Book: Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV

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He landed at the Lower Town, and the troops and the armed inhabitants
came crowding to meet him. He was delighted at their ardor. [Footnote:
_Frontenac au Ministre, 9 et 12 Nov., 1690._] Shouts, cheers, and the
waving of hats greeted the old man as he climbed the steep ascent of
Mountain Street. Fear and doubt seemed banished by his presence. Even
those who hated him rejoiced at his coming, and hailed him as a
deliverer. He went at once to inspect the fortifications. Since the
alarm a week before, Prévost had accomplished wonders, and not only
completed the works begun in the spring, but added others to secure a
place which was a natural fortress in itself. On two sides, the Upper
Town scarcely needed defence. The cliffs along the St. Lawrence and
those along the tributary river St. Charles had three accessible
points, guarded at the present day by the Prescott Gate, the Hope
Gate, and the Palace Gate. Prévost had secured them by barricades of
heavy beams and casks filled with earth. A continuous line of
palisades ran along the strand of the St. Charles, from the great
cliff called the Saut au Matelot to the palace of the intendant. At
this latter point began the line of works constructed by Frontenac to
protect the rear of the town. They consisted of palisades,
strengthened by a ditch and an embankment, and flanked at frequent
intervals by square towers of stone. Passing behind the garden of the
Ursulines, they extended to a windmill on a hillock called Mt. Carmel,
and thence to the brink of the cliffs in front. Here there was a
battery of eight guns near the present Public Garden; two more, each
of three guns, were planted at the top of the Saut au Matelot; another
at the barricade of the Palace Gate; and another near the windmill of
Mt. Carmel; while a number of light pieces were held in reserve for
such use as occasion might require. The Lower Town had no defensive
works; but two batteries, each of three guns, eighteen and twenty-four
pounders, were placed here at the edge of the river. [Footnote:
_Relation de Monseignat; Plan de Québec, par Villeneuve_, 1690;
_Relation du Mercure Galant_, 1691. The summit of Cape Diamond, which
commanded the town, was not fortified till three years later, nor were
any guns placed here during the English attack.]

Two days passed in completing these defences under the eye of the
governor. Men were flocking in from the parishes far and near; and on
the evening of the fifteenth about twenty-seven hundred, regulars and
militia, were gathered, within the fortifications, besides the armed
peasantry of Beauport and Beaupré, who were ordered to watch the river
below the town, and resist the English, should they attempt to land.
[Footnote: _Diary of Sylvanus Davis_, prisoner in Quebec, in _Mass.
Hist. Coll._ 3, I. 101. There is a difference of ten days in the
French and English dates, the _New Style_ having been adopted by the
former and not by the latter.] At length, before dawn on the morning
of the sixteenth, the sentinels on the Saut au Matelot could descry
the slowly moving lights of distant vessels. At daybreak the fleet was
in sight. Sail after sail passed the Point of Orleans and glided into
the Basin of Quebec. The excited spectators on the rock counted
thirty-four of them. Four were large ships, several others were of
considerable size, and the rest were brigs, schooners, and fishing
craft, all thronged with men.


[1] _Relation de Monseignat_. Nevertheless, a considerable number seem
to have refused the oath, and to have been pillaged. The _Relation de
la Prise du Port Royal par les Anglois de Baston_, written on the spot
immediately after the event, says that, except that nobody was killed,
the place was treated as if taken by assault. Meneval also says that
the inhabitants were pillaged. _Meneval au Ministre_, 29 _Mai_, 1600;
also _Rapport de Champigny_, _Oct._, 1690. Meneval describes the New
England men as excessively irritated at the late slaughter of settlers
at Salmon Falls and elsewhere.

[2] _An Account of the Silver and Effects which Mr. Phips keeps back
from Mr. Meneval_, in _3 Mass. Hist. Coll._, I. 115.

