Canada heard the news of the coming armament with an exultation that was dashed with misgiving as weeks and months passed and the fleet did not appear. At length in September a vessel put in to an Acadian harbor with the report that she had met the ships in mid-ocean, and that they counted a hundred and fifty sail. Some weeks later the Governor and Intendant of Canada wrote that on the 14th of October they received a letter from Chibucto with "the agreeable news" that the Duc d'Anville and his fleet had arrived there about three weeks before. Had they known more, they would have rejoiced less.

That her great American fortress should have been snatched from her by a despised militia was more than France could bear; and in the midst of a burdensome war she made a crowning effort to retrieve her honor and pay the debt with usury. It was computed that nearly half the French navy was gathered at Brest under command of the Duc d'Anville. By one account his force consisted of eleven ships of the line, twenty frigates, and thirty-four transports and fireships, or sixty-five in all. Another list gives a total of sixty-six, of which ten were ships of the line, twenty-two were frigates and fireships, and thirty-four were transports. [Footnote: This list is in the journal of a captured French officer called by Shirley M. Rebateau.] These last carried the regiment of Ponthieu, with other veteran troops, to the number in all of three thousand one hundred and fifty. The fleet was to be joined at Chibucto, now Halifax, by four heavy ships-of-war lately sent to the West Indies under M. de Conflans.

From Brest D'Anville sailed for some reason to Rochelle, and here the ships were kept so long by head-winds that it was the 20th of June before they could put to sea. From the first the omens were sinister. The Admiral was beset with questions as to the destination of the fleet, which was known to him alone; and when, for the sake of peace, he told it to his officers, their discontent redoubled. The Bay of Biscay was rough and boisterous, and spars, sails, and bowsprits were carried away. After they had been a week at sea, some of the ships, being dull sailers, lagged behind, and the rest were forced to shorten sail and wait for them. In the longitude of the Azores there was a dead calm, and the whole fleet lay idle for days. Then came a squall, with lightning. Several ships were struck. On one of them six men were killed, and on the seventy-gun ship "Mars" a box of musket and cannon cartridges blew up, killed ten men, and wounded twenty-one. A storeship which proved to be sinking was abandoned and burned. Then a pestilence broke out, and in some of the ships there were more sick than in health.

On the 14th of September they neared the coast of Nova Scotia, and were in dread of the dangerous shoals of Sable Island, the position of which they did not exactly know. They groped their way in fogs till a fearful storm, with thunder and lightning, fell upon them. The journalist of the voyage, a captain in the regiment of Ponthieu, says, with the exaggeration common in such cases, that the waves ran as high as the masts; and such was their violence that a transport, dashing against the ship "Amazone," immediately went down, with all on board. The crew of the "Prince d'Orange," half blinded by wind and spray, saw the great ship "Caribou," without bowsprit or main-topmast, driving towards them before the gale, and held their breath in expectation of the shock as she swept close alongside and vanished in the storm. [Footnote: Journal historique du Voyage de la Flotte commandee par M. le Duc d'Enville. The writer was on board the "Prince d'Orange," and describes what he saw (Archives du Seminaire de Quebec; printed in Le Canada Francais.)] The tempest raged all night, and the fleet became so scattered that there was no more danger of collision. In the morning the journalist could see but five sail; but as the day advanced the rest began to reappear, and at three o'clock he counted thirty-one from the deck of the "Prince d'Orange." The gale was subsiding, but its effects were seen in hencoops, casks, and chests floating on the surges and telling the fate of one or more of the fleet. The "Argonaut" was rolling helpless, without masts or rudder; the "Caribou" had thrown overboard all the starboard guns of her upper deck; and the vice-admiral's ship, the "Trident," was in scarcely better condition.

On the 23d they were wrapped in thick fog and lay firing guns, ringing bells, and beating drums to prevent collisions. When the weather cleared, they looked in vain for the Admiral's ship, the "Northumberland." [Footnote: The "Northumberland" was an English prize captured by Captains Serier and Conflans in 1744.] She was not lost, however, but with two other ships was far ahead of the fleet and near Chibucto, though in great perplexity, having no pilot who knew the coast. She soon after had the good fortune to capture a small English vessel with a man on board well acquainted with Chibucto harbor. D'Anville offered him his liberty and a hundred louis if he would pilot the ship in. To this he agreed; but when he rejoined his fellow-prisoners they called him a traitor to his country, on which he retracted his promise. D'Anville was sorely perplexed; but Duperrier, captain of the "Northumberland," less considerate of the prisoner's feelings, told him that unless he kept his word he should be thrown into the sea, with a pair of cannon-balls made fast to his feet. At this his scruples gave way, and before night the "Northumberland" was safe in Chibucto Bay. D'Anville had hoped to find here the four ships of Conflans which were to have met him from the West Indies at this, the appointed rendezvous; but he saw only a solitary transport of his own fleet. Hills covered with forests stood lonely and savage round what is now the harbor of Halifax. Conflans and his four ships had arrived early in the month, and finding nobody, though it was nearly three months since D'Anville left Rochelle, he cruised among the fogs for a while, and then sailed for France a few days before the Admiral's arrival.

D'Anville was ignorant of the fate of his fleet; but he knew that the two ships which had reached Chibucto with him were full of sick men, that their provisions were nearly spent, and that there was every reason to believe such of the fleet as the storm might have spared to be in no better case. An officer of the expedition describes D'Anville as a man "made to command and worthy to be loved," and says that he had borne the disasters of the voyage with the utmost fortitude and serenity. [Footnote: Journal historique du Voyage.] Yet suspense and distress wrought fatally upon him, and at two o'clock in the morning of the 27th he died,—of apoplexy, by the best accounts; though it was whispered among the crews that he had ended his troubles by poison. [Footnote: Declaration of H. Kannan and D. Deas, 23 Oct. 1746. Deposition of Joseph Foster, 24 Oct. 1746, sworn to before Jacob Wendell, J. P. These were prisoners in the ships at Chibucto.]

At six o'clock in the afternoon of the same day D'Estournel, the vice-admiral, with such ships as remained with him, entered the harbor and learned what had happened. He saw with dismay that he was doomed to bear the burden of command over a ruined enterprise and a shattered fleet. The long voyage had consumed the provisions, and in some of the ships the crews were starving. The pestilence grew worse, and men were dying in numbers every day. On the 28th, D'Anville was buried without ceremony on a small island in the harbor. The officers met in council, and the papers of the dead commander were examined. Among them was a letter from the King in which he urged the recapture of Louisbourg as the first object of the expedition; but this was thought impracticable, and the council resolved to turn against Annapolis all the force that was left. It is said that D'Estournel opposed the attempt, insisting that it was hopeless, and that there was no alternative but to return to France. The debate was long and hot, and the decision was against him. [Footnote: This is said by all the writers except the author of the Journal historique, who merely states that the council decided to attack Annapolis, and to detach some soldiers to the aid of Quebec. This last vote was reconsidered.] The council dissolved, and he was seen to enter his cabin in evident distress and agitation. An unusual sound was presently heard, followed by groans. His door was fastened by two bolts, put on the evening before by his order. It was burst open, and the unfortunate commander was found lying in a pool of blood, transfixed with his own sword. Enraged and mortified, he had thrown himself upon it in a fit of desperation. The surgeon drew out the blade, but it was only on the urgent persuasion of two Jesuits that the dying man would permit the wound to be dressed. He then ordered all the captains to the side of his berth, and said, "Gentlemen, I beg pardon of God and the King for what I have done, and I protest to the King that my only object was to prevent my enemies from saying that I had not executed his orders;" and he named M. de la Jonquiere to command in his place. In fact, La Jonquiere's rank entitled him to do so. He was afterwards well known as governor of Canada, and was reputed a brave and able sea-officer.

