1740-1747.
WAR AND POLITICS.
GOVERNOR AND ASSEMBLY.--SARATOGA DESTROYED.--WILLIAM JOHNSON.--BORDER
RAVAGES.--UPPER ASHUELOT.--FRENCH "MILITARY MOVEMENTS."--NUMBER
FOUR.--NIVERVILLE'S ATTACK.--PHINEAS STEVENS.--THE FRENCH REPULSED.
From the East we turn to the West, for the province of New York passed for
the West at that day. Here a vital question was what would be the attitude
of the Five Nations of the Iroquois towards the rival European colonies,
their neighbors. The Treaty of Utrecht called them British subjects. What
the word "subjects" meant, they themselves hardly knew. The English told
them that it meant children; the French that it meant dogs and slaves.
Events had tamed the fierce confederates; and now, though, like all
savages, unstable as children, they leaned in their soberer moments to a
position of neutrality between their European neighbors, watching with
jealous eyes against the encroachments of both. The French would gladly
have enlisted them and their tomahawks in the war; but seeing little hope
of this, were generally content if they could prevent them from siding with
the English, who on their part regarded them as their Indians, and were
satisfied with nothing less than active alliance.
When Shirley's plan for the invasion of Canada was afoot, Clinton, governor
of New York, with much ado succeeded in convening the deputies of the
confederacy at Albany, and by dint of speeches and presents induced them to
sing the war-song and take up the hatchet for England. The Iroquois were
disgusted when the scheme came to nought, their warlike ardor cooled, and
they conceived a low opinion of English prowess.
The condition of New York as respects military efficiency was deplorable.
She was divided against herself, and, as usual in such cases, party passion
was stronger than the demands of war. The province was in the midst of one
of those disputes with the representative of the Crown, which, in one
degree or another, crippled or paralyzed the military activity of nearly
all the British colonies. Twenty years or more earlier, when Massachusetts
was at blows with the Indians on her borders, she suffered from the same
disorders; but her Governor and Assembly were of one mind as to urging on
the war, and quarrelled only on the questions in what way and under what
command it should be waged. But in New York there was a strong party that
opposed the war, being interested in the contraband trade long carried on
with Canada. Clinton, the governor, had, too, an enemy in the person of the
Chief Justice, James de Lancey, with whom he had had an after-dinner
dispute, ending in a threat on the part of De Lancey that he would make the
Governor's seat uncomfortable. To marked abilities, better education, and
more knowledge of the world than was often found in the provinces, ready
wit, and conspicuous social position, the Chief Justice joined a restless
ambition and the arts of a demagogue.
He made good his threat, headed the opposition to the Governor, and proved
his most formidable antagonist. If either Clinton or Shirley had had the
independent authority of a Canadian governor, the conduct of the war would
have been widely different. Clinton was hampered at every turn. The
Assembly held him at advantage; for it was they, and not the King, who paid
his salary, and they could withhold or retrench it when he displeased them.
The people sympathized with their representatives and backed them in
opposition,--at least when not under the stress of imminent danger.
A body of provincials, in the pay of the King, had been mustered at Albany
for the proposed Canada expedition; and after that plan was abandoned,
Clinton wished to use them for protecting the northern frontier and
capturing that standing menace to the province, Crown Point. The Assembly,
bent on crossing him at any price, refused to provide for transporting
supplies farther than Albany. As the furnishing of provisions and
transportation depended on that body, they could stop the movement of
troops and defeat the Governor's military plans at their pleasure. In vain
he told them, "If you deny me the necessary supplies, all my endeavors must
become fruitless; I must wash my own hands, and leave at your doors the
blood of the innocent people." [Footnote: _Extract from the Governor's
Message_, in Smith, _History of New York_, II. 124 (1830).]
He urged upon them the necessity of building forts on the two
carrying-places between the Hudson and Lakes George and Champlain, thus
blocking the path of war-parties from Canada. They would do nothing,
insisting that the neighboring colonies, to whom the forts would also be
useful, ought to help in building them; and when it was found that these
colonies were ready to do their part, the Assembly still refused.