Monseignat and La Potherie describe briefly this expedition against
Port Royal. In the archives of Massachusetts are various papers
concerning it, among which are Governor Bradstreet's instructions to
Phips, and a complete invoice of the plunder. Extracts will be found
in Professor Bowen's _Life of Phips_, in Sparks's _American
Biography_, VII. There is also an order of council, "Whereas the
French soldiers lately brought to this place from Port Royal _did
surrender on capitulation_," they shall be set at liberty. Meneval,
_Lettre au Ministre_, 29 _Mai, 1690_, says that there was a
capitulation, and that Phips broke it. Perrot, former governor of
Acadia, accuses both Meneval and the priest Petit of being in
collusion with the English. _Perrot à de Chevry, 2 Juin_, 1690. The
same charge is made as regards Petit in _Mémoire sur l'Acadie_, 1691.

Charlevoix's account of this affair is inaccurate. He ascribes to
Phips acts which took place weeks after his return, such as the
capture of Chedabucto.

[3] "M. le Gouverneur luy a répondu qu'il avoit reconnu avec plaisir
que la Compagnie (_le Conseil_) conservoit la considération qu'elle
avoit pour son caractère et pour sa personne, et qu'elle pouvoit bien
s'assurer qu'encore qu'elle luy eust fait des propositions au delà de
ce qu'elle auroit cru devoir faire pour sa reception au Conseil, il ne
les auroit pas acceptées, l'honneur de la Compagnie luy estant
d'autant plus considerable, qu'en estant le chef, il n'auroit rien
voulu souffrir qui peust estre contraire à sa dignité." _Registre du
Conseil Souverain, séance du_ 13 _Mars_, 1690. The affair had occupied
the preceding sessions of 20 and 27 February and 6 March. The
submission of the councillors did not prevent them from complaining to
the minister. _Champigny au Ministre_, 10 _Mai_, 1691; _Mémoire
instructif sur le Canada_, 1691.

[4] "Je leur mis moy-mesme la hache à la main en chantant la chanson
de guerre pour m'accommoder à leurs façons de faire." _Frontenac au
Ministre_, 9 _et_ 12 _Nov_., 1690.

"Monsieur de Frontenac commença la Chanson de guerre, la Hache à la
main, les principaux Chefs des François se joignant a luy avec de
pareilles armes, la chanterent ensemble. Les Iroquois du Saut et de la
Montagne, les Hurons et les Nipisiriniens donnerent encore le branle:
l'on eut dit, Monsieur, que ces Acteurs étoient des possedez par les
gestes et les contorsions qu'ils faisoient. Les _Sassakouez_, où les
cris et les hurlemens que Mr. de Frontenac étoit obligé de faire pour
se conformer à leur manière, augmentoit encore la fureur bachique." La
Potherie, III. 97.

[5] On this expedition see the _Journal of Major General Winthrop_, in
_N. Y. Col. Docs._, IV. 193; _Publick Occurrences_, 1690, in
_Historical Magazine_, I. 228; and various documents in _N. Y. Col.
Docs._, III. 727, 752, and in _Doc. Hist. N. Y._, II. 266, 288.
Compare La Potherie, III. 126, and _N. Y. Col. Docs._, IX. 513. These
last are French statements. A Sokoki Indian brought to Canada a
greatly exaggerated account of the English forces, and said that
disease had been spread among them by boxes of infected clothing,
which they themselves had provided in order to poison the Canadians.
Bishop Laval, _Lettre du_ 20 _Nov_., 1690, says that there was a
quarrel between the English and their Iroquois allies, who, having
plundered a magazine of spoiled provisions, fell ill, and thought that
they were poisoned. Colden and other English writers seem to have been
strangely ignorant of this expedition. The Jesuit Michel Germain
declares that the force of the English alone amounted to four thousand
men (_Relation de la Défaite des Anglois_, 1690). About one tenth of
this number seem actually to have taken the field.




CHAPTER XIII.

1690.

DEFENCE OF QUEBEC.

PHIPS ON THE ST. LAWRENCE.--PHIPS AT QUEBEC.--A FLAG OF TRUCE.--SCENE
AT THE CHÂTEAU.--THE SUMMONS AND THE ANSWER.--PLAN OF ATTACK.--LANDING
OF THE ENGLISH.--THE CANNONADE.--THE SHIPS REPULSED.--THE LAND
ATTACK.--RETREAT OF PHIPS.--CONDITION OF QUEBEC.--REJOICINGS OF THE
FRENCH.--DISTRESS AT BOSTON.