La Jonquiere remained at Chibucto till late in October. Messengers were sent to the Acadian settlements to ask for provisions, of which there was desperate need; and as payment was promised in good metal, and not in paper, the Acadians brought in a considerable supply. The men were encamped on shore, yet the pestilence continued its ravages. Two English prisoners were told that between twenty-three and twenty-four hundred men had been buried by sea or land since the fleet left France; and another declares that eleven hundred and thirty-five burials took place while he was at Chibucto. [Footnote: Declaration of Kannan and Deas. Deposition of Joseph Foster.] The survivors used the clothing of the dead as gifts to the neighboring Indians, who in consequence were attacked with such virulence by the disease that of the band at Cape Sable three fourths are said to have perished. The English, meanwhile, learned something of the condition of their enemies. Towards the end of September Captain Sylvanus Cobb, in a sloop from Boston, boldly entered Chibucto Harbor, took note of the ships lying there, and though pursued, ran out to sea and carried the results of his observations to Louisbourg. [Footnote: Report of Captain Cobb, in Shirley to Newcastle, 13 Oct. 1746.] A more thorough reconnoissance was afterwards made by a vessel from Louisbourg bringing French prisoners for exchange under a flag of truce; and it soon became evident that the British colonies had now nothing to fear.

La Jonquiere still clung to the hope of a successful stroke at Annapolis, till in October an Acadian brought him the report that the garrison of that place had received a reinforcement of twelve hundred men. The reinforcement consisted in reality of three small companies of militia sent from Boston by Shirley. La Jonquiere called a secret council, and the result seems to have been adverse to any further attempt. The journalist reports that only a thousand men were left in fighting condition, and that even of these some were dying every day.

La Jonquiere, however, would not yet despair. The troops were re-embarked; five hospital ships were devoted to the sick; the "Parfait," a fifty-gun ship no longer serviceable, was burned, as were several smaller vessels, and on the 4th of October what was left of the fleet sailed out of Chibucto Harbor and steered for Annapolis, piloted by Acadians. The flag of truce from Louisbourg was compelled for a time to bear them company, and Joseph Foster of Beverly, an exchanged prisoner on board of her, deposed that as the fleet held its way, he saw "a great number of dead persons" dropped into the sea every day. Ill-luck still pursued the French. A storm off Cape Sable dispersed the ships, two of which some days later made their way to Annapolis Basin in expectation of finding some of their companions there. They found instead the British fifty-gun ship "Chester" and the Massachusetts frigate "Shirley" anchored before the fort, on which the two Frenchmen retired as they had come; and so ended the last aggressive movement on the part of the great armament.

The journalist reports that on the night of the 27th there was a council of officers on board the "Northumberland," at which it was resolved that no choice was left but to return to France with the ships that still kept together. On the 4th of November there was another storm, and when it subsided, the "Prince d'Orange" found herself with but nine companions, all of which were transports. These had on board eleven companies of soldiers, of whom their senior officer reports that only ninety-one were in health. The pestilence made such ravages among the crews that four or five corpses were thrown into the sea every day, and there was fear that the vessels would be left helpless in mid-ocean for want of sailors to work them. [Footnote: Journal historique.] At last, on the 7th of December, after narrowly escaping an English squadron, they reached Port Louis in Brittany, where several ships of the fleet had arrived before them. Among these was the frigate "La Palme." "Yesterday," says the journalist, "I supped with M. Destrahoudal, who commands this frigate; and he told me things which from anybody else would have been incredible. This is his story, exactly as I had it from him." And he goes on to the following effect.

After the storm of the 14th of September, provisions being almost spent, it was thought that there was no hope for "La Palme" and her crew but in giving up the enterprise and making all sail at once for home, since France now had no port of refuge on the western continent nearer than Quebec. Rations were reduced to three ounces of biscuit and three of salt meat a day; and after a time half of this pittance was cut off. There was diligent hunting for rats in the hold; and when this game failed, the crew, crazed with famine, demanded of their captain that five English prisoners who were on board should be butchered to appease the frenzy of their hunger. The captain consulted his officers, and they were of opinion that if he did not give his consent, the crew would work their will without it. The ship's butcher was accordingly ordered to bind one of the prisoners, carry him to the bottom of the hold, put him to death, and distribute his flesh to the men in portions of three ounces each. The captain, walking the deck in great agitation all night, found a pretext for deferring the deed till morning, when a watchman sent aloft at daylight cried, "A sail!" The providential stranger was a Portuguese ship; and as Portugal was neutral in the war, she let the frigate approach to within hailing distance. The Portuguese captain soon came alongside in a boat, "accompanied," in the words of the narrator, "by five sheep." These were eagerly welcomed by the starving crew as agreeable substitutes for the five Englishmen; and being forthwith slaughtered, were parcelled out among the men, who would not wait till the flesh was cooked, but devoured it raw. Provisions enough were obtained from the Portuguese to keep the frigate's company alive till they reached Port Louis. [Footnote: Relation du Voyage de Retour de M. Destrahoudal apres la Tempete du 14 Septembre, in Journal historique.]

There are no sufficient means of judging how far the disasters of D'Anville's fleet were due to a neglect of sanitary precautions or to deficient seamanship. Certain it is that there were many in self-righteous New England who would have held it impious to doubt that God had summoned the pestilence and the storm to fight the battles of his modern Israel.

Undaunted by disastrous failure, the French court equipped another fleet, not equal to that of D'Anville, yet still formidable, and placed it under La Jonquiere, for the conquest of Acadia and Louisbourg. La Jonquiere sailed from Rochelle on the 10th of May, 1747, and on the 14th was met by an English fleet stronger than his own and commanded by Admirals Anson and Warren. A fight ensued, in which, after brave resistance, the French were totally defeated. Six ships-of-war, including the flag-ship, were captured, with a host of prisoners, among whom was La Jonquiere himself. [Footnote: Relation du Combat rendu le 14 Mai (new style), par l'Escadre du Roy commandee par M. de la Jonquiere, in Le Canada Francais, Supplement de Documents inedits, 33. Newcastle to Shirley, 30 May, 1747.]



CHAPTER XXII.

1745-1747.

ACADIAN CONFLICTS.

EFFORTS OF FRANCE.—APATHY OF NEWCASTLE.—DILEMMA OF ACADIANS.—THEIR CHARACTER.—DANGER OF THE PROVINCE.—PLANS OF SHIRLEY.—ACADIAN PRIESTS.—POLITICAL AGITATORS.—NOBLE'S EXPEDITION.—RAMESAY AT BEAUBASSIN.—NOBLE AT GRAND PRE.—A WINTER MARCH.—DEFEAT AND DEATH OF NOBLE.—GRAND PRE RE-OCCUPIED BY THE ENGLISH.—THREATS OF RAMESAY AGAINST THE ACADIANS.—THE BRITISH MINISTRY WILL NOT PROTECT THEM.

