to be within fifteen months of each other. Six years had not elapsed from the first settlement of either, when hostilities commenced in the New World. between the two rival nations of the Old, whose wars, for centuries, had furnished nearly half the materials for the history of Europe.

CHAPTER LI.

Progress of the French settlements.-Review of the policy of the French and English.-The five nations invade Canada, and sack Montreal.- Plans of the English for the invasion of Canada.-Peace of Ryswick.-Mutual restoration of conquests.-Indian war in New Hampshire.-Lovewell's fight.-End of the savage hostilities in New Hampshire.

THE French, restored to all their claims on the northern part of the American continent, proceeded with spirit in making settlements. To the aborigines they paid particular attention, and were successful, beyond all others, in securing their affections. While Englishmen generally kept at a distance from the sons of the forest, Frenchmen, by conforming to their customs, intermarrying with them, and coinciding with their views, obtained an astonishing ascendency over their untutored minds. Peace was of short duration between these nations, whose interests so materially clashed; for each wished to be the predominant power in North America. Wars succeeded wars, as will be more particularly related, and treaties succeeded treaties; but nothing was accomplished which tended to peace. After years of hostilities, the losses on both sides exceeded the profits. Neither had such a decided superiority, as to give the law to the other; and the

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general termination of their wars was a reciprocal restitution of conquests. In these unprofitable contests, the colonies of both natious, as appendages to their respective parent states, followed as they were led, and partook in the follies, losses and expenses of the countries from which they respectively sprung. If the French power had never been revived after its prostration, at the end of the 17th century, the colonies would have had little necessity for keeping on their armor. They would have known nothing of the mechanism of armies, or of the modes which experience has proved to be best adapted for drawing forth, organizing and supporting the yeomanry of their country, for military purposes; but in consequence of the treaty of Utrecht, the English colonists, in contending with their French neighbors, had sufficient experience of war to be alert in their own defence; and yet were not so much nor so often involved as to be materially stinted in their growth. They were thus, by the wars of Europeans carried on in America, prepared for the great revolutionary contest for independence. A review of these early colonial contests requires our next attention.

In the war between France and England, which, after several years' continuance, ended in 1697, the conquest of New York and of Boston on the one side, and of Quebec and of Canada on the other, were projected. Neither succeeded, though repeated attempts were made by both parties to accomplish their wishes. In the year 1688, a French fleet sailed from Rochefort, which, with the aid of land forces, destined to march from Canada, was intended for the attack of New York. While this expedition was preparing, the Five Nations of Indians suddenly landed twelve hundred men on the island of Montreal, and killed one thousand of the French inhabitants, who thought themselves perfectly secure These Indians continued their incursions into Canada, with such horrid effect, that many of the inhabitants were killed; and a scarcity ensued, from the inability of the survivors to cultivate their fields. This state of things saved New York from an attack in preparation, for which considerable progress had been made. These incursions into Canada, by the Indians attached to the British interest, were severely retaliated, by parties of Indians and French penetrating from Canada into the English settle

One of these, after a tedious march through an uninhabited country, covered with snow, arrived, in February, 1690, about Inidnight, at the village of Schenectady, near Albany. The invaders, dividing themselves into small parties, invested every house at the same time. While the inhabitants were asleep, without any apprehension of danger, their doors were suddenly

forced open, and an indiscriminate massacre commenced. Sixtyseven persons were put to death, and twenty-seven were taken prisoners. The rest fled naked through deep snow to Albany. Of these, twenty-five lost their limbs, from the effects of cold.

Similar bloody excursions, often repeated, induced a general eagerness among the contiguous colonies to effect the conquest of Canada, which they considered as the source from which all the evils of Indian warfare originated. Commissioners from these colonies met at New York, and fixed on a plan of operations for that purpose. A fleet of thirty-five vessels, as has been already related in the history of New England, commanded by Sir William Phipps, sailed from Nantasket for Quebec, on the 19th of August, 1692. This fleet was to be assisted by eight hundred and fifty men, who were to march, by the way of Lake Champlain, from Connecticut and New York, to Montreal. The fleet arrived before Quebec, in October, when it was too late to do anything, otherwise than by an immediate assault, to which their force was unequal. The land army, after advancing to the lake, was obliged to retreat, from the want of canoes and provisions. The projected invasion was frustrated, because there was no common superintending power, to give union and system to the plan of combined attack.

King William, after earnest solicitation, determined to aid Massachusetts in accomplishing the object of her wishes. The plan was to send a British fleet and army, to reduce Martinique, afterwards to proceed to Boston, and coöperate with the forces of Massachusetts in the reduction of Canada. By the 11th of June, when the British fleet and army had reached Boston, from the West Indies, they were so reduced by the disease common to that tropical climate, that thirteen hundred, out of twenty-one hundred soldiers, were buried. The enterprise against Canada, was, therefore, from necessity, deferred. In 1696, the invasion and conquest of Canada was again contemplated by Massachusetts, and the assistance of England again solicited. In the same year, the French formed an expedition against Boston; but both projects proved abortive.

The peace of Ryswick, in 1697, for the present composed these contentions; but was very far from extinguishing the eagerness of either power for enlarging their possessions in the New World. By this peace, France and England reciprocally agreed to restore to each other all conquests made during the contest. Nothing being settled as to the boundaries of their American territories, war soon recommenced. Indian incursions into the New England colonies, immediately followed. These, as usual, excited a general wish

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for the conquest of Canada. An address to Queen Anne, requesting her to aid an expedition for that purpose, was voted by the general court of Massachusetts in 1708. This was well received, and expeditions were projected, in the years 1709, 1710 and 1711, for the reduction of Canada, and other adjacent French possessions; but, from the difficulty of concert in combined operations between sea and land forces from England, and troops to be raised by distinct American legislatures, together with bad weather and a hazardous coast, nothing more was effected than the reduction of Port Royal, in Nova Scotia, or Annapolis, as it was afterwards called.

In 1722, a war broke out between the Indians and the people of New Hampshire. The French Jesuits had established themselves among the savages in this quarter, and their pompous and imposing religious ceremonies had made a much stronger impression upon them than the simple form of worship usual among the Congregationalists of New England. The Indians had a Catholic church at Penobscot and another at Norridgewock, where a Jesuit, named Sebastian Ralle, resided. He was a man of talents, learning and address, and had obtained a strong influence over the savage tribe. With this man the governor of Canada held a close correspondence, and by his means the Indians were encouraged in their hostilities against the New England settlers. At the first appearance of war, a party of English marched to Norridgewock, to seize Ralle, as he was well known to be the