Passionate opposition to the royal Governor seemed to blind them to the
interests of the province. Nor was the fault all on their side; for the
Governor, though he generally showed more self-control and moderation than
could have been expected, sometimes lost temper and betrayed scorn for his
opponents, many of whom were but the instruments of leaders urged by
personal animosities and small but intense ambitions. They accused him of
treating them with contempt, and of embezzling public money; while he
retorted by charging them with encroaching on the royal prerogative and
treating the representative of the King with indecency. Under such
conditions an efficient conduct of the war was out of the question.
Once, when the frontier was seriously threatened, Clinton, as
commander-in-chief, called out the militia to defend it; but they refused
to obey, on the ground that no Act of the Assembly required them to do so.
[Footnote: _Clinton to the Lords of Trade_, 10 Nov. 1747.]
Clinton sent home bitter complaints to Newcastle and the Lords of Trade.
"They [the Assembly] are selfish, jealous of the power of the Crown, and of
such levelling principles that they are constantly attacking its
prerogative.... I find that neither dissolutions nor fair means can produce
from them such Effects as will tend to a publick good or their own
preservation. They will neither act for themselves nor assist their
neighbors.... Few but hirelings have a seat in the Assembly, who protract
time for the sake of their wages, at a great expence to the Province,
without contributing anything material for its welfare, credit, or safety."
And he declares that unless Parliament takes them in hand he can do nothing
for the service of the King or the good of the province, [Footnote:
_Clinton to the Lords of Trade_, 30 Nov. 1745.] for they want to usurp
the whole administration, both civil and military. [Footnote: _Remarks on
the Representation of the Assembly of New York, May, 1747_, in _N. Y.
Col. Docs._, VI. 365. On the disputes of the Governor and Assembly, see
also Smith, _History of New York_, II. (1830), and Stone, _Life and
Times of Sir William Johnson_, I. _N.Y. Colonial Documents,_ VI.,
contains many papers on the subject, chiefly on the Governor's side.]
At Saratoga there was a small settlement of Dutch farmers, with a stockade
fort for their protection. This was the farthest outpost of the colony, and
the only defence of Albany in the direction of Canada. It was occupied by a
sergeant, a corporal, and ten soldiers, who testified before a court of
inquiry that it was in such condition that in rainy weather neither they
nor their ammunition could be kept dry. As neither the Assembly nor the
merchants of Albany would make it tenable, the garrison was withdrawn
before winter by order of the Governor. [Footnote: _Examinations at a
Court of Inquiry at Albany, 11 Dec. 1745,_ in _N. Y. Col Docs.,_
VI. 374.]
Scarcely was this done when five hundred French and, Indians, under the
partisan Marin, surprised the settlement in the night of the 28th of
November, burned fort, houses, mills, and stables, killed thirty persons,
and carried off about a hundred prisoners. [Footnote: The best account of
this affair is in the journal of a French officer in Schuyler, _Colonial
New York,_ II. 115. The dates, being in new style, differ by eleven days
from those of the English accounts. The Dutch hamlet of Saratoga, surprised
by Marin, was near the mouth of the Fish Kill, on the west side of the
Hudson. There was also a small fort on the east side, a little below the
mouth of the Batten Kill.] Albany was left uncovered, and the Assembly
voted £150 in provincial currency to rebuild the ruined fort. A feeble
palisade work was accordingly set up, but it was neglected like its
predecessor. Colonel Peter Schuyler was stationed there with his regiment
in 1747, but was forced to abandon his post for want of supplies. Clinton
then directed Colonel Roberts, commanding at Albany, to examine the fort,
and if he found it indefensible, to burn it,--which he did, much to the
astonishment of a French war-party, who visited the place soon after, and
found nothing but ashes. [Footnote: Schuyler, _Colonial New York,_ II.
121.]