Since the capture of Louisbourg, France had held constantly in view, as an object of prime importance, the recovery of her lost colony of Acadia. This was one of the chief aims of D'Anville's expedition, and of that of La Jonquiere in the next year. And to make assurance still more sure, a large body of Canadians, under M. de Ramesay, had been sent to Acadia to co-operate with D'Anville's force; but the greater part of them had been recalled to aid in defending Quebec against the expected attack of the English. They returned when the news came that D'Anville was at Chibucto, and Ramesay, with a part of his command, advanced upon Port Royal, or Annapolis, in order to support the fleet in its promised attack on that place. He encamped at a little distance from the English fort, till he heard of the disasters that had ruined the fleet, [Footnote: Journal de Beaujeu, in Le Canada Franccais, Documents, 53.] and then fell back to Chignecto, on the neck of the Acadian peninsula, where he made his quarters, with a force which, including Micmac, Malecite, and Penobscot Indians, amounted, at one time, to about sixteen hundred men.

If France was bent on recovering Acadia, Shirley was no less resolved to keep it, if he could. In his belief, it was the key of the British American colonies, and again and again he urged the Duke of Newcastle to protect it. But Newcastle seems scarcely to have known where Acadia was, being ignorant of most things except the art of managing the House of Commons, and careless of all things that could not help his party and himself. Hence Shirley's hyperboles, though never without a basis of truth, were lost upon him. Once, it is true, he sent three hundred men to Annapolis; but one hundred and eighty of them died on the voyage, or lay helpless in Boston hospitals, and the rest could better have been spared, some being recruits from English jails, and others Irish Catholics, several of whom deserted to the French, with information of the state of the garrison.

The defence of Acadia was left to Shirley and his Assembly, who in time of need sent companies of militia and rangers to Annapolis, and thus on several occasions saved it from returning to France. Shirley was the most watchful and strenuous defender of British interests on the continent; and in the present crisis British and colonial interests were one. He held that if Acadia were lost, the peace and safety of all the other colonies would be in peril; and in spite of the immense efforts made by the French court to recover it, he felt that the chief danger of the province was not from without, but from within. "If a thousand French troops should land in Nova Scotia," he writes to Newcastle, "all the people would rise to join them, besides all the Indians." [Footnote: Shirley to Newcastle, 29 Oct. 1745.] So, too, thought the French officials in America. The Governor and Intendant of Canada wrote to the colonial minister: "The inhabitants, with few exceptions, wish to return under the French dominion, and will not hesitate to take up arms as soon as they see themselves free to do so; that is, as soon as we become masters of Port Royal, or they have powder and other munitions of war, and are backed by troops for their protection against the resentment of the English." [Footnote: Beauharnois et Hocquart au Ministre, 12 Sept. 1745.] Up to this time, however, though they had aided Duvivier in his attack on Annapolis so far as was possible without seeming to do so, they had not openly taken arms, and their refusal to fight for the besiegers is one among several causes to which Mascarene ascribes the success of his defence. While the greater part remained attached to France, some leaned to the English, who bought their produce and paid them in ready coin. Money was rare with the Acadians, who loved it, and were so addicted to hoarding it that the French authorities were led to speculate as to what might be the object of these careful savings. [Footnote: Beauharnois et Hocquart au Ministre, 12 Sept. 1745.]

Though the Acadians loved France, they were not always ready to sacrifice their interests to her. They would not supply Ramesay's force with provisions in exchange for his promissory notes, but demanded hard cash. [Footnote: Ibid.] This he had not to give, and was near being compelled to abandon his position in consequence. At the same time, in consideration of specie payment, the inhabitants brought in fuel for the English garrison at Louisbourg, and worked at repairing the rotten chevaux de frise of Annapolis. [Footnote: Admiral Knowles a —— 1746. Mascarene in Le Canada Francais, Documents, 82]

Mascarene, commandant at that place, being of French descent, was disposed at first to sympathize with the Acadians and treat them with a lenity that to the members of his council seemed neither fitting nor prudent. He wrote to Shirley: "The French inhabitants are certainly in a very perilous situation, those who pretend to be their friends and old masters having let loose a parcel of banditti to plunder them; whilst, on the other hand, they see themselves threatened with ruin if they fail in their allegiance to the British Government." [Footnote: Mascarene, in Le Canada Francais, Documents, 81.]

This unhappy people were in fact between two fires. France claimed them on one side, and England on the other, and each demanded their adhesion, without regard to their feelings or their wrelfare. The banditti of whom Mascarene speaks were the Micmac Indians, who were completely under the control of their missionary, Le Loutre, and were used by him to terrify the inhabitants into renouncing their English allegiance and actively supporting the French cause. By the Treaty of Utrecht France had transferred Acadia to Great Britain, and the inhabitants had afterwards taken an oath of fidelity to King George. Thus they were British subjects; but as their oath had been accompanied by a promise, or at least a clear understanding, that they should not be required to take arms against Frenchmen or Indians, they had become known as the "Neutral French." This name tended to perplex them, and in their ignorance and simplicity they hardly knew to which side they owed allegiance. Their illiteracy was extreme. Few of them could sign their names, and a contemporary well acquainted with them declares that he knew but a single Acadian who could read and write. [Footnote: Moise des Derniers, in Le Canada Francais, I. 118.] This was probably the notary, Le Blanc, whose compositions are crude and illiterate. Ignorant of books and isolated in a wild and remote corner of the world, the Acadians knew nothing of affairs, and were totally incompetent to meet the crisis that was soon to come upon them. In activity and enterprise they were far behind the Canadians, who looked on them as inferiors. Their pleasures were those of the humblest and simplest peasants; they were contented with their lot, and asked only to be let alone. Their intercourse was unceremonious to such a point that they never addressed each other, or, it is said, even strangers, as monsieur. They had the social equality which can exist only in the humblest conditions of society, and presented the phenomenon of a primitive little democracy, hatched under the wing of an absolute monarchy. Each was as good as his neighbor; they had no natural leaders, nor any to advise or guide them, except the missionary priest, who in every case was expected by his superiors to influence them in the interest of France, and who, in fact, constantly did so. While one observer represents them as living in a state of primeval innocence, another describes both men and women as extremely foul of speech; from which he draws inferences unfavorable to their domestic morals, [Footnote: Journal de Franquet, Part II.] which, nevertheless, were commendable. As is usual with a well-fed and unambitious peasantry, they were very prolific, and are said to have doubled their number every sixteen years. In 1748 they counted in the peninsula of Nova Scotia between twelve and thirteen thousand souls. [Footnote: Description de l'Acadie, avec le Nom des Paroisses et le Nombre des Habitants, 1748.] The English rule had been of the lightest,—so light that it could scarcely be felt; and this was not surprising, since the only instruments for enforcing it over a population wholly French were some two hundred disorderly soldiers in the crumbling little fort of Annapolis; and the province was left, perforce, to take care of itself.

The appearance of D'Anville's fleet caused great excitement among the Acadians, who thought that they were about to pass again under the Crown of France. Fifty of them went on board the French ships at Chibucto to pilot them to the attack of Annapolis, and to their dismay found that no attack was to be made. When Ramesay, with his Canadians and Indians, took post at Chignecto and built a fort at Baye Verte, on the neck of the peninsula of Nova Scotia, the English power in that part of the colony seemed at an end. The inhabitants cut off all communication with Annapolis, and detained the officers whom Mascarene sent for intelligence.

