[10] "En partant de Canada, j'ay laissé une très grande disposition à attirer au Christianisme la plus grande partie des sauvages Abenakis qui abitent les bois du voisinage de Baston. Pour cela il faut les attirer à la mission nouvellement établie près Québec sous le nom de S. François de Sale. Je l'ai vue en peu de temps au nombre de six cents âmes venues du voisinage de Baston. Je l'ay laissée en estat d'augmenter beaucoup si elle est protegée; j'y ai fait quelque dépense qui n'est pas inutile. La bonne intelligence que j'ai eue avec ces sauvages par les soins des Jésuites, et surtout des deux pères Bigot frères a fait le succès de toutes les attaques qu'ils ont faites sur les Anglois cet esté, aux quels ils ont enlevé 16 forts, outre celuy de Pemcuit (Pemaquid) ou il y avoit 20 pièces de canon, et leur ont tué plus de 200 hommes." Denonville au Ministre, Jan., 1690.
It is to be observed that this Indian outbreak began in the summer of 1688, when there was peace between France and England. News of the declaration of war did not reach Canada till July, 1689. (Belmont.) Dover and other places were attacked in June of the same year.
The intendant Champigny says that most of the Indians who attacked the English were from the mission villages near Quebec. Champigny au Ministre, 16 Nov., 1689. He says also that he supplied them with gunpowder for the war.
The "forts" taken by the Indians on the Kennebec at this time were nothing but houses protected by palisades. They were taken by treachery and surprise. Lettre du Père Thury, 1689. Thury says that 142 men, women, and children were killed.
Whatever were the influences that kindled and maintained the war, it spread dismay and havoc through the English settlements. Andros at first made light of it, and complained of the authorities of Boston, because in his absence they had sent troops to protect the settlers; but he soon changed his mind, and in the winter went himself to the scene of action with seven hundred men. Not an Indian did he find. They had all withdrawn into the depths of the frozen forest. Andros did what he could, and left more than five hundred men in garrison on the Kennebec and the Saco, at Casco Bay, Pemaquid, and various other exposed points. He then returned to Boston, where surprising events awaited him. Early in April, news came that the Prince of Orange had landed in England. There was great excitement. The people of the town rose against Andros, whom they detested as the agent of the despotic policy of James II. They captured his two forts with their garrisons of regulars, seized his frigate in the harbor, placed him and his chief adherents in custody, elected a council of safety, and set at its head their former governor, Bradstreet, an old man of eighty-seven. The change was disastrous to the eastern frontier. Of the garrisons left for its protection the winter before, some were partially withdrawn by the new council; while others, at the first news of the revolution, mutinied, seized their officers, and returned home. [11] These garrisons were withdrawn or reduced, partly perhaps because the hated governor had established them, partly through distrust of his officers, some of whom were taken from the regulars, and partly because the men were wanted at Boston. The order of withdrawal cannot be too strongly condemned. It was a part of the bungling inefficiency which marked the military management of the New England governments from the close of Philip's war to the peace of Utrecht.
[11] Andros, Account of Forces in Maine, in 3 Mass. Hist. Coll., I. 85. Compare Andros Tracts, I. 177; Ibid., II. 181, 193, 207, 213, 217; Ibid., III. 232; Report of Andros in N. Y. Col. Docs., III. 722. The order for the reduction of the garrisons and the return of the suspected officers was passed at the first session of the council of safety, 20 April. The agents of Massachusetts at London endeavored to justify it. See Andros Tracts, III. 34. The only regular troops in New England were two companies brought by Andros. Most of them were kept at Boston, though a few men and officers were sent to the eastern garrison. These regulars were regarded with great jealousy, and denounced as "a crew that began to teach New England to Drab, Drink, Blaspheme, Curse, and Damm." Ibid., II. 59.
In their hatred of Andros, many of the people of New England held the groundless and foolish belief that he was in secret collusion with the French and Indians. Their most dangerous domestic enemies were some of their own traders, who covertly sold arms and ammunition to the Indians.
When spring opened, the Indians turned with redoubled fury against the defenceless frontier, seized the abandoned stockades, and butchered the helpless settlers. Now occurred the memorable catastrophe at Cocheco, or Dover. Two squaws came at evening and begged lodging in the palisaded house of Major Waldron. At night, when all was still, they opened the gates and let in their savage countrymen. Waldron was eighty years old. He leaped from his bed, seized his sword, and drove back the assailants through two rooms; but, as he turned to snatch his pistols, they stunned him by the blow of a hatchet, bound him in an arm-chair, and placed him on a table, where after torturing him they killed him with his own sword.
The crowning event of the war was the capture of Pemaquid, a stockade work, mounted with seven or eight cannon. Andros had placed in it a garrison of a hundred and fifty-six men, under an officer devoted to him. Most of them had been withdrawn by the council of safety; and the entire force of the defenders consisted of Lieutenant James Weems and thirty soldiers, nearly half of whom appear to have been absent at the time of the attack. [12] The Indian assailants were about a hundred in number, all Christian converts from mission villages. By a sudden rush, they got possession of a number of houses behind the fort, occupied only by women and children, the men being at their work. [13] Some ensconced themselves in the cellars, and others behind a rock on the seashore, whence they kept up a close and galling fire. On the next day, Weems surrendered, under a promise of life, and, as the English say, of liberty to himself and all his followers. The fourteen men who had survived the fire, along with a number of women and children, issued from the gate, upon which some were butchered on the spot, and the rest, excepting Weems and a few others, were made prisoners. In other respects, the behavior of the victors is said to have been creditable. They tortured nobody, and their chiefs broke the rum barrels in the fort, to prevent disorder. Father Thury, a priest of the seminary of Quebec, was present at the attack; and the assailants were a part of his Abenaki flock. Religion was one of the impelling forces of the war. In the eyes of the Indian converts, it was a crusade against the enemies of God. They made their vows to the Virgin before the fight; and the squaws, in their distant villages on the Penobscot, told unceasing beads, and offered unceasing prayers for victory. [14]
[12] Andros in 3 Mass. Hist. Coll., I. 85. The original commanding officer, Brockholes, was reputed a "papist." Hence his removal. Andros Tracts, III. 35. Andros says that but eighteen men were left in the fort. A list of them in the archives of Massachusetts, certified by Weems himself, shows that there were thirty. Doubt is thrown on this certificate by the fact that the object of it was to obtain a grant of money in return for advances of pay made by Weems to his soldiers. Weems was a regular officer. A number of letters from him, showing his condition before the attack, will be found in Johnston, History of Bristol, Bremen, and Pemaquid.