The burning of Saratoga, first by the French and then by its own masters,
made a deep impression on the Five Nations, and a few years later they
taunted their white neighbors with these shortcomings in no measured terms.
"You burned your own fort at Seraghtoga and ran away from it, which was a
shame and a scandal to you." [Footnote: _Report of a Council with the
Indians at Albany, 28 June, 1754._] Uninitiated as they were in party
politics and faction quarrels, they could see nothing in this and other
military lapses but proof of a want of martial spirit, if not of cowardice.
Hence the difficulty of gaining their active alliance against the French
was redoubled. Fortunately for the province, the adverse influence was in
some measure counteracted by the character and conduct of one man. Up to
this time the French had far surpassed the rival nation in the possession
of men ready and able to deal with the Indians and mould them to their
will. Eminent among such was Joncaire, French emissary among the Senecas in
western New York, who, with admirable skill, held back that powerful member
of the Iroquois league from siding with the English. But now, among the
Mohawks of eastern New York, Joncaire found his match in the person of
William Johnson, a vigorous and intelligent young Irishman, nephew of
Admiral Warren, and his agent in the management of his estates on the
Mohawk. Johnson soon became intimate with his Indian neighbors, spoke their
language, joined in their games and dances, sometimes borrowed their dress
and their paint, and whooped, yelped, and stamped like one of themselves. A
white man thus playing the Indian usually gains nothing in the esteem of
those he imitates; but, as before in the case of the redoubtable Count
Frontenac, Johnson's adoption of their ways increased their liking for him
and did not diminish their respect. The Mohawks adopted him into their
tribe and made him a war-chief. Clinton saw his value; and as the Albany
commissioners hitherto charged with Indian affairs had proved wholly
inefficient, he transferred their functions to Johnson; whence arose more
heart-burnings. The favor of the Governor cost the new functionary the
support of the Assembly, who refused the indispensable presents to the
Indians, and thus vastly increased the difficulty of his task. Yet the Five
Nations promised to take up the hatchet against the French, and their
orator said, in a conference at Albany, "Should any French priests now dare
to come among us, we know no use for them but to roast them." [Footnote:
_Answer of the Six [Five] Nations to His Excellency the Governor at
Albany, 23 Aug. 1746._] Johnson's present difficulties, however, sprang
more from Dutch and English traders than from French priests, and he begs
that an Act may be passed against the selling of liquor to the Indians, "as
it is impossible to do anything with them while there is such a plenty to
be had all round the neighborhood, being forever drunk." And he complains
especially of one Clement, who sells liquor within twenty yards of
Johnson's house, and immediately gets from the Indians all the bounty money
they receive for scalps, "which leaves them as poor as ratts," and
therefore refractory and unmanageable. Johnson says further: "There is
another grand villain, George Clock, who lives by Conajoharie Castle, and
robs the Indians of all their cloaths, etc." The chiefs complained, "upon
which I wrote him twice to give over that custom of selling liquor to the
Indians; the answer was he gave the bearer, I might hang myself."
[Footnote: _Johnson to Clinton, 7 May, 1747._] Indian affairs, it will
be seen, were no better regulated then than now.
Meanwhile the French Indians were ravaging the frontiers and burning
farm-houses to within sight of Albany. The Assembly offered rewards for the
scalps of the marauders, but were slow in sending money to pay them,--to
the great discontent of the Mohawks, who, however, at Johnson's
instigation, sent out various war-parties, two of which, accompanied by a
few whites, made raids as far as the island of Montreal, and somewhat
checked the incursions of the mission Indians by giving them work near
home. The check was but momentary. Heathen Indians from the West joined the
Canadian converts, and the frontiers of New York and New England, from the
Mohawk to beyond the Kennebec, were stung through all their length by
innumerable nocturnal surprises and petty attacks. The details of this
murderous though ineffective partisan war would fill volumes, if they were
worth recording. One or two examples will show the nature of all.