The delay at Boston, waiting aid from England that never came, was not
propitious to Phips; nor were the wind and the waves. The voyage to
the St. Lawrence was a long one; and when he began, without a pilot,
to grope his way up the unknown river, the weather seemed in league
with his enemies. He appears, moreover, to have wasted time. What was
most vital to his success was rapidity of movement; yet, whether by
his fault or his misfortune, he remained three weeks within three
days' sail of Quebec. [Footnote: _Journal of Major Walley_, in
Hutchinson, _Hist. Mass_., I. 470.] While anchored off Tadoussac, with
the wind ahead, he passed the idle hours in holding councils of war
and framing rules for the government of his men; and, when at length
the wind veered to the east, it is doubtful if he made the best use of
his opportunity. [Footnote: "Ils ne profitèrent pas du vent favorable
pour nous surprendre comme ils auroient pu faire." Juchereau, 320.]

He presently captured a small vessel, commanded by Granville, an
officer whom Prévost had sent to watch his movements. He had already
captured, near Tadoussac, another vessel, having on board Madame
Lalande and Madame Joliet, the wife and the mother-in-law of the
discoverer of the Mississippi. [Footnote: "Les Demoiselles Lalande et
Joliet." The title of _madame_ was at this time restricted to married
women of rank. The wives of the _bourgeois_, and even of the lesser
nobles, were called _demoiselles_.] When questioned as to the
condition of Quebec, they told him that it was imperfectly fortified,
that its cannon were dismounted, and that it had not two hundred men
to defend it. Phips was greatly elated, thinking that, like Port
Royal, the capital of Canada would fall without a blow. The statement
of the two prisoners was true, for the most part, when it was made;
but the energy of Prévost soon wrought a change.

Phips imagined that the Canadians would offer little resistance to the
Puritan invasion; for some of the Acadians had felt the influence of
their New England neighbors, and shown an inclination to them. It was
far otherwise in Canada, where the English heretics were regarded with
abhorrence. Whenever the invaders tried to land at the settlements
along the shore, they were met by a rebuff. At the river Ouelle,
Francheville, the curé put on a cap and capote, took a musket, led his
parishioners to the river, and hid with them in the bushes. As the
English boats approached their ambuscade, they gave the foremost a
volley, which killed nearly every man on board; upon which the rest
sheared off. It was the same when the fleet neared Quebec. Bands of
militia, vigilant, agile, and well commanded, followed it along the
shore, and repelled with showers of bullets every attempt of the enemy
to touch Canadian soil.

When, after his protracted voyage, Phips sailed into the Basin of
Quebec, one of the grandest scenes on the western continent opened
upon his sight: the wide expanse of waters, the lofty promontory
beyond, and the opposing heights of Levi; the cataract of Montmorenci,
the distant range of the Laurentian Mountains, the warlike rock with
its diadem of walls and towers, the roofs of the Lower Town clustering
on the strand beneath, the Château St. Louis perched at the brink of
the cliff, and over it the white banner, spangled with _fleurs-de-lis_,
flaunting defiance in the clear autumnal air. Perhaps, as he gazed, a
suspicion seized him that the task he had undertaken was less easy
than he had thought; but he had conquered once by a simple summons to
surrender, and he resolved to try its virtue again.

