chapter 8-10.

CANADA: A. D. 1692-1697. The first Inter-Colonial War (King William's War): Abortive plans of invasion on both sides. French recovery of Acadia.

"The defeat of the expedition of 1690 was probably attributable to the want of concert on the part of the troops from Connecticut and New York and those from Massachusetts, and the failure of the supplies which were sought from England. ... But there was mismanagement on all hands in the conduct of the expedition; and it seems to have been predestinated that New England should not be delivered from the presence of the French at the north, until time had wrought the necessary changes which were to render the conquest of that country available for the promotion of still more important ends. Hence a new expedition, projected two years later, and resolved to be prosecuted in the following year [1693], was attended with the like circumstances of mortification and defeat. England herself participated in this enterprise, and ... the government was informed that it had 'pleased the king, out of his great goodness and disposition for the welfare of all his subjects, to send a considerable strength of ships and men into the West Indies, and to direct Sir Francis Wheeler, the admiral, to sail to New England from the Caribbee Islands, so as to be there by the last of May or the middle of June at furthest, with a strength sufficient to overcome the enemy, if joined and seconded by the forces of New England.' ... Unfortunately for the success of these plans, the letter, which should have reached Boston by the first of April, did not arrive until July; and the mortality which prevailed in the fleet during its stay in the West Indies was so great that, when the commander-in-chief, Sir Francis Wheeler, anchored off Nantasket,--bringing himself the news of the projected invasion,--he had lost 1,300 out of 2,100 sailors, and 1,800 out of 2,400 soldiers. {368} All thoughts of reducing Canada were therefore abandoned; but a plan for another year was settled with the governor, the details of which were that 2,000 land forces should be sent from England to Canseau by the first of June, to be joined by 2,000 from the colonies, and that the whole force should go up the St. Lawrence, divide and simultaneously attack Montreal and Quebec. Changes in the government of the province, however, and other causes, prevented the execution of this plan, whose success was problematical even if it had been attempted. But if the plans of the English for the reduction of Canada were doomed to disappointment, the plans of the French for the recovery of Acadia were more successful. For the first year after the conquest of that country, indeed, the French were as little concerned to regain, as the English were to retain, the possession of its territory; nor was Massachusetts able to bear the charge of a sufficient military force to keep its inhabitants in subjection, though she issued commissions to judges and other officers, and required the administration of the oath of fidelity. In the course of that year [1691], authority was given to Mr. John Nelson, of Boston, who had taken an active part in the overthrow of Andros, and who was bound thither on a trading voyage, to be commander-in-chief of Acadia; but as he neared the mouth of the St. John's, he was taken by Monsieur Villebon, who, under a commission from the French king, had touched at Port Royal, and ordered the English flag to be struck, and the French flag to be raised in its place. The next year an attempt was made to dislodge Villebon, but without success. ... In the summer of 1696, Pemaquid was taken by the French, under D'Iberville and Castine, and the frontier of the dominion of France was extended into Maine; and by the treaty of the following year Acadia was receded to France, and the English relinquished their claims to the country. The last year of King William's War, as it was long termed in New England, was a year of especial alarm to the province [Massachusetts] and rumors were rife that the French were on the eve of fitting out a formidable fleet for the invasion of the colonies and the conquest of New York." According to the plan of the French undertaking, a powerful fleet from France was to be joined by a force of 1,500 men, raised by Count Frontenac, in Canada, and make, first, a conquest of Boston. "When that town was taken, they were to range the coast to Piscataqua, destroying the settlements as far back into the country as possible. Should there be time for further acquisitions, they were next to go to New York, and upon its reduction the Canadian troops were to march overland to Quebec, laying waste the country as they proceeded." This project was frustrated by happenings much the same in kind as those which thwarted the designs of the English against Quebec. The fleet was delayed by contrary winds, and by certain bootless undertakings in Newfoundland, until the season was too far advanced for the enterprise contemplated. "The peace of Ryswick, which soon followed, led to a temporary suspension of hostilities. France, anxious to secure as large a share of territory in America as possible, retained the whole coast and adjacent islands from Maine to Labrador and Hudson's Bay, with Canada, and the Valley of the Mississippi. The possessions of England were southward from the St. Croix. But the bounds between the nations were imperfectly defined, and were, for a long time, a subject of dispute and negotiation.".

_J. S. Barry, History of Massachusetts volume 2, chapter 4._

ALSO IN: _F. Parkman, Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV., chapter 16-19._

_J. Hannay, History of Acadia, chapter 14._

See, also, NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1694-1697.

CANADA: A. D. 1696. Frontenac's expedition against the Iroquois.