In the valley of the little river Ashuelot, a New Hampshire affluent of the
Connecticut, was a rude border-settlement which later years transformed
into a town noted in rural New England for kindly hospitality, culture
without pretence, and good-breeding without conventionality. [Footnote:
Keene, originally called Upper Ashuelot. On the same stream, a few miles
below, was a similar settlement, called Lower Ashuelot--the germ of the
present Swanzey. This, too, suffered greatly from Indian attacks.] In 1746
the place was in all the rawness and ugliness of a backwoods hamlet. The
rough fields, lately won from the virgin forest, showed here and there,
among the stumps, a few log-cabins, roofed with slabs of pine, spruce, or
hemlock. Near by was a wooden fort, made, no doubt, after the common
frontier pattern, of a stockade fence ten or twelve feet high, enclosing
cabins to shelter the settlers in case of alarm, and furnished at the
corners with what were called flankers, which were boxes of thick plank
large enough to hold two or more men, raised above the ground on posts, and
pierced with loopholes, so that each face of the stockade could be swept by
a flank fire. One corner of this fort at Ashuelot was, however, guarded by
a solid blockhouse, or, as it was commonly called, a "mount."
On the 23d of April a band of sixty, or, by another account, a hundred
Indians, approached the settlement before daybreak, and hid in the
neighboring thickets to cut off the men in the fort as they came out to
their morning work. One of the men, Ephraim Dorman, chanced to go out
earlier than the rest. The Indians did not fire on him, but, not to give an
alarm, tried to capture or kill him without noise. Several of them suddenly
showed themselves, on which he threw down his gun in pretended submission.
One of them came up to him with hatchet raised; but the nimble and sturdy
borderer suddenly struck him with his fist a blow in the head that knocked
him flat, then snatched up his own gun, and, as some say, the blanket of
the half-stunned savage also, sprang off, reached the fort unhurt, and gave
the alarm. Some of the families of the place were living in the fort; but
the bolder or more careless still remained in their farm-houses, and if
nothing were done for their relief, their fate was sealed. Therefore the
men sallied in a body, and a sharp fight ensued, giving the frightened
settlers time to take refuge within the stockade. It was not too soon, for
the work of havoc had already begun. Six houses and a barn were on fire,
and twenty-three cattle had been killed. The Indians fought fiercely,
killed John Bullard and captured Nathan Blake, but at last retreated; and
after they were gone, the charred remains of several of them were found
among the ruins of one of the burned cabins, where they had probably been
thrown to prevent their being scalped.
Before Dorman had given the alarm, an old woman, Mrs. McKenney, went from
the fort to milk her cow in a neighboring barn. As she was returning, with
her full milk-pail, a naked Indian was seen to spring from a clump of
bushes, plunge a long knife into her back, and dart away without stopping
to take the gray scalp of his victim. She tried feebly to reach the fort;
but from age, corpulence, and a mortal wound she moved but slowly, and when
a few steps from the gate, fell and died.
Ten days after, a party of Indians hid themselves at night by this same
fort, and sent one of their number to gain admission under pretence of
friendship, intending, no doubt, to rush in when the gate should be opened;
but the man on guard detected the trick, and instead of opening the gate,
fired through it, mortally wounding the Indian, on which his confederates
made off. Again, at the same place, Deacon Josiah Foster, who had taken
refuge in the fort, ventured out on a July morning to drive his cows to
pasture. A gun-shot was heard; and the men who went out to learn the cause,
found the Deacon lying in the wood-road, dead and scalped. An ambushed
Indian had killed him and vanished. Such petty attacks were without number.
There is a French paper, called a record of "military movements," which
gives a list of war-parties sent from Montreal against the English border
between the 29th of March, 1746, and the 21st of June in the same year.
