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swaying the mind of the Abenakis, were the sole
source of hope.
On the declaration of war by
France against Eng-
land,
Count Frontenac, once more governor of
Canada, was charged to recover Hudson's Bay; to protect
Acadia; and, by a descent from
Canada, to assist a fleet from
France in making conquest of New York.
Of that province De Callieres was, in advance, appointed governor; the
English Catholics were to be permitted to remain,—other inhabitants, to be sent into
Pennsylvania or
New England.
But, on reaching the
Gulf of St. Lawrence,
Frontenac learned the capture of
Montreal.
On the twenty-fifth of August, the
Iroquois, fifteen
hundred in number, reached the
Isle of Montreal, at La Chine, at break of day, and, finding all asleep, set fire to the houses, and engaged in one general massacre.
In less than an hour, two hundred people met death under forms too horrible for description.
Approaching the town of
Montreal, they made an equal number of prisoners, and, after a severe skirmish, became masters of the fort, and of the whole island, of which they retained unmolested possession till the middle of October.
In the moment of consternation, Denonville had ordered
Fort Frontenac, on
Lake Ontario, to be evacuated and razed.
From
Three Rivers to
Mackinaw, there remained not one French town, and hardly even a post.
In Hudson's Bay, a band of brothers—
De Sainte Helene and D'Iberville—sustained the honor of French arms.
They were Canadians, sons of
Charles Lemoine, an early emigrant from
Normandy, whose numerous offspring gave also to American history the
White's Recopllacion, II. 645. |
name of
Bienville.
Passing across the ridge that divides
