seemed astonished and startled; but he presently asked if
the governor would give him his answer in writing.
"No," returned Frontenac, "I will answer your general only by the mouths
of my cannon, that he may learn that a man like me is not to be summoned
after this fashion. Let him do his best, and I will do mine;" and he
dismissed the Englishman abruptly. He was again blindfolded, led over
the barricades, and sent back to the fleet by the boat that brought him.
[7]
[7] Lettre de Sir William Phips à M. de Frontenac, avec sa Réponse
verbale; Relation de ce qui s'est passé à la Descente des Anglois à
Québec au mois d'Octobre, 1690. Compare Monseignat, Relation. The
English accounts, though more brief, confirm those of the French.
Phips had often given proof of personal courage, but for the past three
weeks his conduct seems that of a man conscious that he is charged with
a work too large for his capacity. He had spent a good part of his time
in holding councils of war; and now, when he heard the answer of
Frontenac, he called another to consider what should be done. A plan of
attack was at length arranged. The militia were to be landed on the
shore of Beauport, which was just below Quebec, though separated from it
by the St. Charles. They were then to cross this river by a ford
practicable at low water, climb the heights of St. Geneviève, and gain
the rear of the town. The small vessels of the fleet were to aid the
movement by ascending the St. Charles as far as the ford, holding the
enemy in check by their fire, and carrying provisions, ammunition, and
intrenching tools, for the use of the land troops. When these had
crossed and were ready to attack Quebec in the rear, Phips was to
cannonade it in front, and land two hundred men under cover of his guns
to effect a diversion by storming the barricades. Some of the French
prisoners, from whom their captors appear to have received a great deal
of correct information, told the admiral that there was a place a mile
or two above the town where the heights might be scaled and the rear of
the fortifications reached from a direction opposite to that proposed.
This was precisely the movement by which Wolfe afterwards gained his
memorable victory; but Phips chose to abide by the original plan. [8]
[8] Journal of Major Walley; Savage, Account of the Late Action of the
New Englanders (Lond. 1691).
While the plan was debated, the opportunity for accomplishing it ebbed
away. It was still early when the messenger returned from Quebec; but,
before Phips was ready to act, the day was on the wane and the tide was
against him. He lay quietly at his moorings when, in the evening, a
great shouting, mingled with the roll of drums and the sound of fifes,
was heard from the Upper Town. The English officers asked their
prisoner, Granville, what it meant. "Ma foi, Messieurs," he replied,
"you have lost the game. It is the governor of Montreal with the people
from the country above. There is nothing for you now but to pack and go
home." In fact, Callières had arrived with seven or eight hundred men,
many of them regulars. With these were bands of coureurs de bois and
other young Canadians, all full of fight, singing and whooping with
martial glee as they passed the western gate and trooped down St. Louis
Street. [9]
[9] Juchereau, 325, 326.
The next day was gusty and blustering; and still Phips lay quiet,
waiting on the winds and the waves. A small vessel, with sixty men on
board, under Captain Ephraim Savage, ran in towards the shore of
Beauport to examine the landing, and stuck fast in the mud. The
Canadians plied her with bullets, and brought a cannon to bear on her.
They might have waded out and boarded her, but Savage and his men kept
up so hot a fire that they forbore the attempt; and, when the tide rose,
she floated again.
There was another night of tranquillity; but at about eleven on
Wednesday morning the French heard the English fifes and drums in full
action, while repeated shouts of "God save King William!" rose from all
the vessels. This lasted an hour or more; after which a great number of
boats, loaded with men, put out from the fleet and rowed rapidly towards
the shore of Beauport. The tide was low, and the boats grounded before
reaching the landing-place. The French on the rock could see the troops
through telescopes, looking in the distance like a swarm of black ants,
as they waded through mud and water, and formed in companies along the
strand. They were some thirteen hundred in number, and were commanded by
Major Walley. [10] Frontenac had sent three hundred sharpshooters, under
Sainte-Hélène, to meet them and hold them in check. A battalion of
troops followed; but, long before they could reach the spot,
Sainte-Hélène's men, with a few militia from the neighboring parishes,
and a band of Huron warriors from Lorette, threw themselves into the
thickets along the front of the English, and opened a distant but
galling fire upon the compact bodies of the enemy. Walley ordered a
charge. The New England men rushed, in a disorderly manner, but with
great impetuosity, up the rising ground; received two volleys, which
failed to check them; and drove back the assailants in some confusion.