They number thirty-five distinct bands, nearly all composed of mission
Indians living in or near the settled parts of Canada,--Abenakis, Iroquois
of the Lake of Two Mountains and of Sault St. Louis (Caughnawaga),
Algonkins of the Ottawa, and others, in parties rarely of more than thirty,
and often of no more than six, yet enough for waylaying travellers or
killing women in kitchens or cow-sheds, and solitary laborers in the
fields. This record is accompanied by a list of wild Western Indians who
came down to Montreal in the summer of 1746 to share in these "military
movements." [Footnote: _Extrait sur les différents Mouvements Militaires
qui se sont faits à Montréal à l'occasion de la Guerre, 1745, 1746._
There is a translation in _N. Y. Col. Docs._]
No part of the country suffered more than the western borders of
Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and here were seen too plainly the evils
of the prevailing want of concert among the British colonies. Massachusetts
claimed extensive tracts north of her present northern boundary, and in the
belief that her claim would hold good, had built a small wooden fort,
called Fort Dummer, on the Connecticut, for the protection of settlers.
New Hampshire disputed the title, and the question, being referred to the
Crown, was decided in her favor. On this, Massachusetts withdrew the
garrison of Fort Dummer and left New Hampshire to defend her own. This the
Assembly of that province refused to do, on the ground that the fort was
fifty miles from any settlement made by New Hampshire people, and was
therefore useless to them, though of great value to Massachusetts as a
cover to Northfield and other of her settlements lower down the
Connecticut, to protect which was no business of New Hampshire. [Footnote:
_Journal of the Assembly of New Hampshire,_ quoted in Saunderson,
_History of Charlestown, N. H.,_ 20.] But some years before, in 1740,
three brothers, Samuel, David, and Stephen Farnsworth, natives of Groton,
Massachusetts, had begun a new settlement on the Connecticut about
forty-five miles north of the Massachusetts line and on ground which was
soon to be assigned to New Hampshire. They were followed by five or six
others. They acted on the belief that their settlement was within the
jurisdiction of Massachusetts, and that she could and would protect them.
The place was one of extreme exposure, not only from its isolation, far
from help, but because it was on the banks of a wild and lonely river, the
customary highway of war-parties on their descent from Canada. Number
Four--for so the new settlement was called, because it was the fourth in a
range of townships recently marked out along the Connecticut, but, with one
or two exceptions, wholly unoccupied as yet--was a rude little outpost of
civilization, buried in forests that spread unbroken to the banks of the
St. Lawrence, while its nearest English neighbor was nearly thirty miles
away. As may be supposed, it grew slowly, and in 1744 it had but nine or
ten families. In the preceding year, when war seemed imminent, and it was
clear that neither Massachusetts nor New Hampshire would lend a helping
hand, the settlers of Number Four, seeing that their only resource was in
themselves, called a meeting to consider the situation and determine what
should be done. The meeting was held at the house, or log-cabin, of John
Spafford, Jr., and being duly called to order, the following resolutions
were adopted: that a fort be built at the charge of the proprietors of the
said township of Number Four; that John Hastings, John Spafford, and John
Avery be a committee to direct the building; that each carpenter be allowed
nine shillings, old tenor, a day, each laborer seven shillings, and each
pair of oxen three shillings and sixpence; that the proprietors of the
township be taxed in the sum of three hundred pounds, old tenor, for
building the fort; that John Spafford, Phineas Stevens, and John Hastings
be assessors to assess the same, and Samuel Farnsworth collector to collect
it. [Footnote: Extracts from the Town Record, in Saunderson, _History of
Charlestown, N.H. (Number Four)_, 17,18.] And to the end that their fort
should be a good and creditable one, they are said to have engaged the
services of John Stoddard, accounted the foremost man of western
Massachusetts, Superintendent of Defence, Colonel of Militia, Judge of
Probate, Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, a reputed authority in
the construction of backwoods fortifications, and the admired owner of the
only gold watch in Northampton.
Timber was abundant and could be had for the asking; for the frontiersman
usually regarded a tree less as a valuable possession than as a natural
enemy, to be got rid of by fair means or foul. The only cost was the labor.