The war with the "Bastonnais" or "Bostonnais," as he called the New Englanders, did not divert Frontenac's attention from "the grand castigation which at last he was planning for the Iroquois. He had succeeded, in 1694, in inducing them to meet him in general council at Quebec, and had framed the conditions of a truce; but the English at Albany intrigued to prevent the fulfilment, and war was again imminent. Both sides were endeavoring to secure the alliance of the tribes of the upper lakes. These wavered, and Frontenac saw the peril and the remedy. His recourse was to attack the Iroquois in their villages at once, and conquer on the Mohawk the peace he needed at Michilimackinac. It was Frontenac's last campaign. Early in July [1696] he left Montreal with 2,200 men. He went by way of Fort Frontenac, crossed Lake Ontario, landed at Oswego, and struggled up its stream, and at last set sails to his canoes on Lake Onondaga. Then his force marched again, and Frontenac, enfeebled by his years, was borne along in an arm-chair. Eight or nine miles and a day's work brought them to the Onondaga village; but its inhabitants had burned it and fled. Vaudreuil was sent with a detachment which destroyed the town of the Oneidas. After committing all the devastation of crops that he could, in hopes that famine would help him, Frontenac began his homeward march before the English at Albany were aroused at all. The effect was what Frontenac wished. The Iroquois ceased their negotiations with the western tribes, and sued for peace."

_G. Stewart, Jr., Frontenac and His Times (Narrative and Critical History of America, volume 4, chapter 7)._

ALSO IN: _F. Parkman, Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV., chapter 18-19._

CANADA: A. D. 1698-1710. Colonization of Louisiana and the organization of its separate government.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1698-1712.

CANADA: A. D. 1700-1735. The spread of French occupation in the Mississippi Valley and on the Lakes.

"From the time of La Salle's visit in 1679, we can trace a continuous French occupation of Illinois. ... He planted his citadel of St. Louis on the summit of 'Starved Rock,' proposing to make that the centre of his colony. ... At first his colony was exceedingly feeble, but it was never discontinued. 'Joutel found a garrison at Fort St. Louis ... in 1687, and in 1689 La Hontan bears testimony that it still continued. In 1696 a public document proves its existence; and when Tonty, in 1700, again descended the Mississippi, he was attended by twenty Canadians, residents on the Illinois.' {369} Even while the wars named after King William and Queen Anne were going on, the French settlements were growing in numbers and increasing in size; those wars over, they made still more rapid progress. Missions grew into settlements and parishes. Old Kaskaskia was begun in what La Salle called the 'terrestrial paradise' before the close of the seventeenth century. The Wabash Valley was occupied about 1700, the first settlers entering it by the portage leading from the Kankakee. Later the voyageurs found a shorter route to the fertile valley. ... The French located their principal missions and posts with admirable judgment. There is not one of them in which we cannot see the wisdom of the priest, of the soldier, and the trader combined. The triple alliance worked for an immediate end, but the sites that they chose are as important to-day as they were when they chose them. ... La Salle's colony of St. Louis was planted in one of the gardens of the world, in the midst of a numerous Indian population, on the great line of travel between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River. Kaskaskia and the neighboring settlements held the centre of the long line extending from Canada to Louisiana. 'The Wabash colony commanded that valley and the Lower Ohio. Detroit was a position so important that, securely held by the French, it practically banished from the English mind for fifty years the thought of acquiring the Northwest. ... Then how unerringly were the French guided to the carrying places between the Northern and the Southern waters, viz., Green Bay, Fox River, and the Wisconsin; the Chicago River and the Illinois; the St. Joseph and the Kankakee; the St. Joseph and the Wabash; the Maumee and the Wabash; and, later, on the eve of the war that gave New France to England, the Chautauqua and French Creek routes from Lake Erie to the Ohio. ... In due time the French began to establish themselves on the Northern frontier of the British colonies. They built Fort Niagara in 1726, four years' after the English built Fort Oswego. Following the early footsteps of Champlain, they ascended to the head of the lake that bears his name, where they fortified Crown Point in 1727, and Ticonderoga in 1731. Presque Isle, the present site of the city of Erie, was occupied about the time that Vincennes was founded in the Wabash Valley [1735]. Finally, just on the eve of the last struggle between England and France, the French pressed into the valleys of the Alleghany and the Ohio, at the same time that the English also began to enter them."

_B. A. Hinsdale, The Old Northwest, chapter 4._

CANADA: A. D. 1702-1710. The Second Inter-Colonial War (Queen Anne's War): Border ravages in New England and Acadia. English Conquest of Acadia.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1702-1710.

CANADA: A. D. 1711-1713. The Second Inter-Colonial War. Walker's Expedition against Quebec. Massacre of Fox Indians. The Peace of Utrecht.