From the first outbreak of the war it was evident that the French built their hopes of recovering Acadia largely on a rising of the Acadians against the English rule, and that they spared no efforts to excite such a rising. Early in 1745 a violent and cruel precaution against this danger was suggested. William Shirreff, provincial secretary, gave it as his opinion that the Acadians ought to be removed, being a standing menace to the colony. [Footnote: Shirreff to K. Gould, agent of Phillips's Regiment, March, 1745.] This is the first proposal of such a nature that I find. Some months later, Shirley writes that, on a false report of the capture of Annapolis by the French, the Acadians sang Te Deum, and that every sign indicates that there will be an attempt in the spring to capture Annapolis, with their help. [Footnote: Shirley to Newcastle, 14 Dec. 1745.] Again, Shirley informs Newcastle that the French will get possession of Acadia unless the most dangerous of the inhabitants are removed, and English settlers put in their place. [Footnote: Ibid., 10 May, 1746.] He adds that there are not two hundred and twenty soldiers at Annapolis to defend the province against the whole body of Acadians and Indians, and he tells the minister that unless the expedition against Canada should end in the conquest of that country, the removal of some of the Acadians will be a necessity. He means those of Chignecto, who were kept in a threatening attitude by the presence of Ramesay and his Canadians, and who, as he thinks, had forfeited their lands by treasonable conduct. Shirley believes that families from New England might be induced to take their place, and that these, if settled under suitable regulations, would form a military frontier to the province of Nova Scotia "strong enough to keep the Canadians out," and hold the Acadians to their allegiance. [Footnote: Ibid., 8 July, 1747.] The Duke of Bedford thinks the plan a good one, but objects to the expense. [Footnote: Bedford to Newcastle, 11 Sept. 1747.] Commodore Knowles, then governor of Louisbourg, who, being threatened with consumption and convinced that the climate was killing him, vented his feelings in strictures against everything and everybody, was of opinion that the Acadians, having broken their neutrality, ought to be expelled at once, and expresses the amiable hope that should his Majesty adopt this plan, he will charge him with executing it. [Footnote: Knowles to Newcastle, 8 Nov. 1746.]

Shirley's energetic nature inclined him to trenchant measures, and he had nothing of modern humanitarianism; but he was not inhuman, and he shrank from the cruelty of forcing whole communities into exile. While Knowles and others called for wholesale expatriation, he still held that it was possible to turn the greater part of the Acadians into safe subjects of the British Crown; [Footnote: Shirley says that the indiscriminate removal of the Acadians would be "unjust" and "too rigorous". Knowles had proposed to put Catholic Jacobites from the Scotch Highlands into their place. Shirley thinks this inexpedient, but believes that Protestants from Germany and Ulster might safely be trusted. The best plan of all, in his opinion, is that of "treating the Acadians as subjects, confining their punishment to the most guilty and dangerous among 'em, and keeping the rest in the country and endeavoring to make them useful members of society under his Majesty's Government." Shirley to Newcastle, 21 Nov. 1746. If the Newcastle Government had vigorously carried his recommendations into effect, the removal of the Acadians in 1755 would not have taken place.] and to this end he advised the planting of a fortified town where Halifax now stands, and securing by forts and garrisons the neck of the Acadian peninsula, where the population was most numerous and most disaffected. The garrisons, he thought, would not only impose respect, but would furnish the Acadians with what they wanted most,—ready markets for their produce,—and thus bind them to the British by strong ties of interest. Newcastle thought the plan good, but wrote that its execution must be deferred to a future day. Three years later it was partly carried into effect by the foundation of Halifax; but at that time the disaffection of the Acadians had so increased, and the hope of regaining the province for France had risen so high, that this partial and tardy assertion of British authority only spurred the French agents to redoubled efforts to draw the inhabitants from the allegiance they had sworn to the Crown of England.

Shirley had also other plans in view for turning the Acadians into good British subjects. He proposed, as a measure of prime necessity, to exclude French priests from the province. The free exercise of their religion had been insured to the inhabitants by the Treaty of Utrecht, and on this point the English authorities had given no just cause of complaint. A priest had occasionally been warned, suspended, or removed; but without a single exception, so far as appears, this was in consequence of conduct which tended to excite disaffection, and which would have incurred equal or greater penalties in the case of a layman. [Footnote: There was afterwards sharp correspondence between Shirley and the Governor of Canada touching the Acadian priests. Thus, Shirley writes: "I can't avoid now, Sir, expressing great surprise at the other parts of your letter, whereby you take upon you to call Mr. Mascarene to account for expelling the missionary from Minas for being guilty of such treasonable practices within His Majesty's government as merited a much severer Punishment." Shirley a Galissoniere, 9 Mai 1749. Shirley writes to Newcastle that the Acadians "are greatly under the influence of their priests, who continually receive their directions from the Bishop of Qeubec, and are the instruments by which the Governor of Canada makes all his attempts for the reduction of the province to the French Crown." Shirley to Newcastle, 20 Oct. 1747. He proceeds to give facts in proof of his assertion. Compare Moncalm and Wolfe, I. 106, 107, 266, note.] The sentence was directed, not against the priest, but against the political agitator. Shirley's plan of excluding French priests from the province would not have violated the provisions of the treaty, provided that the inhabitants were supplied with other priests, not French subjects, and therefore not politically dangerous; but though such a measure was several times proposed by the provincial authorities, the exasperating apathy of the Newcastle Government gave no hope that it could be accomplished.

The influences most dangerous to British rule did not proceed from love of France or sympathy of race, but from the power of religion over a simple and ignorant people, trained in profound love and awe of their Church and its ministers, who were used by the representatives of Louis XV. as agents to alienate the Acadians from England.

The most strenuous of these clerical agitators was Abbe Le Loutre, missionary to the Micmacs, and after 1753 vicar-general of Acadia. He was a fiery and enterprising zealot, inclined by temperament to methods of violence, detesting the English, and restrained neither by pity nor scruple from using threats of damnation and the Micmac tomahawk to frighten the Acadians into doing his bidding. The worst charge against him, that of exciting the Indians of his mission to murder Captain Howe, an English officer, has not been proved; but it would not have been brought against him by his own countrymen if his character and past conduct had gained him their esteem.

The other Acadian priests were far from sharing Le Loutre's violence; but their influence was always directed to alienating the inhabitants from their allegiance to King George. Hence Shirley regarded the conversion of the Acadians to Protestantism as a political measure of the first importance, and proposed the establishment of schools in the province to that end. Thus far his recommendations are perfectly legitimate; but when he adds that rewards ought to be given to Acadians who renounce their faith, few will venture to defend him.

Newcastle would trouble himself with none of his schemes, and Acadia was left to drift with the tide, as before. "I shall finish my troubleing your Grace upon the affairs of Nova Scotia with this letter," writes the persevering Shirley. And he proceeds to ask, "as a proper Scheme for better securing the Subjection of the French inhabitants and Indians there," that the Governor and Council at Annapolis have special authority and direction from the King to arrest and examine such Acadians as shall be "most obnoxious and dangerous to his Majesty's Government;" and if found guilty of treasonable correspondence with the enemy, to dispose of them and their estates in such manner as his Majesty shall order, at the same time promising indemnity to the rest for past offences, upon their taking or renewing the oath of allegiance. [Footnote: Shirley to Newcastle, 15 Aug. 1746.]