The fleet anchored a little below Quebec; and towards ten o'clock the
French saw a boat put out from the admiral's ship, bearing a flag of
truce. Four canoes went from the Lower Town, and met it midway. It
brought a subaltern officer, who announced himself as the bearer of a
letter from Sir William Phips to the French commander. He was taken
into one of the canoes and paddled to the quay, after being completely
blindfolded by a bandage which covered half his face. Prévost received
him as he landed, and ordered two sergeants to take him by the arms
and lead him to the governor. His progress was neither rapid nor
direct. They drew him hither and thither, delighting to make him
clamber in the dark over every possible obstruction; while a noisy
crowd hustled him, and laughing women called him Colin Maillard, the
name of the chief player in blindman's buff. [Footnote: Juchereau,
323.] Amid a prodigious hubbub, intended to bewilder him and impress
him with a sense of immense warlike preparation, they dragged him over
the three barricades of Mountain Street, and brought him at last into
a large room of the château. Here they took the bandage from his eyes.
He stood for a moment with an air of astonishment and some confusion.
The governor stood before him, haughty and stern, surrounded by French
and Canadian officers, Maricourt, Sainte-Hélène, Longueuil, Villebon,
Valrenne, Bienville, and many more, bedecked with gold lace and silver
lace, perukes and powder, plumes and ribbons, and all the martial
foppery in which they took delight, and regarding the envoy with keen,
defiant eyes. [Footnote: "Tous ces Officiers s'étoient habillés le
plus proprement qu'ils pûrent, les galons d'or et d'argent, les
rubans, les plumets, la poudre, et la frisure, rien ne manquoit," etc.
_Ibid_.] After a moment, he recovered his breath and his composure,
saluted Frontenac, and, expressing a wish that the duty assigned him
had been of a more agreeable nature, handed him the letter of Phips.
Frontenac gave it to an interpreter, who read it aloud in French that
all might hear. It ran thus:--

"_Sir William Phips, Knight, General and Commander-in-chief in and
over their Majesties' Forces of New England, by Sea and Land, to Count
Frontenac, Lieutenant-General and Governour for the French King at
Canada; or, in his absence, to his Deputy, or him or them in chief
command at Quebeck:_

"The war between the crowns of England and France doth not only
sufficiently warrant, but the destruction made by the French and
Indians, under your command and encouragement, upon the persons and
estates of their Majesties' subjects of New England, without
provocation on their part, hath put them under the necessity of this
expedition for their own security and satisfaction. And although the
cruelties and barbarities used against them by the French and Indians
might, upon the present opportunity, prompt unto a severe revenge,
yet, being desirous to avoid all inhumane and unchristian-like
actions, and to prevent shedding of blood as much as may be,

"I, the aforesaid William Phips, Knight, do hereby, in the name and in
the behalf of their most excellent Majesties, William and Mary, King
and Queen of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, Defenders of the
Faith, and by order of their said Majesties' government of the
Massachuset-colony in New England, demand a present surrender of your
forts and castles, undemolished, and the King's and other stores,
unimbezzled, with a seasonable delivery of all captives; together with
a surrender of all your persons and estates to my dispose: upon the
doing whereof, you may expect mercy from me, as a Christian, according
to what shall be found for their Majesties' service and the subjects'
security. Which, if you refuse forthwith to do, I am come provided,
and am resolved, by the help of God, in whom I trust, by force of arms
to revenge all wrongs and injuries offered, and bring you under
subjection to the Crown of England, and, when too late, make you wish
you had accepted of the favour tendered.

"Your answer positive in an hour, returned by your own trumpet, with
the return of mine, is required upon the peril that will ensue."
[Footnote: See the Letter in Mather, _Magnalia_, I. 186. The French
kept a copy of it, which, with an accurate translation, in parallel
columns, was sent to Versailles, and is still preserved in the
Archives de la Marine. The text answers perfectly to that given by
Mather.]

When the reading was finished, the Englishman pulled his watch from
his pocket, and handed it to the governor. Frontenac could not, or
pretended that he could not, see the hour. The messenger thereupon
told him that it was ten o'clock, and that he must have his answer
before eleven. A general cry of indignation arose; and Valrenne called
out that Phips was nothing but a pirate, and that his man ought to be
hanged. Frontenac contained himself for a moment, and then said to the
envoy:--

"I will not keep you waiting so long. Tell your general that I do not
recognize King William: and that the Prince of Orange, who so styles
himself, is a usurper, who has violated the most sacred laws of blood
in attempting to dethrone his father-in-law. I know no king of England
but King James. Your general ought not to be surprised at the
hostilities which he says that the French have carried on in the
colony of Massachusetts; for, as the king my master has taken the king
of England under his protection, and is about to replace him on his
throne by force of arms, he might have expected that his Majesty would
order me to make war on a people who have rebelled against their
lawful prince." Then, turning with a smile to the officers about him:
"Even if your general offered me conditions a little more gracious,
and if I had a mind to accept them, does he suppose that these brave
gentlemen would give their consent, and advise me to trust a man who
broke his agreement with the governor of Port Royal, or a rebel who
has failed in his duty to his king, and forgotten all the favors he
had received from him, to follow a prince who pretends to be the
liberator of England and the defender of the faith, and yet destroys
the laws and privileges of the kingdom and overthrows its religion?
The divine justice which your general invokes in his letter will not
fail to punish such acts severely."