They turned, however, and fought in Indian fashion with courage and
address, leaping and dodging among trees, rocks, and bushes, firing as
they retreated, and inflicting more harm than they received. Towards
evening they disappeared; and Walley, whose men had been much scattered
in the desultory fight, drew them together as well as he could, and
advanced towards the St. Charles, in order to meet the vessels which
were to aid him in passing the ford. Here he posted sentinels, and
encamped for the night. He had lost four killed and about sixty wounded,
and imagined that he had killed twenty or thirty of the enemy. In fact,
however, their loss was much less, though among the killed was a
valuable officer, the Chevalier de Clermont, and among the wounded the
veteran captain of Beauport, Juchereau de Saint-Denis, more than
sixty-four years of age. In the evening, a deserter came to the English
camp, and brought the unwelcome intelligence that there were three
thousand armed men in Quebec. [11]
[10] "Between 12 and 1,300 men." Walley, Journal. "About 1,200 men."
Savage, Account of the Late Action. Savage was second in command of the
militia. Mather says, 1,400. Most of the French accounts say, 1,500.
Some say, 2,000; and La Hontan raises the number to 3,000.
[11] On this affair, Walley, Journal; Savage, Account of the Late Action
(in a letter to his brother); Monseignat, Relation; Relation de la
Descente des Anglois; Relation de 1682-1712; La Hontan, I. 213. "M. le
comte de Frontenac se trouva avec 3,000 hommes." Belmont, Histoire du
Canada, A.D. 1690. The prisoner Captain Sylvanus Davis, in his diary,
says, as already mentioned, that on the day before Phips's arrival so
many regulars and militia arrived that, with those who came with
Frontenac, there were about 2,700. This was before the arrival of
Callières, who, according to Davis, brought but 300. Thus the three
accounts of the deserter, Belmont, and Davis, tally exactly as to the
sum total.
An enemy of Frontenac writes, "Ce n'est pas sa présence qui fit prendre
la fuite aux Anglois, mais le grand nombre de François auxquels ils
virent bien que celuy de leurs guerriers n'étoit pas capable de faire
tête." Remarques sur l'Oraison Funèbre de feu M. de Frontenac.
Meanwhile, Phips, whose fault hitherto had not been an excess of
promptitude, grew impatient, and made a premature movement inconsistent
with the preconcerted plan. He left his moorings, anchored his largest
ships before the town, and prepared to cannonade it; but the fiery
veteran, who watched him from the Château St. Louis, anticipated him,
and gave him the first shot. Phips replied furiously, opening fire with
every gun that he could bring to bear; while the rock paid him back in
kind, and belched flame and smoke from all its batteries. So fierce and
rapid was the firing, that La Hontan compares it to volleys of musketry;
and old officers, who had seen many sieges, declared that they had never
known the like. [12] The din was prodigious, reverberated from the
surrounding heights, and rolled back from the distant mountains in one
continuous roar. On the part of the English, however, surprisingly
little was accomplished beside noise and smoke. The practice of their
gunners was so bad that many of their shot struck harmlessly against the
face of the cliff. Their guns, too, were very light, and appear to have
been charged with a view to the most rigid economy of gunpowder; for the
balls failed to pierce the stone walls of the buildings, and did so
little damage that, as the French boasted, twenty crowns would have
repaired it all. [13] Night came at length, and the turmoil ceased.
[12] La Hontan, I. 216; Juchereau, 326.
[13] Père Germain, Relation de la Défaite des Anglois.
