Once more blindfolded, the messenger was escorted to his boat. A little later the batteries of Quebec's lower town opened fire on the fleet. Some of the very first shots brought down the flag of Phips's own vessel, seeing which from the shore, several bold Canadians immediately swam out, and, regardless of the musket fire from the fleet, fished the dripping prize out of the water. Afterwards this flag was hung as a trophy to the ceiling of Quebec Cathedral, and there it remained until the siege and capture of the city by General Wolfe, when it and the building that sheltered it were consumed by fire.
For two whole days Phips remained in a state of indecision. The enemy was of sterner stuff than he had supposed, and an effective plan must be concerted. On the 18th of October 1690 Major Walley, the second in command, with 1300 men and some small field cannon, landed at Beauport. They had resolved to cross the St. Charles River there and attack Quebec in the rear. At the same time the guns of the ships opened fire. So vigorously replied the ramparts that Phips was obliged to draw off for a while, not renewing his bombardment until the next morning. By this time the New England commander saw that unless the troops on shore could manage to force their way into the city and capture it by assault, his chances of success were gone.
Valiantly, doggedly did Walley and his men try to cross the St. Charles River. The banks were covered with deep mud; each time they tried to cross, the Indians and bushrangers sent by Frontenac beat them off. After three days of cold and hunger they were fain to give up the attempt. When they retreated to the ships, five of their cannon were left sticking in the Beauport mud. Yet even had they succeeded, what a task was left them to do! There was Frontenac watching them sharply, ready, if need be, to go to the rescue of the outposts of carabiniers with 2000 men. In these circumstances Sir William Phips's siege of Quebec turned out an utter failure. Frontenac was more than a match for him: Quebec was not Port Royal.
On the following day the townsfolk and soldiers on the heights saw the discomfited fleet of the foe passing out of sight homeward down the St. Lawrence. They had lost only some sixty killed and wounded,—Ste. Hélène had fallen,—while before Phips got back to Boston, what with those slain by bullets and the hundreds drowned on the several ships lost in the November storms, his loss was heavy indeed. While Quebec sang a Te Deum and dedicated a chapel to "Our Lady of Victories," Boston was plunged in gloom. Phips's ignoble failure had involved the whole colony in debt and mortification. King Louis the Fourteenth, hearing the good news, ordered a medal to be struck bearing the inscription: "Francia in Nova Orbe Victrix; Kebeca Liberata A.D. MDCXC."
If Frontenac hoped that the Iroquois would cease after this to give him trouble, he was destined to disappointment. All his endeavours to conciliate them failed; their chiefs were still convinced that they had more to hope for as allies of the English, and took measures accordingly. English and French colonists now hated one another with a hate that was never to slumber for the next seventy years, until Wolfe was to plant the blood-red flag of England on the frowning heights of Quebec.
During the winter of 1691 and 1692 there were numerous terrible border raids, in one of which the Abenakis devastated more than fifty leagues of English territory and utterly destroyed Yorktown. Both French and English used the Indians as so many packs of human bloodhounds to track their foes to death. Both sides resorted to the practice of paying a price for the bodies, alive or dead, of the hostile savages. A French regular soldier received ten louis for the scalp of an Iroquois; a volunteer received twenty. If he had to hunt the red-man like any other wild animal, he could claim fifty louis for his scalp. This practice was not confined to the Canadians. Corresponding premiums were paid by the English.
Living captives were often handed over to their Indian allies to appease their delight in human suffering and bloodshed. Once one of Frontenac's officers, ravaging the country of the Oneidas, found a solitary old man in a certain village. He was nearly a hundred years of age, but do not imagine his years awakened any compassion in his captors, who at once handed him over to their savage allies. The old brave awaited his fate as calmly as any of those Roman senators whose city was taken by the Gauls. Father Charlevoix tells us the story. He says it was a strange sight to behold more than four hundred savage tormentors forming a circle round a decrepit object from whom they could not wring a single cry, and who, as long as the breath remained in his body, taunted them with being the slaves of weak and foolish Frenchmen. Only once did he complain, and that was when one of his butchers, on purpose to finish the scene, stabbed him repeatedly in the breast.
"Ah," he murmured hoarsely, "why did you not wait until you had done your worst, so that you might behold how a man ought to die!"
At another time Frontenac captured two Mohawk warriors whom he condemned to die by torture. One of them immediately despatched himself with a knife, which a pitying priest threw him in prison. But his fellow-captive, disdaining such an escape, walked boldly to the stake singing his death chant. In his song he boasted that not all the power of man could extort a groan or a murmur from his lips, and that it was enough happiness for him in the hour of trial to remember that he had made many a Frenchman feel the same pangs he was about to feel. When bound to the stake, he looked round on his executioners, their instruments of torture, and the multitude of French spectators with a smile of composure. For some hours he endured a series of barbarities that make our blood even now, as we read of it, chill in our veins, and at last a Frenchwoman implored the Governor to order him to be dealt a mortal blow and so put him out of his agony.