The fort rose rapidly. It was a square enclosing about three quarters of an
acre, each side measuring a hundred and eighty feet. The wall was not of
palisades, as was more usual, but of squared logs laid one upon another,
and interlocked at the corners after the fashion of a log-cabin. Within
were several houses, which had been built close together, for mutual
protection, before the fort was begun, and which belonged to Stevens,
Spafford, and other settlers. Apparently they were small log-cabins; for
they were valued at only from eight to thirty-five pounds each, in old
tenor currency wofully attenuated by depreciation; and these sums being
paid to the owners out of the three hundred pounds collected for building
the fort, the cabins became public property. Either they were built in a
straight line, or they were moved to form one, for when the fort was
finished, they all backed against the outer wall, so that their low roofs
served to fire from. The usual flankers completed the work, and the
settlers of Number Four were so well pleased with it that they proudly
declared their fort a better one than Fort Dummer, its nearest neighbor,
which had been built by public authority at the charge of the province.
But a fort must have a garrison, and the ten or twelve men of Number Four
would hardly be a sufficient one. Sooner or later an attack was certain;
for the place was a backwoods Castle Dangerous, lying in the path of
war-parties from Canada, whether coming down the Connecticut from Lake
Memphremagog, or up Otter Creek from Lake Champlain, then over the
mountains to Black River, and so down that stream, which would bring them
directly to Number Four. New Hampshire would do nothing for them, and their
only hope was in Massachusetts, of which most of them were natives, and
which had good reasons for helping them to hold their ground, as a cover to
its own settlements below. The Governor and Assembly of Massachusetts did,
in fact, send small parties of armed men from time to time to defend the
endangered outpost, and the succor was timely; for though, during the first
year of the war, Number Four was left in peace, yet from the 19th of April
to the 19th of June, 1746, it was attacked by Indians five times, with some
loss of scalps, and more of cattle, horses, and hogs. On the last occasion
there was a hot fight in the woods, ending in the retreat of the Indians,
said to have numbered a hundred and fifty, into a swamp, leaving behind
them guns, blankets, hatchets, spears, and other things, valued at forty
pounds, old tenor,--which, says the chronicle, "was reckoned a great booty
for such beggarly enemies." [Footnote: Saunderson, _History of
Charlestown, N. H._, 29. Doolittle, _Narrative of Mischief done by the
Indian Enemy_,--a contempory chronicle.]
But Massachusetts grew tired of defending lands that had been adjudged to
New Hampshire, and as the season drew towards an end, Number Four was left
again to its own keeping. The settlers saw no choice but to abandon a place
which they were too few to defend, and accordingly withdrew to the older
settlements, after burying such of their effects as would bear it, and
leaving others to their fate. Six men, a dog, and a cat remained to keep
the fort. Towards midwinter the human part of the garrison also withdrew,
and the two uncongenial quadrupeds were left alone.
When the authorities of Massachusetts saw that a place so useful to bear
the brunt of attack was left to certain destruction, they repented of their
late withdrawal, and sent Captain Phineas Stevens, with thirty men, to
re-occupy it. Stevens, a native of Sudbury, Massachusetts, one of the
earliest settlers of Number Four, and one of its chief proprietors, was a
bold, intelligent, and determined man, well fitted for the work before him.
He and his band reached the fort on the 27th of March, 1747, and their
arrival gave peculiar pleasure to its tenants, the dog and cat, the former
of whom met them with lively demonstrations of joy. The pair had apparently
lived in harmony, and found means of subsistence, as they are reported to
have been in tolerable condition.
Stevens had brought with him a number of other dogs,--animals found useful
for detecting the presence of Indians and tracking them to their
lurking-places. A week or more after the arrival of the party, these
canine allies showed great uneasiness and barked without ceasing; on which
Stevens ordered a strict watch to be kept, and great precaution to be used
in opening the gate of the fort. It was time, for the surrounding forest
concealed what the New England chroniclers call an "army," commanded by
General Debeline. It scarcely need be said that Canada had no General
Debeline, and that no such name is to be found in Canadian annals. The
"army" was a large war-party of both French and Indians, and a French
record shows that its commander was Boucher de Niverville, ensign in the
colony troops. [Footnote: _Extrait en forme de Journal de ce qui s'est
passé d'intéressant dans la Colonie à l'occasion des Mouvements de Guerre,
etc., 1746, 1747_.]