To this it does not appear that Newcastle made any answer except to direct Shirley, eight or nine months later, to tell the Acadians that so long as they were peaceable subjects, they should be protected in property and religion. [Footnote: Newcastle to Shirley, 30 May, 1747. Shirley had some time before directed Mascarene to tell the Acadians that while they behave peaceably and do not correspond with the enemy, their property will be safe, but that such as turn traitors will be treated accordingly. Shirley to Mascarene, 16 Sept. 1746.] Thus left to struggle unaided with a most difficult problem, entirely outside of his functions as governor of Massachusetts, Shirley did what he could. The most pressing danger, as he thought, rose from the presence of Ramesay and and his Canadians at Chignecto; for that officer spared no pains to induce the Acadians to join him in another attempt against Annapolis, telling them that if they did not drive out the English, the English would drive them out. He was now at Mines, trying to raise the inhabitants in arms for France. Shirley thought it necessary to counteract him, and force him and his Canadians back to the isthmus whence they had come; but as the ministry would give no soldiers, he was compelled to draw them from New England. The defence of Acadia was the business of the Home Government, and not of the colonies; but as they were deeply interested in the preservation of the endangered province, Massachusetts gave five hundred men in response to Shirley's call, and Rhode Island and New Hampshire added, between them, as many more. Less than half of these levies reached Acadia. It was the stormy season. The Rhode Island vessels were wrecked near Martha's Vineyard. A New Hampshire transport sloop was intercepted by a French armed vessel, and ran back to Portsmouth. Four hundred and seventy men from Massachusetts, under Colonel Arthur Noble, were all who reached Annapolis, whence they sailed for Mines, accompanied by a few soldiers of the garrison. Storms, drifting ice, and the furious tides of the Bay of Fundy made their progress so difficult and uncertain that Noble resolved to finish the journey by land; and on the 4th of December he disembarked near the place now called French Cross, at the foot of the North Mountain,—a lofty barrier of rock and forest extending along the southern shore of the Bay of Fundy. Without a path and without guides, the party climbed the snow-encumbered heights and toiled towards their destination, each man carrying provisions for fourteen days in his haversack. After sleeping eight nights without shelter among the snowdrifts, they reached the Acadian village of Grand Pre, the chief settlement of the district of Mines. Ramesay and his Canadians were gone. On learning the approach of an English force, he had tried to persuade the Acadians that they were to be driven from their homes, and that their only hope was in joining with him to meet force by force; but they trusted Shirley's recent assurance of protection, and replied that they would not break their oath of fidelity to King George. On this, Ramesay retreated to his old station at Chignecto, and Noble and his men occupied Grand Pre without opposition.

The village consisted of small, low wooden houses, scattered at intervals for the distance of a mile and a half, and therefore ill fitted for defence. The English had the frame of a blockhouse, or, as some say, of two blockhouses, ready to be set up on their arrival; but as the ground was hard frozen it was difficult to make a foundation, and the frames were therefore stored in outbuildings of the village, with the intention of raising them in the spring. The vessels which had brought them, together with stores, ammunition, five small cannon, and a good supply of snow-shoes, had just arrived at the landing-place,—and here, with incredible fatuity, were allowed to remain, with most of their indispensable contents still on board. The men, meanwhile, were quartered in the Acadian houses.

Noble's position was critical, but he was assured that he could not be reached from Chignecto in such a bitter season; and this he was too ready to believe, though he himself had just made a march, which, if not so long, was quite as arduous. Yet he did not neglect every precaution, but kept out scouting-parties to range the surrounding country, while the rest of his men took their ease in the Acadian houses, living on the provisions of the villagers, for which payment was afterwards made. Some of the inhabitants, who had openly favored Ramesay and his followers, fled to the woods, in fear of the consequences; but the greater part remained quietly in the village.

At the head of the Bay of Fundy its waters form a fork, consisting of Chignecto Bay on the one hand, and Mines Basin on the other. At the head of Chignecto Bay was the Acadian settlement of Chignecto, or Beaubassin, in the houses of which Ramesay had quartered his Canadians. Here the neck of the Acadian peninsula is at its narrowest, the distance across to Baye Verte, where Ramesay had built a fort, being little more than twelve miles. Thus he controlled the isthmus,—from which, however, Noble hoped to dislodge him in the spring.

In the afternoon of the 8th of January an Acadian who had been sent to Mines by the missionary Germain, came to Beaubassin with the news that two hundred and twenty English were at Grand Pre, and that more were expected. [Footnote: Beaujeu, Journal de la Campagne du Detachement de Canada a l'Acadie, in Le Canada Francais, II. Documents, 16.] Ramesay instantly formed a plan of extraordinary hardihood, and resolved, by a rapid march and a night attack, to surprise the new-comers. His party was greatly reduced by disease, and to recruit it he wrote to La Corne, Recollet missionary at Miramichi, to join him with his Indians; writing at the same time to Maillard, former colleague of Le Loutre at the mission of Shubenacadie, and to Girard, priest of Cobequid, to muster Indians, collect provisions, and gather information concerning the English. Meanwhile his Canadians busied themselves with making snow-shoes and dog-sledges for the march.

Ramesay could not command the expedition in person, as an accident to one of his knees had disabled him from marching. This was less to be regretted, in view of the quality of his officers, for he had with him the flower of the warlike Canadian noblesse,—Coulon de Villiers, who, seven years later, defeated Washington at Fort Necessity; Beaujeu, the future hero of the Monongahela, in appearance a carpet knight, in reality a bold and determined warrior; the Chevalier de la Corne, a model of bodily and mental hardihood; Saint-Pierre, Lanaudiere, Saint-Ours, Desligneris, Courtemanche, Repentigny, Boishebert, Gaspe, Colombiere, Marin, Lusignan,—all adepts in the warfare of surprise and sudden onslaught in which the Canadians excelled.

Coulon de Villiers commanded in Ramesay's place; and on the 21st of January he and the other officers led their men across the isthmus from Beaubassin to Baye Verte, where they all encamped in the woods, and where they were joined by a party of Indians and some Acadians from Beaubassin and Isle St. Jean. [Footnote: Mascarene to Shirley, 8 Feb. 1746 (1747, new style).] Provisions, ammunition, and other requisites were distributed, and at noon of the 23d they broke up their camp, marched three leagues, and bivouacked towards evening. On the next morning they marched again at daybreak. There was sharp cold, with a storm of snow,—not the large, moist, lazy flakes that fall peacefully and harmlessly, but those small crystalline particles that drive spitefully before the wind, and prick the cheek like needles. It was the kind of snowstorm called in Canada la poudrerie. They had hoped to make a long day's march; but feet and faces were freezing, and they were forced to stop, at noon, under such shelter as the thick woods of pine, spruce, and fir could supply. In the morning they marched again, following the border of the sea, their dog-teams dragging provisions and baggage over the broken ice of creeks and inlets, which they sometimes avoided by hewing paths through the forest. After a day of extreme fatigue they stopped at the small bay where the town of Wallace now stands. Beaujeu says: "While we were digging out the snow to make our huts, there came two Acadians with letters from MM. Maillard and Girard." The two priests sent a mixture of good and evil news. On one hand the English were more numerous than had been reported; on the other, they had not set up the blockhouses they had brought with them. Some Acadians of the neighboring settlement joined the party at this camp, as also did a few Indians.