Phips lay quiet till daybreak, when Frontenac sent a shot to waken him,
and the cannonade began again. Sainte-Hélène had returned from Beauport;
and he, with his brother Maricourt, took charge of the two batteries of
the Lower Town, aiming the guns in person, and throwing balls of
eighteen and twenty-four pounds with excellent precision against the
four largest ships of the fleet. One of their shots cut the flagstaff of
the admiral, and the cross of St. George fell into the river. It drifted
with the tide towards the north shore; whereupon several Canadians
paddled out in a birch canoe, secured it, and brought it back in
triumph. On the spire of the cathedral in the Upper Town had been hung a
picture of the Holy Family, as an invocation of divine aid. The Puritan
gunners wasted their ammunition in vain attempts to knock it down. That
it escaped their malice was ascribed to miracle, but the miracle would
have been greater if they had hit it.
At length, one of the ships, which had suffered most, hauled off and
abandoned the fight. That of the admiral had fared little better, and
now her condition grew desperate. With her rigging torn, her mainmast
half cut through, her mizzen-mast splintered, her cabin pierced, and her
hull riddled with shot, another volley seemed likely to sink her, when
Phips ordered her to be cut loose from her moorings, and she drifted out
of fire, leaving cable and anchor behind. The remaining ships soon gave
over the conflict, and withdrew to stations where they could neither do
harm nor suffer it. [14]
[14] Besides authorities before cited, Le Clercq, Établissement de la
Foy, II. 434; La Potherie, III. 118; Rapport de Champigny, Oct., 1690;
Laval, Lettre à------, 20 Nov., 1690.
Phips had thrown away nearly all his ammunition in this futile and
disastrous attack, which should have been deferred till the moment when
Walley, with his land force, had gained the rear of the town. Walley lay
in his camp, his men wet, shivering with cold, famished, and sickening
with the small-pox. Food, and all other supplies, were to have been
brought him by the small vessels, which should have entered the mouth of
the St. Charles and aided him to cross it. But he waited for them in
vain. Every vessel that carried a gun had busied itself in cannonading,
and the rest did not move. There appears to have been insubordination
among the masters of these small craft, some of whom, being owners or
part-owners of the vessels they commanded, were probably unwilling to
run them into danger. Walley was no soldier; but he saw that to attempt
the passage of the river without aid, under the batteries of the town
and in the face of forces twice as numerous as his own, was not an easy
task. Frontenac, on his part, says that he wished him to do so, knowing
that the attempt would ruin him. [15] The New England men were eager to
push on; but the night of Thursday, the day of Phips's repulse, was so
cold that ice formed more than an inch in thickness, and the
half-starved militia suffered intensely. Six field-pieces, with their
ammunition, had been sent ashore; but they were nearly useless, as there
were no means of moving them. Half a barrel of musket powder, and one
biscuit for each man, were also landed; and with this meagre aid Walley
was left to capture Quebec. He might, had he dared, have made a dash
across the ford on the morning of Thursday, and assaulted the town in
the rear while Phips was cannonading it in front; but his courage was
not equal to so desperate a venture. The firing ceased, and the possible
opportunity was lost. The citizen soldier despaired of success; and, on
the morning of Friday, he went on board the admiral's ship to explain
his situation. While he was gone, his men put themselves in motion, and
advanced along the borders of the St. Charles towards the ford.
Frontenac, with three battalions of regular troops, went to receive them
at the crossing; while Sainte-Hélène, with his brother Longueuil, passed
the ford with a body of Canadians, and opened fire on them from the
neighboring thickets. Their advance parties were driven in, and there
was a hot skirmish, the chief loss falling on the New England men, who
were fully exposed. On the side of the French, Sainte-Hélène was
mortally wounded, and his brother was hurt by a spent ball. Towards
evening, the Canadians withdrew, and the English encamped for the night.
Their commander presently rejoined them. The admiral had given him leave
to withdraw them to the fleet, and boats were accordingly sent to bring
them off; but, as these did not arrive till about daybreak, it was
necessary to defer the embarkation till the next night.
[15] Frontenac au Ministre, 12 et 19 Nov., 1690.