The behavior of the dogs was as yet the only sign of danger, when, about
nine o'clock on the morning of the 7th of April, one of Stevens's men took
it upon him to go out and find what was amiss. Accompanied by two or three
of the dogs, he advanced, gun in hand, into the clearing, peering at every
stump, lest an Indian should lurk behind it. When about twenty rods from
the gate, he saw a large log, or trunk of a fallen tree, not far before
him, and approached it cautiously, setting on the dogs, or, as Stevens
whimsically phrases it, "saying _Choboy!_" to them. They ran forward
barking, on which several heads appeared above the log, and several guns
were fired at him. He was slightly wounded, but escaped to the fort. Then,
all around, the air rang with war-whoops, and a storm of bullets flew from
the tangle of bushes that edged the clearing, and rapped spitefully, but
harmlessly, against the wooden wall. At a little distance on the windward
side was a log-house, to which, with adjacent fences, the assailants
presently set fire, in the hope that, as the wind was strong, the flames
would catch the fort. When Stevens saw what they were doing, he set himself
to thwart them; and while some of his men kept them at bay with their guns,
the rest fell to work digging a number of short trenches under the wall, on
the side towards the fire. As each trench was six or seven feet deep, a man
could stand in it outside the wall, sheltered from bullets, and dash
buckets of water, passed to him from within, against the scorching timbers.
Eleven such trenches were dug, and eleven men were stationed in them, so
that the whole exposed front of the wall was kept wet. [Footnote: "Those
who were not employed in firing at the enemy were employed in digging
trenches under the bottom of the fort. We dug no less than eleven of them,
so deep that a man could go and stand upright on the outside and not
endanger himself; so that when these trenches were finished, we could wet
all the outside of the fort, which we did, and kept it wet all night. We
drew some hundreds of barrels of water; and to undergo all this hard
service there were but thirty men." _Stevens to Colonel W.
Williams,--April, 1747._] Thus, though clouds of smoke drifted over the
fort, and burning cinders showered upon it, no harm was done, and the enemy
was forced to other devices. They found a wagon, which they protected from
water and bullets by a shield of planks,--for there was a saw-mill hard
by,--and loaded it with dry fagots, thinking to set them on fire and push
the blazing machine against a dry part of the fort wall; but the task
proved too dangerous, "for," says Stevens, "instead of performing what they
threatened and seemed to be immediately going to undertake, they called to
us and desired a cessation of arms till sunrise the next morning, which was
granted, at which time they said they would come to a parley." In fact, the
French commander, with about sixty of his men, came in the morning with a
flag of truce, which he stuck in the ground at a musket-shot from the fort,
and, in the words of Stevens, "said, if we would send three men to him, he
would send as many to us." Stevens agreed to this, on which two Frenchmen
and an Indian came to the fort, and three soldiers went out in return. The
two Frenchmen demanded, on the part of their commander, that the garrison
should surrender, under a promise of life, and be carried prisoners to
Quebec; and they farther required that Stevens should give his answer to
the French officer in person.
Wisely or unwisely, Stevens went out at the gate, and was at once joined by
Niverville, attended, no doubt, by an interpreter. "Upon meeting the
Monsieur," says the English captain, "he did not wait for me to give him an
answer," but said, in a manner sufficiently peremptory, that he had seven
hundred men with him, and that if his terms were refused, he would storm
the fort, "run over it," burn it to the ground, and if resistance were
offered, put all in it to the sword; adding that he would have it or die,
and that Stevens might fight or not as he pleased, for it was all one to
him. His terms being refused, he said, as Stevens reports, "Well, go back
to your fort and see if your men dare fight any more, and give me an answer
quickly; for my men want to be fighting." Stevens now acted as if he had
been the moderator of a town-meeting. "I went into the fort and called the
men together, and informed them what the General said, and then put it to
vote whether they would fight or resign; and they voted to a man to stand
it out, and also declared that they would fight as long as they had life."