On the next morning, January 27th, the adventurers stopped at the village of Tatmagouche, where they were again joined by a number of Acadians. After mending their broken sledges they resumed their march, and at five in the afternoon reached a place called Bacouel, at the beginning of the portage that led some twenty-five miles across the country to Cobequid, now Truro, at the head of Mines Basin. Here they were met by Girard, priest of Cobequid, from whom Coulon exacted a promise to meet him again at that village in two days. Girard gave the promise unwillingly, fearing, says Beaujeu, to embroil himself with the English authorities. He reported that the force at Grand Pre counted at least four hundred and fifty, or, as some said, more than five hundred. This startling news ran through the camp; but the men were not daunted. "The more there are," they said, "the more we shall kill."

The party spent the 28th in mending their damaged sledges, and in the afternoon they were joined by more Acadians and Indians. Thus reinforced, they marched again, and towards evening reached a village on the outskirts of Cobequid. Here the missionary Maillard joined them,—to the great satisfaction of Coulon, who relied on him and his brother priest Girard to procure supplies of provisions. Maillard promised to go himself to Grand Pre with the Indians of his mission.

The party rested for a day, and set out again on the 1st of February, stopped at Maillard's house in Cobequid for the provisions he had collected for them, and then pushed on towards the river Shubenacadie, which runs from the south into Cobequid Bay, the head of Mines Basin. When they reached the river they found it impassable from floating ice, which forced them to seek a passage at some distance above. Coulon was resolved, however, that at any risk a detachment should cross at once, to stop the roads to Grand Pre, and prevent the English from being warned of his approach; for though the Acadians inclined to the French, and were eager to serve them when the risk was not too great, there were some of them who, from interest or fear, were ready to make favor with the English by carrying them intelligence. Boishebert, with ten Canadians, put out from shore in a canoe, and were near perishing among the drifting ice; but they gained the farther shore at last, and guarded every path to Grand Pre. The main body filed on snowshoes up the east bank of the Shubenacadie, where the forests were choked with snow and encumbered with fallen trees, over which the sledges were to be dragged, to their great detriment. On this day, the 3d, they made five leagues; on the next only two, which brought them within half a league of Le Loutre's Micmac mission. Not far from this place the river was easily passable on the ice, and they continued their march westward across the country to the river Kennetcook by ways so difficult that their Indian guide lost the path, and for a time led them astray. On the 7th, Boishebert and his party rejoined them, and brought a reinforcement of sixteen Indians, whom the Acadians had furnished with arms. Provisions were failing, till on the 8th, as they approached the village of Pisiquid, now Windsor, the Acadians, with great zeal, brought them a supply. They told them, too, that the English at Grand Pre were perfectly secure, suspecting no danger.

On the 9th, in spite of a cold, dry storm of snow, they reached the west branch of the river Avon. It was but seven French leagues to Grand Pre, which they hoped to reach before night; but fatigue compelled them to rest till the 10th. At noon of that day, the storm still continuing, they marched again, though they could hardly see their way for the driving snow. They soon came to a small stream, along the frozen surface of which they drew up in order, and, by command of Coulon, Beaujen divided them all into ten parties, for simultaneous attacks on as many houses occupied by the English. Then, marching slowly, lest they should arrive too soon, they reached the river Gaspereau, which enters Mines Basin at Grand Pre. They were now but half a league from their destination. Here they stopped an hour in the storm, shivering and half frozen, waiting for nightfall. When it grew dark they moved again, and soon came to a number of houses on the river-bank. Each of the ten parties took possession of one of these, making great fires to warm themselves and dry their guns.

It chanced that in the house where Coulon and his band sought shelter, a wedding-feast was going on. The guests were much startled at this sudden irruption of armed men; but to the Canadians and their chief the festival was a stroke of amazing good luck, for most of the guests were inhabitants of Grand Pre, who knew perfectly the houses occupied by the English, and could tell with precision where the officers were quartered. This was a point of extreme importance. The English were distributed among twenty-four houses, scattered, as before mentioned, for the distance of a mile and a half. [Footnote: Goldthwait to Shirley, 2 March, 1746 (1747). Captain Benjamin Goldthwait was second in command of the English detachment.] The assailants were too few to attack all these houses at once; but if those where the chief officers lodged could be surprised and captured with their inmates, the rest could make little resistance. Hence it was that Coulon had divided his followers into ten parties, each with one or more chosen officers; these officers were now called together at the house of the interrupted festivity, and the late guests having given full information as to the position of the English quarters and the military quality of their inmates, a special object of attack was assigned to the officer of each party, with Acadian guides to conduct him to it. The principal party, consisting of fifty, or, as another account says, of seventy-five men, was led by Coulon himself, with Beaujeu, Desligneris, Mercier, Lery, and Lusignan as his officers. This party was to attack a stone house near the middle of the village, where the main guard was stationed,—a building somewhat larger than the rest, and the only one at all suited for defence. The second party, of forty men, commanded by La Corne, with Riganville, Lagny, and Villemont, was to attack a neighboring house, the quarters of Colonel Noble, his brother, Ensign Noble, and several other officers. The remaining parties, of twenty-five men each according to Beaujeu, or twenty-eight according to La Corne, were to make a dash, as nearly as possible at the same time, at other houses which it was thought most important to secure. All had Acadian guides, whose services in that capacity were invaluable; though Beaujeu complains that they were of no use in the attack. He says that the united force was about three hundred men, while the English Captain Goldthwait puts it, including Acadians and Indians, at from five to six hundred. That of the English was a little above five hundred in all. Every arrangement being made, and his part assigned to each officer, the whole body was drawn up in the storm, and the chaplain pronounced a general absolution. Then each of the ten parties, guided by one or more Acadians, took the path for its destination, every man on snow-shoes, with the lock of his gun well sheltered under his capote.

The largest party, under Coulon, was, as we have seen, to attack the stone house in the middle of the village; but their guide went astray, and about three in the morning they approached a small wooden house not far from their true object. A guard was posted here, as at all the English quarters. The night was dark and the snow was still falling, as it had done without ceasing for the past thirty hours. The English sentinel descried through the darkness and the storm what seemed the shadows of an advancing crowd of men. He cried, "Who goes there?" and then shouted, "To arms!" A door was flung open, and the guard appeared in the entrance. But at that moment the moving shadows vanished from before the eyes of the sentinel. The French, one and all, had thrown themselves flat in the soft, light snow, and nothing was to be seen or heard. The English thought it a false alarm, and the house was quiet again. Then Coulon and his men rose and dashed forward. Again, in a loud and startled voice, the sentinel shouted, "To arms!" A great light, as of a blazing fire, shone through the open doorway, and men were seen within in hurried movement. Coulon, who was in the front, said to Beaujeu, who was close at his side, that the house was not the one they were to attack. Beaujeu replied that it was no time to change, and Coulon dashed forward again. Beaujeu aimed at the sentinel and shot him dead. There was the flash and report of muskets from the house, and Coulon dropped in the snow, severely wounded. The young cadet, Lusignan, was hit in the shoulder; but he still pushed on, when a second shot shattered his thigh. "Friends," cried the gallant youth, as he fell by the side of his commander, "don't let two dead men discourage you." The Canadians, powdered from head to foot with snow, burst into the house. Within ten minutes, all resistance was overpowered. Of twenty-four Englishmen, twenty-one were killed, and three made prisoners. [Footnote: Beaujeu, Journal.]

