FOOTNOTES:
[147] Rapport de Costebelle, 14 Octobre, 1709. Ibid., 3 Décembre, 1709.
[148] "Je ne les crois pas assez aveugles pour ne point s'apercevoir qu'insensiblement ils vont subir le joug du parlement de la vieille Angleterre, mais par les cruautés que les Canadiens et sauvages exercent sur leurs terres par des courses continuelles je juge qu'ils aiment encore mieux se délivrer de l'inhumanité de semblables voisins que de conserver toute l'ancienne autorité de leur petite république."—Costebelle au Ministre, 3 Décembre, 1710. He clung tenaciously to this idea, and wrote again in 1712 that "les cruautés de nos sauvages, qui font horreur à rapporter," would always incline the New England people to peace. They had, however, an opposite effect.
[149] It is more than probable that La Ronde Denys, who had studied the "Bastonnais" with care, first gave the idea to Costebelle.
[150] Ponchartrain à Vaudreuil, 10 Août, 1710. Ponchartrain à Costebelle, même date. These letters are in answer to the reports of Costebelle, before cited.
[151] Costebelle à Ponchartrain, 3 Décembre, 1710.
[152] Instruction pour Monsieur de la Ronde, Capitaine d'Infanterie des Détachements de la Marine, 1711. "Le dit sieur de la Ronde pourroit entrer en négociation et se promettre de faire cesser toutes sortes d'hostilités du côté du Canada, supposé que les Bastonnais promissent d'en faire de même de leur côté, et qu'ils ne donassent aucun secours à l'avenir, d'hommes ni de vaisseaux, aux puissances de la vieille Angleterre et d'Ecosse."
[153] "La vieille Angleterre ne s'imaginera pas que ces diverses Provinces se réuniront, et, secouant le joug de la monarchie Anglaise, s'érigeront en démocratie."—Mémoire sur la Nouvelle Angleterre, 1710, 1711. (Archives de la Marine.)
[154] "Pour Baston, il faudrait la piller, ruiner ses ateliers, ses manufactures, tous ses beaux établissements, couler bas ses navires, ... ruiner les ateliers de construction de navires."—Mémoire sur la Nouvelle Angleterre, 1710, 1711. The writer was familiar with Boston and its neighborhood, and had certainly spent some time there. Possibly he was no other than La Ronde Denys himself, after the failure of his mission to excite the "Bastonnais" to refuse co-operation with British armaments. He enlarges with bitterness on the extent of the fisheries, foreign trade, and ship-building of New England.
[155] See Swift, Conduct of the Allies.
[156] Boston, devoted to fishing, shipbuilding, and foreign trade, drew most of its provisions from neighboring colonies. (Dummer, Letter to a Noble Lord.) The people only half believed that the Tory ministry were sincere in attacking Canada, and suspected that the sudden demand for provisions, so difficult to meet at once, was meant to furnish a pretext for throwing the blame of failure upon Massachusetts. Hutchinson, ii. 173.
[157] Minutes of Proceedings of the Congress of Governors, June, 1711.
[158] Walker to Burchett, Secretary of the Admiralty, 14 August, 1711.
[159] Abstract of the Journal of the Governor, Council, and Assembly of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay.
[160] King to Secretary St. John, 25 July, 1711.
[161] The number demanded from Massachusetts was one thousand, and that raised by her was eleven hundred and sixty. Dudley to Walker, 27 July, 1711.
[162] Walker prints this letter in his Journal. Colonel King writes in his own Journal: "The conquest of Canada will naturally lead the Queen into changing their present disorderly government;" and he thinks that the conviction of this made the New Englanders indifferent to the success of the expedition.
[163] The above is drawn from the various lists and tables in Walker, Journal of the Canada Expedition. The armed ships that entered Boston in June were fifteen in all; but several had been detached for cruising. The number of British transports, store-ships, etc., was forty, the rest being provincial.
[164] Walker, Journal; Introduction.
[165] Ibid., 25.
[166] Walker, Journal, 124, 125.
[167] King, Journal.
[168] Vetch, Journal.
[169] King, Journal.
[170] Compare Walker, Journal, 45, and Ibid., 127, 128. He elsewhere intimates that his first statement needed correction.
[171] Report of ye Soldiers, etc., Lost. (Public Record Office.) This is a tabular statement, giving the names of the commissioned officers and the positions of their subordinates, regiment by regiment. All the French accounts of the losses are exaggerations.
[172] Hill to Dudley, 25 August, 1711.
[173] Vetch, Journal. His statement is confirmed by the report of the council.
[174] Report of a Consultation of Sea Officers belonging to the Squadron under Command of Sir Hovenden Walker, Kt., 25 August, 1711. Signed by Walker and eight others.
[175] Vetch to Walker, 26 August, 1711.
[176] Walker, Journal, Introduction, 25.
[177] Kalm, Travels, ii. 135.
[178] Schuyler, Colonial New York, ii. 48.
[179] Vaudreuil au Ministre, 25 Octobre, 1711.
[180] Déposition de François de Marganne, Sieur de la Valterie; par devant Nous, Paul Dupuy, Ecuyer, Conseiller du Roy, etc., 19 Octobre, 1711.
[181] Monseigneur de Saint-Vallier et l'Histoire de l'Hôpital Général de Quebec, 209.
[182] Juchereau, Histoire de l'Hôtel-Dieu de Québec, 473-491. La Ronde Denys says that nearly one thousand men were drowned, and that about two thousand died of injuries received. La Ronde au Ministre, 30 Décembre, 1711.
[183] Some exaggeration was natural enough. Colonel Lee, of the Rhode Island contingent, says that a day or two after the wreck he saw "the bodies of twelve or thirteen hundred brave men, with women and children, lying in heaps." Lee to Governor Cranston, 12 September, 1711.
[184] Walker's Journal was published in 1720, with an Introduction of forty-eight pages, written in bad temper and bad taste. The Journal contains many documents, printed in full. In the Public Record Office are preserved the Journals of Hill, Vetch, and King. Copies of these, with many other papers on the same subject, from the same source, are before me. Vetch's Journal and his letter to Walker after the wreck are printed in the Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical Society, vol. iv.
It appears by the muster-rolls of Massachusetts that what with manning the coast-guard vessels, defending the frontier against Indians, and furnishing her contingent to the Canada expedition, more than one in five of her able-bodied men were in active service in the summer of 1711. Years passed before she recovered from the effects of her financial exhaustion.