After the reduction of Port Royal, which was practically the conquest of Acadia, Colonel Nicholson, who bore the honors of that achievement, repaired to England and prevailed with the government to fit out an adequate expedition for the Conquest of Canada. "The fleet, consisting of 15 ships of war and 40 transports, was placed under the command of Sir Hovenden Walker; seven veteran regiments from Marlborough's army, with a battalion of marines, were intrusted to Mrs. Masham's second brother, whom the queen had pensioned and made a brigadier-general, whom his bottle companions called honest Jack Hill. ... From June 25th to the 30th day of July 1711, the fleet lay at Boston, taking in supplies and the colonial forces. At the same time, an army of men from Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York, Palatine emigrants, and about 600 Iroquois, assembling at Albany, prepared to burst upon Montreal; while in Wisconsin the English had allies in the Foxes, who were always wishing to expel the French from Michigan. In Quebec, measures of defence began by a renewal of friendship with the Indians. To deputies from the Onondagas and Senecas, the governor spoke of the fidelity with which the French had kept their treaty; and he reminded them of their promise to remain quiet upon their mats. A war festival was next held, at which were present all the savages domiciliated near the French settlements, and all the delegates of their allies who had come down to Montreal. In the presence of 700 or 800 warriors, the war song was sung and the hatchet uplifted. The savages of the remote west were wavering, till twenty Hurons from Detroit took up the hatchet, and swayed all the rest by their example. By the influence of the Jesuits over the natives, an alliance extending to the Ojibways constituted the defence of Montreal. Descending to Quebec, Vaudreuil found Abenaki volunteers assembling for his protection. Measures for resistance had been adopted with heartiness; the fortifications were strengthened; Beauport was garrisoned; and the people were resolute and confiding; even women were ready to labor for the common defence. Toward the last of August, it was said that peasants at Matanes had descried 90 or 96 vessels with the English flag. Yet September came, and still from the heights of Cape Diamond no eye caught one sail of the expected enemy. The English squadron, leaving Boston on the 30th of July [1711], after loitering near the bay of Gaspé, at last began to ascend the St. Lawrence, while Sir Hovenden Walker puzzled himself with contriving how he would secure his vessels during the winter at Quebec." At the same time, the present and actual difficulties of the expedition were so heedlessly and ignorantly dealt with that eight ships of the fleet were wrecked among the rocks and shoals near the Egg Islands, and 884 men were drowned. The enterprise was then abandoned. "'Had we arrived safe at Quebec,' wrote the admiral, 'ten or twelve thousand men must have been left to perish of cold and hunger: by the loss of a part, Providence saved all the rest.' Such was the issue of hostilities in the north-east. Their total failure left the expedition from Albany no option but to return, and Montreal was unmolested. Detroit, in 1712, almost fell before the valor of a party of the Ottagamies, or Foxes. ... Resolving to burn Detroit, they pitched their lodgings near the fort, which Du Buisson, with but twenty Frenchmen, defended. Aware of their intention, he summoned his Indian allies from the chase; and, about the middle of May, Ottawas and Hurons and Pottawottamies, with one branch of the Sacs, Illinois, Menomonies, and even Osages and Missouris, each nation with its own ensign, came to his relief. {370} So wide was the influence of the missionaries in the West. ... The warriors of the Fox nation, far from destroying Detroit, were themselves besieged, and at last were compelled to surrender at discretion. Those Who bore arms were ruthlessly murdered; the rest distributed among the confederates, to be enslaved or massacred at the will of their masters. Cherished as the loveliest spot in Canada, the possession of Detroit secured for Quebec a great highway to the upper Indian tribes and to the Mississippi. ... In the meantime, the preliminaries of a treaty had been signed between France and England; and the war ... was suspended by negotiations that were soon followed by the uncertain peace of Utrecht [April 11, 1713]. ... England, by the peace of Utrecht, obtained from France large concessions of territory in America. The assembly of New York had addressed the queen against French settlements in the West; William Penn advised to establish the St. Lawrence as the boundary on the north, and to include in our colonies the valley of the Mississippi. 'It will make a glorious country'; such were his prophetic words. ... The colony of Louisiana excited in Saint-John 'apprehensions of the future undertakings of the French in North America.' The occupation of the Mississippi valley had been proposed to Queen Anne; yet, at the peace, that immense region remained to France. But England obtained the bay of Hudson and its borders; Newfoundland, subject to the rights of France in its fisheries; and all Nova Scotia, or Acadia, according to its ancient boundaries. It was agreed that 'France should never molest the Five Nations subject to the dominion of Great Britain.' But Louisiana, according to French ideas, included both banks of the Mississippi. Did the treaty of Utrecht assent to such an extension of French territory? And what were the ancient limits of Acadia? Did it include all that is now New Brunswick? or had France still a large territory on the Atlantic between Acadia and Maine? And what were the bounds of the territory of the Five Nations, which the treaty appeared to recognize as a part of the English dominions? These were questions which were never to be adjusted amicably."

_G. Bancroft, History of the U. S. (Author's Last Revision), part 3, chapter 12 (volume 2)._

With reference to the destruction of the Fox Indians at Detroit, a recent writer says: "The French official reports pretend that the Wisconsin Indians, being in secret alliance with the Iroquois and the English, had come to Detroit with the express purpose of besieging the fort and reducing it to ruins; and their statement has heretofore been unsuspectingly accepted by all historians. But there is little doubt that the charge is a shameful falsehood. The Fox Indians had rendered themselves very obnoxious to the French. Firmly lodged on the Fox River, they controlled the chief highway to the West; a haughty, independent and intractable people, they could not be cajoled into vassalage. It was necessary for the success of the French policy to get them out of the way. They were enticed to Detroit in order that they might be slaughtered."

_S. S. Hebberd, History of Wisconsin under the dominion of France, chapter 5-6._

ALSO IN: _Wisconsin Historical Society Collections, volume 5._

_W. Kingsford, History of Canada,