[Footnote: _Stevens to Colonel William Williams,--April, 1747._]
Answer was made accordingly, but Niverville's promise to storm the fort and
"run over it" was not kept. Stevens says that his enemies had not the
courage to do this, or even to bring up their "fortification," meaning
their fire-wagon with its shield of planks. In fact, an open assault upon a
fortified place was a thing unknown in this border warfare, whether waged
by Indians alone, or by French and Indians together. The assailants only
raised the war-whoop again, and fired, as before, from behind stumps, logs,
and bushes. This amusement they kept up from two o'clock till night, when
they grew bolder, approached nearer, and shot flights of fire-arrows into
the fort, which, water being abundant, were harmless as their bullets. At
daylight they gave over this exercise, called out "Good morning!" to the
garrison, and asked for a suspension of arms for two hours. This being
agreed to, another flag of truce presently appeared, carried by two
Indians, who planted it in the ground within a stone's throw of the fort,
and asked that two men should be sent out to confer with them. This was
done, and the men soon came back with a proposal that Stevens should sell
provisions to his besiegers, under a promise on their part that they would
give him no farther trouble. He answered that he would not sell them
provisions for money, but would exchange them for prisoners, and give five
bushels of Indian corn for every hostage placed in his hands as security
for the release of an English captive in Canada. To this their only answer
was firing a few shots against the fort, after which they all disappeared,
and were seen no more. The garrison had scarcely eaten or slept for three
days. "I believe men were never known to hold out with better resolution,"
writes Stevens; and "though there were some thousands of guns shot at us,
we had but two men slightly wounded, John Brown and Joseph Ely." [Footnote:
_Stevens to Colonel W. Williams,--April, 1747._]
Niverville and his party, disappointed and hungry, now made a tour among
the scattered farms and hamlets of the country below, which, incapable of
resisting such an inroad, were abandoned at their approach. Thus they took
an easy revenge for their rebuff at Number Four, and in a march of thirty
or forty leagues, burned five small deserted forts or stockaded houses,
"three meeting-houses, several fine barns, about one hundred dwellings,
mostly of two stories, furnished even to chests of drawers, and killed five
to six hundred sheep and hogs, and about thirty horned cattle. This
devastation is well worth a few prisoners or scalps." [Footnote: _N. Y.
Col. Docs._, X. 97.] It is curious to find such exploits mentioned with
complacency, as evidence of prowess.
The successful defence of the most exposed place on the frontier was
welcome news throughout New England, and Commodore Charles Knowles, who was
then at Boston, sent Stevens a silver-hilted sword in recognition of his
conduct. The settlers of Number Four, who soon returned to their backwoods
home, were so well pleased with this compliment to one of their fellows
that they gave to the settlement the baptismal name of the Commodore, and
the town that has succeeded the hamlet of Number Four is Charlestown to
this day. [Footnote: Just after the withdrawal of the French and Indians,
Stevens wrote two letters giving an account of the affair, one to Governor
Shirley, and the other to Colonel William Williams, who seems to have been
his immediate military superior. At most points they are substantially the
same; but that to Williams contains some passages not found in the other.
The letter to Shirley is printed in Saunderson, _History of Charlestown,
N. H._, 34-37, and that to Williams in _Collections of the New
Hampshire Historical Society_, IV. 109-113. Stevens also kept a diary,
which was long in possession of his descendants. One of these, Mr. B. F.
Stevens, kindly made a search for it, at my request, and learned that it
had been unfortunately destroyed by fire, in 1856. Doolittle, in his
_Narrative of Mischief_, and Hoyt, in his _Antiquarian Researches_,
give other accounts. The French notices of the affair are few and short, as
usual in cases of failure. For the principal one, see _N. Y. Col. Docs.,_
X. 97. It is here said that Stevens asked for a parley, in order to
capitulate; but all the English accounts say that the French made the first
advances.]