At dawn, Quebec was all astir with the beating of drums and the ringing
of bells. The New England drums replied; and Walley drew up his men
under arms, expecting an attack, for the town was so near that the
hubbub of voices from within could plainly be heard. The noise gradually
died away; and, except a few shots from the ramparts, the invaders were
left undisturbed. Walley sent two or three companies to beat up the
neighboring thickets, where he suspected that the enemy was lurking. On
the way, they had the good luck to find and kill a number of cattle,
which they cooked and ate on the spot; whereupon, being greatly
refreshed and invigorated, they dashed forward in complete disorder, and
were soon met by the fire of the ambushed Canadians. Several more
companies were sent to their support, and the skirmishing became lively.
Three detachments from Quebec had crossed the river; and the militia of
Beauport and Beaupré had hastened to join them. They fought like
Indians, hiding behind trees or throwing themselves flat among the
bushes, and laying repeated ambuscades as they slowly fell back. At
length, they all made a stand on a hill behind the buildings and fences
of a farm; and here they held their ground till night, while the New
England men taunted them as cowards who would never fight except under
cover. [16]
[16] Relation de la Descente des Anglois.
Walley, who with his main body had stood in arms all day, now called in
the skirmishers, and fell back to the landing-place, where, as soon as
it grew dark, the boats arrived from the fleet. The sick men, of whom
there were many, were sent on board, and then, amid floods of rain, the
whole force embarked in noisy confusion, leaving behind them in the mud
five of their cannon. Hasty as was their parting, their conduct on the
whole had been creditable; and La Hontan, who was in Quebec at the time,
says of them, "They fought vigorously, though as ill-disciplined as men
gathered together at random could be; for they did not lack courage,
and, if they failed, it was by reason of their entire ignorance of
discipline, and because they were exhausted by the fatigues of the
voyage." Of Phips he speaks with contempt, and says that he could not
have served the French better if they had bribed him to stand all the
while with his arms folded. Some allowance should, nevertheless, be made
him for the unmanageable character of the force under his command, the
constitution of which was fatal to military subordination.
On Sunday, the morning after the re-embarkation, Phips called a council
of officers, and it was resolved that the men should rest for a day or
two, that there should be a meeting for prayer, and that, if ammunition
enough could be found, another landing should be attempted; but the
rough weather prevented the prayer-meeting, and the plan of a new attack
was fortunately abandoned.
Quebec remained in agitation and alarm till Tuesday, when Phips weighed
anchor and disappeared, with all his fleet, behind the Island of
Orleans. He did not go far, as indeed he could not, but stopped four
leagues below to mend rigging, fortify wounded masts, and stop
shot-holes. Subercase had gone with a detachment to watch the retiring
enemy; and Phips was repeatedly seen among his men, on a scaffold at the
side of his ship, exercising his old trade of carpenter. This delay was
turned to good use by an exchange of prisoners. Chief among those in the
hands of the French was Captain Davis, late commander at Casco Bay; and
there were also two young daughters of Lieutenant Clark, who had been
killed at the same place. Frontenac himself had humanely ransomed these
children from the Indians; and Madame de Champigny, wife of the
intendant, had, with equal kindness, bought from them a little girl
named Sarah Gerrish, and placed her in charge of the nuns at the
Hôtel-Dieu, who had become greatly attached to her, while she, on her
part, left them with reluctance. The French had the better in these
exchanges, receiving able-bodied men, and returning, with the exception
of Davis, only women and children.
The heretics were gone, and Quebec breathed freely again. Her escape had
been a narrow one; not that three thousand men, in part regular troops,
defending one of the strongest positions on the continent, and commanded
by Frontenac, could not defy the attacks of two thousand raw fishermen
and farmers, led by an ignorant civilian, but the numbers which were a
source of strength were at the same time a source of weakness. [17]
Nearly all the adult males of Canada were gathered at Quebec, and there
was imminent danger of starvation. Cattle from the neighboring parishes
had been hastily driven into the town; but there was little other
provision, and before Phips retreated the pinch of famine had begun. Had
he come a week earlier or stayed a week later, the French themselves
believed that Quebec would have fallen, in the one case for want of men,
and in the other for want of food.
[17] The small-pox had left probably less than 2,000 effective men in
the fleet when it arrived before Quebec. The number of regular troops in
Canada by the roll of 1689 was 1,418. Nothing had since occurred to
greatly diminish the number. Callières left about fifty in Montreal, and
perhaps also a few in the neighboring forts. The rest were in Quebec.