Meanwhile, La Corne, with his party of forty men, had attacked the house where were quartered Colonel Noble and his brother, with Captain Howe and several other officers. Noble had lately transferred the main guard to the stone house, but had not yet removed thither himself, and the guard in the house which he occupied was small. The French burst the door with axes, and rushed in. Colonel Noble, startled from sleep, sprang from his bed, receiving two musket-balls in the body as he did so. He seems to have had pistols, for he returned the fire several times. His servant, who was in the house, testified that the French called to the Colonel through a window and promised him quarter if he would surrender; but that he refused, on which they fired again, and a bullet, striking his forehead, killed him instantly. His brother, Ensign Noble, was also shot down, fighting in his shirt. Lieutenants Pickering and Lechmere lay in bed dangerously ill, and were killed there. Lieutenant Jones, after, as the narrator says, "ridding himself of some of the enemy," tried to break through the rest and escape, but was run through the heart with a bayonet. Captain Howe was severely wounded and made prisoner.

Coulon and Lusignan, disabled by their wounds, were carried back to the houses on the Gaspereau, where the French surgeon had remained. Coulon's party, now commanded by Beaujeu, having met and joined the smaller party under Lotbiniere, proceeded to the aid of others who might need their help; for while they heard a great noise of musketry from far and near, and could discern bodies of men in motion here and there, they could not see whether these were friends or foes, or discern which side fortune favored. They presently met the party of Marin, composed of twenty-five Indians, who had just been repulsed with loss from the house which they had attacked. By this time there was a gleam of daylight, and as they plodded wearily over the snow-drifts, they no longer groped in darkness. The two parties of Colombiere and Boishebert soon joined them, with the agreeable news that each had captured a house; and the united force now proceeded to make a successful attack on two buildings where the English had stored the frames of their blockhouses. Here the assailants captured ten prisoners. It was now broad day, but they could not see through the falling snow whether the enterprise, as a whole, had prospered or failed. Therefore Beaujeu sent Marin to find La Corne, who, in the absence of Coulon, held the chief command. Marin was gone two hours. At length he returned, and reported that the English in the houses which had not been attacked, together with such others as had not been killed or captured, had drawn together at the stone house in the middle of the village, that La Corne was blockading them there, and that he ordered Beaujeu and his party to join him at once.

When Beaujeu reached the place he found La Corne posted at the house where Noble had been killed, and which was within easy musket-shot of the stone house occupied by the English, against whom a spattering fire was kept up by the French from the cover of neighboring buildings. Those in the stone house returned the fire; but no great harm was done on either side, till the English, now commanded by Captain Goldthwait, attempted to recapture the house where La Corne and his party were posted. Two companies made a sally; but they had among them only eighteen pairs of snow-shoes, the rest having been left on board the two vessels which had brought the stores of the detachment from Annapolis, and which now lay moored hard by, in the power of the enemy, at or near the mouth of the Gaspereau. Hence the sallying party floundered helpless among the drifts, plunging so deep in the dry snow that they could not use their guns and could scarcely move, while bullets showered upon them from La Corne's men in the house and others hovering about them on snow-shoes. The attempt was hopeless, and after some loss the two companies fell back. The firing continued, as before, till noon, or, according to Beaujeu, till three in the afternoon, when a French officer, carrying a flag of truce, came out of La Corne's house. The occasion of the overture was this.

Captain Howe, who, as before mentioned, had been badly wounded at the capture of this house, was still there, a prisoner, without surgical aid, the French surgeon being at the houses on the Gaspereau, in charge of Coulon and other wounded men. "Though," says Beaujeu, "M. Howe was a firm man, he begged the Chevalier La Corne not to let him bleed to death for want of aid, but permit him to send for an English surgeon." To this La Corne, after consulting with his officers, consented, and Marin went to the English with a white flag and a note from Howe explaining the situation. The surgeon was sent, and Howe's wound was dressed, Marin remaining as a hostage. A suspension of arms took place till the surgeon's return; after which it was prolonged till nine o'clock of the next morning, at the instance, according to French accounts, of the English, and, according to English accounts, of the French. In either case, the truce was welcome to both sides. The English, who were in the stone house to the number of nearly three hundred and fifty, crowded to suffocation, had five small cannon, two of which were four-pounders, and three were swivels; but these were probably not in position, as it does not appear that any use was made of them. There was no ammunition except what the men had in their powder-horns and bullet-pouches, the main stock having been left, with other necessaries, on board the schooner and sloop now in the hands of the French. It was found, on examination, that they had ammunition for eight shots each, and provisions for one day. Water was only to be had by bringing it from a neighboring brook. As there were snow-shoes for only about one man in twenty, sorties were out of the question; and the house was commanded by high ground on three sides.

Though their number was still considerable, their position was growing desperate. Thus it happened that when the truce expired, Goldthwait, the English commander, with another officer, who seems to have been Captain Preble, came with a white flag to the house where La Corne was posted, and proposed terms of capitulation, Howe, who spoke French, acting as interpreter. La Corne made proposals on his side, and as neither party was anxious to continue the fray, they soon came to an understanding.

It was agreed that within forty-eight hours the English should march for Annapolis with the honors of war; that the prisoners taken by the French should remain in their hands; that the Indians, who had been the only plunderers, should keep the plunder they had taken; that the English sick and wounded should be left, till their recovery, at the neighboring settlement of Riviere-aux-Canards, protected by a French guard, and that the English engaged in the affair at Grand Pre should not bear arms during the next six months within the district about the head of the Bay of Fundy, including Chignecto, Grand Pre, and the neighboring settlements.

Captain Howe was released on parole, with the condition that he should send back in exchange one Lacroix, a French prisoner at Boston,—"which," says La Corne, "he faithfully did."

Thus ended one of the most gallant exploits in French-Canadian annals. As respects the losses on each side, the French and English accounts are irreconcilable; nor are the statements of either party consistent with themselves. Mascarene reports to Shirley that seventy English were killed, and above sixty captured; though he afterwards reduces these numbers, having, as he says, received farther information. On the French side he says that four officers and about forty men were killed, and that many wounded were carried off in carts during the fight. Beaujeu, on the other hand, sets the English loss at one hundred and thirty killed, fifteen wounded, and fifty captured; and the French loss at seven killed and fifteen wounded. As for the numbers engaged, the statements are scarcely less divergent. It seems clear, however, that when Coulon began his march from Baye Verte, his party consisted of about three hundred Canadians and Indians, without reckoning some Acadians who had joined him from Beaubassin and Isle St. Jean. Others joined him on the way to Grand Pre, counting a hundred and fifty according to Shirley,—which appears to be much too large an estimate. The English, by their own showing, numbered five hundred, or five hundred and twenty-five. Of eleven houses attacked, ten were surprised and carried, with the help of the darkness and storm and the skilful management of the assailants.

"No sooner was the capitulation signed," says Beaujeu, "than we became in appearance the best of friends." La Corne directed military honors to be rendered to the remains of the brothers Noble; and in all points the Canadians, both officers and men, treated the English with kindness and courtesy. "The English commandant," again says Beaujeu, "invited us all to dine with him and his officers, so that we might have the pleasure of making acquaintance over a bowl of punch." The repast being served after such a fashion as circumstances permitted, victors and vanquished sat down together; when, says Beaujeu, "we received on the part of our hosts many compliments on our polite manners and our skill in making war." And the compliments were well deserved.

