Volume I Part 7 (1/2)
[95] _Memoire du Roy au Sieur de Brouillan, 23 Mars, 1700_; _Le Ministre a Villebon, 9 Avril, 1700_.
[96] _Subercase au Ministre, 3 Janvier, 1710._
[97] Pioneers of France in the New World, 253.
[98] La Touche, _Memoire sur l'Acadie_, 1702 (adresse a Ponchartrain).
[99] ”Que trois ou quatre amis, honnetes gens, incapables de gauchir en quoique ce soit, pour n'avoir pas fleche devant la bete, aient ete qualifies de cabalistes.”--_De Goutin au Ministre, 4 Decembre, 1705._
[100] _De Goutin au Ministre, 22 Decembre, 1707._ In 1705 Bonaventure, in a time of scarcity, sent a vessel to Boston to buy provisions, on pretence of exchanging prisoners. _Bonaventure au Ministre, 30 Novembre, 1705._
[101] ”Ne me fa.s.se a mon tour tourner la cervelle.”--_Subercase au Ministre, 20 Decembre, 1708._
[102] ”On a pousse la chose aussi loin que l'enfer le pouvait desirer.”--_Subercase au Ministre, 20 Decembre, 1708._
[103] _De Goutin au Ministre, 29 Decembre, 1708._
[104] _Subercase au Ministre, 20 Decembre, 1708._
[105] _Ibid._
[106] _Villieu au Ministre, 20 Octobre, 1700._
[107] ”Il repondit qu'il se soucioit de moi comme de la boue de ses souliers.”--_Bonaventure au Ministre, 30 Novembre, 1705._
[108] These letters of Acadian officials are in the Archives du Ministere de la Marine et des Colonies at Paris. Copies of some of them will be found in the 3d series of the _Correspondance Officielle_ at Ottawa.
[109] _Raudot au Ministre, 20 Septembre, 1709._ The copy before me covers 108 folio pages, filled with gossiping personalities.
CHAPTER VII.
1704-1710.
ACADIA CHANGES HANDS.
Reprisal for Deerfield.--Major Benjamin Church: his Ravages at Grand-Pre.--Port Royal Expedition.--Futile Proceedings.--A Discreditable Affair.--French Successes in Newfoundland.--Schemes of Samuel Vetch.--A Grand Enterprise.--Nicholson's Advance.--An Infected Camp.--Ministerial Promises Broken.--A New Scheme.--Port Royal Attacked.--Acadia Conquered.
When war-parties from Canada struck the English borders, reprisal was difficult against those who had provoked it. Canada was made almost inaccessible by a hundred leagues of pathless forest, prowled by her Indian allies, who were sure to give the alarm of an approaching foe; while, on the other hand, the New Englanders could easily reach Acadia by their familiar element, the sea; and hence that unfortunate colony often made vicarious atonement for the sins of her northern sister. It was from French privateers and fis.h.i.+ng-vessels on the Acadian seas that Ma.s.sachusetts drew most of the prisoners whom she exchanged for her own people held captive in Canada.
Major Benjamin Church, the noted Indian fighter of King Philip's War, was at Tiverton in Rhode Island when he heard of Hertel de Rouville's attack on Deerfield. Boiling with rage, he mounted his horse and rode to Boston to propose a stroke of retaliation. Church was energetic, impetuous, and bull-headed, sixty-five years old, and grown so fat that when pus.h.i.+ng through the woods on the trail of Indians, he kept a stout sergeant by him to hoist him over fallen trees. Governor Dudley approved his scheme, and appointed him to command the expedition, with the rank of colonel. Church repaired to his native Duxbury; and here, as well as in Plymouth and other neighboring settlements, the militia were called out, and the veteran readily persuaded a sufficient number to volunteer under him. With the Indians of Cape Cod he found more difficulty, they being, as his son observes, ”a people that need much treating, especially with drink.” At last, however, some of them were induced to join him. Church now returned to Boston, and begged that an attack on Port Royal might be included in his instructions,--which was refused, on the ground that a plan to that effect had been laid before the Queen, and that nothing could be done till her answer was received. The governor's enemies seized the occasion to say that he wished Port Royal to remain French, in order to make money by trading with it.
The whole force, including Indians and sailors, amounted to about seven hundred men; they sailed to Matinicus in brigs and sloops, the province galley, and two British frigates. From Matinicus most of the sailing-vessels were sent to Mount Desert to wait orders, while the main body rowed eastward in whale-boats. Touching at Saint-Castin's fort, where the town of Castine now stands, they killed or captured everybody they found there. Receiving false information that there was a large war-party on the west side of Pa.s.samaquoddy Bay, they hastened to the place, reached it in the night, and pushed into the woods in hope of surprising the enemy. The movement was difficult; and Church's men, being little better than a mob, disregarded his commands, and fell into disorder. He raged and stormed; and presently, in the darkness and confusion, descrying a hut or cabin on the farther side of a small brook, with a crowd gathered about it, he demanded what was the matter, and was told that there were Frenchmen inside who would not come out.
”Then knock them in the head,” shouted the choleric old man; and he was obeyed. It was said that the victims belonged to a party of Canadians captured just before, under a promise of life. Afterwards, when Church returned to Boston, there was an outcry of indignation against him for this butchery. In any case, however, he could have known nothing of the alleged promise of quarter.
To hunt Indians with an endless forest behind them was like chasing shadows. The Acadians were surer game. Church sailed with a part of his force up the Bay of Fundy, and landed at Grand Pre,--a place destined to a dismal notoriety half a century later. The inhabitants of this and the neighboring settlements made some slight resistance, and killed a lieutenant named Baker, and one soldier, after which they fled; when Church, first causing the houses to be examined, to make sure that n.o.body was left in them, ordered them to be set on fire. The dikes were then broken, and the tide let in upon the growing crops.[110] In spite of these harsh proceedings, he fell far short in his retaliation for the barbarities at Deerfield, since he restrained his Indians and permitted no woman or child to be hurt,--at the same time telling his prisoners that if any other New England village were treated as Deerfield had been, he would come back with a thousand Indians and leave them free to do what they pleased. With this bl.u.s.ter, he left the unfortunate peasants in the extremity of terror, after carrying off as many of them as were needed for purposes of exchange. A small detachment was sent to Beauba.s.sin, where it committed similar havoc.
Church now steered for Port Royal, which he had been forbidden to attack. The two frigates and the transports had by this time rejoined him, and in spite of Dudley's orders to make no attempt on the French fort, the British and provincial officers met in council to consider whether to do so. With one voice they decided in the negative, since they had only four hundred men available for landing, while the French garrison was no doubt much stronger, having had ample time to call the inhabitants to its aid. Church, therefore, after trying the virtue of a bombastic summons to surrender, and destroying a few houses, sailed back to Boston. It was a miserable retaliation for a barbarous outrage; as the guilty were out of reach, the invaders turned their ire on the innocent.[111]
If Port Royal in French hands was a source of illicit gain to some persons in Boston, it was also an occasion of loss by the privateers and corsairs it sent out to prey on trading and fis.h.i.+ng vessels, while at the same time it was a standing menace as the possible naval base for one of those armaments against the New England capital which were often threatened, though never carried into effect. Hence, in 1707 the New England colonists made, in their bungling way, a serious attempt to get possession of it.