The Lower Town had been abandoned by its inhabitants, who bestowed their
families and their furniture within the solid walls of the seminary. The
cellars of the Ursuline convent were filled with women and children, and
many more took refuge at the Hôtel-Dieu. The beans and cabbages in the
garden of the nuns were all stolen by the soldiers; and their wood-pile
was turned into bivouac fires. "We were more dead than alive when we
heard the cannon," writes Mother Juchereau; but the Jesuit Fremin came
to console them, and their prayers and their labors never ceased. On the
day when the firing was heaviest, twenty-six balls fell into their yard
and garden, and were sent to the gunners at the batteries, who returned
them to their English owners. At the convent of the Ursulines, the
corner of a nun's apron was carried off by a cannon-shot as she passed
through her chamber. The sisterhood began a novena, or nine days'
devotion, to St. Joseph, St. Ann, the angels, and the souls in
purgatory; and one of their number remained day and night in prayer
before the images of the Holy Family. The bishop came to encourage them;
and his prayers and his chants were so fervent that they thought their
last hour was come. [18]
[18] Récit d'une Réligieuse Ursuline, in Les Ursulines de Québec, I.
470.
The superior of the Jesuits, with some of the elder members of the
Order, remained at their college during the attack, ready, should the
heretics prevail, to repair to their chapel, and die before the altar.
Rumor exaggerated the numbers of the enemy, and a general alarm pervaded
the town. It was still greater at Lorette, nine miles distant. The
warriors of that mission were in the first skirmish at Beauport; and two
of them, running off in a fright, reported at the village that the enemy
were carrying every thing before them. On this, the villagers fled to
the woods, followed by Father Germain, their missionary, to whom this
hasty exodus suggested the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt. [19]
The Jesuits were thought to have special reason to fear the Puritan
soldiery, who, it was reported, meant to kill them all, after cutting
off their ears to make necklaces. [20]
[19] "Il nous ressouvint alors de la fuite de Nostre Seigneur en
Égypte." Père Germain, Relation.
[20] Ibid.
When news first came of the approach of Phips, the bishop was absent on
a pastoral tour. Hastening back, he entered Quebec at night, by
torchlight, to the great joy of its inmates, who felt that his presence
brought a benediction. He issued a pastoral address, exhorting his flock
to frequent and full confession and constant attendance at mass, as the
means of insuring the success of their arms. [21] Laval, the former
bishop, aided his efforts. "We appealed," he writes, "to God, his Holy
Mother, to all the Angels, and to all the Saints." [22] Nor was the
appeal in vain: for each day seemed to bring some new token of celestial
favor; and it is not surprising that the head-winds which delayed the
approach of the enemy, the cold and the storms which hastened his
departure, and, above all, his singularly innocent cannonade, which
killed but two or three persons, should have been accepted as proof of
divine intervention. It was to the Holy Virgin that Quebec had been most
lavish of its vows, and to her the victory was ascribed.
[21] Lettre pastorale pour disposer les Peuples de ce Diocèse à se bien
déffendre contre les Anglois (Reg. de l'Évêché de Québec).
[22] Laval à------, Nov. 20, 1690.
One great anxiety still troubled the minds of the victors. Three ships,
bringing large sums of money and the yearly supplies for the colony,
were on their way to Quebec; and nothing was more likely than that the
retiring fleet would meet and capture them. Messengers had been sent
down the river, who passed the English in the dark, found the ships at
St. Paul's Bay, and warned them of the danger. They turned back, and hid
themselves within the mouth of the Saguenay; but not soon enough to
prevent Phips from discovering their retreat. He tried to follow them;
but thick fogs arose, with a persistent tempest of snow, which
completely baffled him, and, after waiting five days, he gave over the
attempt. When he was gone, the three ships emerged from their
hiding-place, and sailed again for Quebec, where they were greeted with
a universal jubilee. Their deliverance was ascribed to Saint Ann, the
mother of the Virgin, and also to St. Francis Xavier, whose name one of
them bore.