At eight o'clock on the morning of the 14th of February the English filed out of the stone house, and with arms shouldered, drums beating, and colors flying, marched between two ranks of the French, and took the road for Annapolis. The English sick and wounded were sent to the settlement of Riviere-aux-Canards, where, protected by a French guard and attended by an English surgeon, they were to remain till able to reach the British fort.

La Corne called a council of war, and in view of the scarcity of food and other reasons it was resolved to return to Beaubassin. Many of the French had fallen ill. Some of the sick and wounded were left at Grand Pre, others at Cobequid, and the Acadians were required to supply means of carrying the rest. Coulon's party left Grand Pre on the 23d of February, and on the 8th of March reached Beaubassin. [Footnote: The dates are of the new style, which the French had adopted, while the English still clung to the old style.] [Footnote: By far the best account of this French victory at Mines is that of Beaujeu, in his Journal de la Campagne du Detachement de Canada a l'Acadie et aux Mines en 1746-47. It is preserved in the Archives de la Marine et des Colonies, and is printed in the documentary supplement of Le Canada Francais, Vol. II. It supplies the means of correcting many errors and much confusion in some recent accounts of the affair. The report of Chevalier de la Corne, also printed in Le Canada Francais, though much shorter, is necessary to a clear understanding of the matter. Letters of Lusignan fils to the minister Maurepas, 10 Oct. 1747, of Bishop Pontbriand (to Maurepas?), 10 July, 1747, and of Lusignan pere to Maurepas, 10 Oct. 1747, give some additional incidents. The principal document on the English side is the report of Captain Benjamin Goldthwait, who succeeded Noble in command. A copy of the original, in the Public Record Office, is before me. The substance of it is correctly given in The Boston Post Boy of 2 March, 1747, and in N. E. Hist. Gen. Reg., X. 108. Various letters from Mascarene and Shirley (Public Record Office) contain accounts derived from returned officers and soldiers. The Notice of Colonel Arthur Noble, by William Goold (Collections Maine Historical Soc., 1881), may also be consulted.]

Ramesay did not fail to use the success at Grand Pre to influence the minds of the Acadians. He sent a circular letter to the inhabitants of the various districts, and especially to those of Mines, in which he told them that their country had been reconquered by the arms of the King of France, to whom he commanded them to be faithful subjects, holding no intercourse with the English under any pretence whatever, on pain of the severest punishment. "If," he concludes, "we have withdrawn our soldiers from among you, it is for reasons known to us alone, and with a view to your advantage." [Footnote: Ramesay aux Deputes et Habitants des Mines, 31 Mars, 1747. At the end is written "A true copy, with the misspellings: signed W. Shirley."]

Unfortunately for the effect of this message, Shirley had no sooner heard of the disaster at Grand Pre than he sent a body of Massachusetts soldiers to reoccupy the place. [Footnote: Shirley to Newcastle, 24 Aug. 1747.] This they did in April. The Acadians thus found themselves, as usual, between two dangers; and unable to see which horn of the dilemma was the worse, they tried to avoid both by conciliating French and English alike, and assuring each of their devoted attachment. They sent a pathetic letter to Ramesay, telling him that their hearts were always French, and begging him at the same time to remember that they were a poor, helpless people, burdened with large families, and in danger of expulsion and ruin if they offended their masters, the English. [Footnote: "Ainsis Monsieur nous vous prions de regarder notre bon Coeur et en meme Temps notre Impuissance pauvre Peuple chargez la plus part de familles nombreuse point de Recours sil falois evacuer a quoy nous sommes menacez tous les jours qui nous tien dans une Crainte perpetuelle en nous voyant a la proximitet de nos maitre depuis un sy grand nombre dannes" (printed literatim). Deputes des Mines a Ramesay, 24 Mai, 1747.] They wrote at the same time to Mascarene at Annapolis, sending him, to explain the situation, a copy of Ramesay's threatening letter to them; [Footnote: This probably explains the bad spelling of the letter, the copy before me having been made from the Acadian transcript sent to Mascarene, and now in the Public Record Office.] begging him to consider that they could not without danger dispense with answering it; at the same time they protested their entire fidelity to King George. [Footnote: Les Habitants a l'honorable gouverneur au for d'anapolisse royal [sic], Mai(?), 1747. On the 27th of June the inhabitants of Cobequid wrote again to Mascarene: "Monsieur nous prenons la Liberte de vous recrire celle icy pour vous assurer de nos tres humble Respect et d'un entiere Sou-mission a vos Ordres" (literatim).]

Ramesay, not satisfied with the results of his first letter, wrote again to the Acadians, ordering them, in the name of the Governor-General of New France, to take up arms against the English, and enclosing for their instruction an extract from a letter of the French Governor. "These," says Ramesay, "are his words: 'We consider ourself as master of Beaubassin and Mines, since we have driven off the English. Therefore there is no difficulty in forcing the Acadians to take arms for us; to which end we declare to them that they are discharged from the oath that they formerly took to the English, by which they are bound no longer, as has been decided by the authorities of Canada and Monseigneur our Bishop.'" [Footnote: "Nous nous regardons aujourdhuy Maistre de Beaubassin et des Mines puisque nous en avons Chasse les Anglois; ainsi il ny a aucune difficulte de forcer les Accadiens a prendre les armes pour nous, et de les y Contraindre; leur declarons a cet effet qu'ils sont decharge [sic] du Serment prete, cy devant, a l'Anglois, auquel ils ne sont plus oblige [sic] comme il y a ete decide par nos puissances de Canada et de Monseigneur notre Evesque" (literatim).]

"In view of the above," continues Ramesay, "we order all the inhabitants of Memeramcook to come to this place [Beaubassin] as soon as they see the signal-fires lighted, or discover the approach of the enemy; and this on pain of death, confiscation of all their goods, burning of their houses, and the punishment due to rebels against the King." [Footnote: Ramesay aux Habitants de Chignecto, etc., 25 Mai, 1747. A few months later, the deputies of Riviere-aux-Canards wrote to Shirley, thanking him for kindness which they said was undeserved, promising to do their duty thenceforth, but begging him to excuse them from giving up persons who had acted "contraire aux Interests de leur devoire," representing the difficulty of their position, and protesting "une Soumission parfaite et en touts Respects." The letter is signed by four deputies, of whom one writes his name, and three sign with crosses.]

The position of the Acadians was deplorable. By the Treaty of Utrecht, France had transferred them to the British Crown; yet French officers denounced them as rebels and threatened them with death if they did not fight at their bidding against England; and English officers threatened them with expulsion from the country if they broke their oath of allegiance to King George. It was the duty of the British ministry to occupy the province with a force sufficient to protect the inhabitants against French terrorism, and leave no doubt that the King of England was master of Acadia in fact as well as in name. This alone could have averted the danger of Acadian revolt, and the harsh measures to which it afterwards gave rise. The ministry sent no aid, but left to Shirley and Massachusetts the task of keeping the province for King George. Shirley and Massachusetts did what they could; but they could not do all that the emergency demanded.

Shirley courageously spoke his mind to the ministry, on whose favor he was dependent. "The fluctuating state of the inhabitants of Acadia," he wrote to Newcastle, "seems, my lord, naturally to arise from their finding a want of due protection from his Majesty's Government." [Footnote: Shirley to Newcastle, 29 April, 1747. On Shirley's relations with the Acadians, see Appendix C.]



CHAPTER XXIII.

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 L150 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 differents Mouvements Militaires qui se sont faits a Montreal a 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.