The messenger seemed astonished and startled; but he presently asked
if the governor would give him his answer in writing.

"No," returned Frontenac, "I will answer your general only by the
mouths of my cannon, that he may learn that a man like me is not to be
summoned after this fashion. Let him do his best, and I will do mine;"
and he dismissed the Englishman abruptly. He was again blindfolded,
led over the barricades, and sent back to the fleet by the boat that
brought him. [Footnote: _Lettre de Sir William Phips à M. de
Frontenac, avec sa Réponse verbale; Relation de ce qui s'est passé à
la Descente des Anglois à Québec au mois d'Octobre_, 1690. Compare
Monseignat, _Relation_. The English accounts, though more brief,
confirm those of the French.]

Phips had often given proof of personal courage, but for the past
three weeks his conduct seems that of a man conscious that he is
charged with a work too large for his capacity. He had spent a good
part of his time in holding councils of war; and now, when he heard
the answer of Frontenac, he called another to consider what should be
done. A plan of attack was at length arranged. The militia were to be
landed on the shore of Beauport, which was just below Quebec, though
separated from it by the St. Charles. They were then to cross this
river by a ford practicable at low water, climb the heights of St.
Geneviève, and gain the rear of the town. The small vessels of the
fleet were to aid the movement by ascending the St. Charles as far as
the ford, holding the enemy in check by their fire, and carrying
provisions, ammunition, and intrenching tools, for the use of the land
troops. When these had crossed and were ready to attack Quebec in the
rear, Phips was to cannonade it in front, and land two hundred men
under cover of his guns to effect a diversion by storming the
barricades. Some of the French prisoners, from whom their captors
appear to have received a great deal of correct information, told the
admiral that there was a place a mile or two above the town where the
heights might be scaled and the rear of the fortifications reached
from a direction opposite to that proposed. This was precisely the
movement by which Wolfe afterwards gained his memorable victory; but
Phips chose to abide by the original plan. [Footnote: _Journal of
Major Walley_; Savage, _Account of the Late Action of the New
Englanders_ (Lond. 1691).]

While the plan was debated, the opportunity for accomplishing it ebbed
away. It was still early when the messenger returned from Quebec; but,
before Phips was ready to act, the day was on the wane and the tide
was against him. He lay quietly at his moorings when, in the evening,
a great shouting, mingled with the roll of drums and the sound of
fifes, was heard from the Upper Town. The English officers asked their
prisoner, Granville, what it meant. "Ma foi, Messieurs," he replied,
"you have lost the game. It is the governor of Montreal with the
people from the country above. There is nothing for you now but to
pack and go home." In fact, Callières had arrived with seven or eight
hundred men, many of them regulars. With these were bands of _coureurs
de bois_ and other young Canadians, all full of fight, singing and
whooping with martial glee as they passed the western gate and trooped
down St. Louis Street. [Footnote: Juchereau, 325, 326.] The next day
was gusty and blustering; and still Phips lay quiet, waiting on the
winds and the waves. A small vessel, with sixty men on board, under
Captain Ephraim Savage, ran in towards the shore of Beauport to
examine the landing, and stuck fast in the mud. The Canadians plied
her with bullets, and brought a cannon to bear on her. They might have
waded out and boarded her, but Savage and his men kept up so hot a
fire that they forbore the attempt; and, when the tide rose, she
floated again.