Quebec was divided between thanksgiving and rejoicing. The captured flag
of Phips's ship was borne to the cathedral in triumph; the bishop sang
Te Deum; and, amid the firing of cannon, the image of the Virgin was
carried to each church and chapel in the place by a procession, in which
priests, people, and troops all took part. The day closed with a grand
bonfire in honor of Frontenac.
One of the three ships carried back the news of the victory, which was
hailed with joy at Versailles; and a medal was struck to commemorate it.
The ship carried also a despatch from Frontenac. "Now that the king has
triumphed by land and sea," wrote the old soldier, "will he think that a
few squadrons of his navy would be ill employed in punishing the
insolence of these genuine old parliamentarians of Boston, and crushing
them in their den and the English of New York as well? By mastering
these two towns, we shall secure the whole sea-coast, besides the
fisheries of the Grand Bank, which is no slight matter: and this would
be the true, and perhaps the only, way of bringing the wars of Canada to
an end; for, when the English are conquered, we can easily reduce the
Iroquois to complete submission." [23]
[23] Frontenac au Ministre, 9 et 12 Nov., 1690.
Phips returned crestfallen to Boston late in November; and one by one
the rest of the fleet came straggling after him, battered and
weather-beaten. Some did not appear till February, and three or four
never came at all. The autumn and early winter were unusually stormy.
Captain Rainsford, with sixty men, was wrecked on the Island of
Anticosti, where more than half their number died of cold and misery.
[24] In the other vessels, some were drowned, some frost-bitten, and
above two hundred killed by small-pox and fever.
[24] Mather, Magnalia, I. 192.
At Boston, all was dismay and gloom. The Puritan bowed before "this
awful frown of God," and searched his conscience for the sin that had
brought upon him so stern a chastisement. [25] Massachusetts, already
impoverished, found herself in extremity. The war, instead of paying for
itself, had burdened her with an additional debt of fifty thousand
pounds. [26] The sailors and soldiers were clamorous for their pay; and,
to satisfy them, the colony was forced for the first time in its history
to issue a paper currency. It was made receivable at a premium for all
public debts, and was also fortified by a provision for its early
redemption by taxation; a provision which was carried into effect in
spite of poverty and distress. [27]
[25] The Governor and Council to the Agents of Massachusetts, in Andros
Tracts, III. 53.
[26] Address of the Gentry, Merchants, and others, Ibid., II. 236.
[27] The following is a literal copy of a specimen of this paper money,
which varied in value from two shillings to ten pounds:--
No. (2161) 10s
This Indented Bill of Ten Shillings, due from the Massachusetts Colony
to the Possessor, shall be in value equal to Money, and shall be
accordingly accepted by the Treasurer and Receivers subordinate to him
in all Publick Payments, and for any Stock at any time in the Treasury
Boston in New England, December the 10th. 1690. By Order of the General
Court.
Seal of Peter Townsend
Masachu- Adam Winthrop } Comtee
setts. Tim. Thornton
When this paper came into the hands of the treasurer, it was burned.
Nevertheless, owing to the temporary character of the provisional
government, it fell for a time to the value of from fourteen to sixteen
shillings in the pound.
In the Bibliothèque Nationale is the original draft of a remarkable map,
by the engineer Villeneuve, of which a fac-simile is before me. It
represents in detail the town and fortifications of Quebec, the
surrounding country, and the positions of the English fleet and land
forces, and is entitled PLAN DE QUÉBEC, et de ses Environs, EN LA
NOUVELLE FRANCE, ASSIÉGÉ PAR LES ANGLOIS, le 16 d'Octobre 1690 jusqu'au
22 dud. mois qu'ils s'en allerent, apprès avoir esté bien battus PAR Mr.
LE COMTE DE FRONTENAC, gouverneur general du Pays.
Massachusetts had made her usual mistake. She had confidently believed
that ignorance and inexperience could match the skill of a tried
veteran, and that the rude courage of her fishermen and farmers could
triumph without discipline or leadership. The conditions of her material
prosperity were adverse to efficiency in war. A trading republic,
without trained officers, may win victories; but it wins them either by
accident or by an extravagant outlay in money and life.