There was another night of tranquillity; but at about eleven on
Wednesday morning the French heard the English fifes and drums in full
action, while repeated shouts of "God save King William!" rose from
all the vessels. This lasted an hour or more; after which a great
number of boats, loaded with men, put out from the fleet and rowed
rapidly towards the shore of Beauport. The tide was low, and the boats
grounded before reaching the landing-place. The French on the rock
could see the troops through telescopes, looking in the distance like
a swarm of black ants, as they waded through mud and water, and formed
in companies along the strand. They were some thirteen hundred in
number, and were commanded by Major Walley. [Footnote: "Between 12 and
1,300 men." Walley, _Journal_. "About 1,200 men." Savage,
_Account of the Late Action_. Savage was second in command of the
militia. Mather says, 1,400. Most of the French accounts say, 1,600.
Some say, 2,000; and La Hontan raises the number to 3,000.] Frontenac
had sent three hundred sharpshooters, under Sainte-Hélène, to meet
them and hold them in check. A battalion of troops followed; but, long
before they could reach the spot, Sainte-Hélène's men, with a few
militia from the neighboring parishes, and a band of Huron warriors
from Lorette, threw themselves into the thickets along the front of
the English, and opened a distant but galling fire upon the compact
bodies of the enemy. Walley ordered a charge. The New England men
rushed, in a disorderly manner, but with great impetuosity, up the
rising ground; received two volleys, which failed to check them; and
drove back the assailants in some confusion. They turned, however, and
fought in Indian fashion with courage and address, leaping and dodging
among trees, rocks, and bushes, firing as they retreated, and
inflicting more harm than they received. Towards evening they
disappeared; and Walley, whose men had been much scattered in the
desultory fight, drew them together as well as he could, and advanced
towards the St. Charles, in order to meet the vessels which were to
aid him in passing the ford. Here he posted sentinels, and encamped
for the night. He had lost four killed and about sixty wounded, and
imagined that he had killed twenty or thirty of the enemy. In fact,
however, their loss was much less, though among the killed was a
valuable officer, the Chevalier de Clermont, and among the wounded the
veteran captain of Beauport, Juchereau de Saint-Denis, more than
sixty-four years of age. In the evening, a deserter came to the
English camp, and brought the unwelcome intelligence that there were
three thousand armed men in Quebec. [1] Meanwhile, Phips, whose fault
hitherto had not been an excess of promptitude, grew impatient, and
made a premature movement inconsistent with the preconcerted plan. He
left his moorings, anchored his largest ships before the town, and
prepared to cannonade it; but the fiery veteran, who watched him from
the Château St. Louis, anticipated him, and gave him the first shot.
Phips replied furiously, opening fire with every gun that he could
bring to bear; while the rock paid him back in kind, and belched flame
and smoke from all its batteries. So fierce and rapid was the firing,
that La Hontan compares it to volleys of musketry; and old officers,
who had seen many sieges, declared that they had never known the like.
[Footnote: La Hontan, I. 216; Juchereau, 326.] The din was prodigious,
reverberated from the surrounding heights, and rolled back from the
distant mountains in one continuous roar. On the part of the English,
however, surprisingly little was accomplished beside noise and smoke.
The practice of their gunners was so bad that many of their shot
struck harmlessly against the face of the cliff. Their guns, too, were
very light, and appear to have been charged with a view to the most
rigid economy of gunpowder; for the balls failed to pierce the stone
walls of the buildings, and did so little damage that, as the French
boasted, twenty crowns would have repaired it all. [Footnote: Père
Germain, _Relation de la Défaite des Anglois._] Night came at
length, and the turmoil ceased. Phips lay quiet till daybreak, when
Frontenac sent a shot to waken him, and the cannonade began again.
Sainte-Hélène had returned from Beauport; and he, with his brother
Maricourt, took charge of the two batteries of the Lower Town, aiming
the guns in person, and throwing balls of eighteen and twenty-four
pounds with excellent precision against the four largest ships of the
fleet. One of their shots cut the flagstaff of the admiral, and the
cross of St. George fell into the river. It drifted with the tide
towards the north shore; whereupon several Canadians paddled out in a
birch canoe, secured it, and brought it back in triumph. On the spire
of the cathedral in the Upper Town had been hung a picture of the Holy
Family, as an invocation of divine aid. The Puritan gunners wasted
their ammunition in vain attempts to knock it down. That it escaped
their malice was ascribed to miracle, but the miracle would have been
greater if they had hit it.

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