[15] Proposals for an Expedition against Canada, in 3 Mass. Hist. Coll., X. 119.
[16] Rev. John Emerson to Wait Winthrop, 26 July, 1690. Emerson was the minister of Gloucester. He begs for the release of the impressed men.
[17] Mather, Life of Phips, gives an account of the outfit. Compare the Humble Address of Divers of the Gentry, Merchants and others inhabiting in Boston, to the King's Most Excellent Majesty. Two officers of the expedition, Walley and Savage, have left accounts of it, as Phips would probably have done, had his literary acquirements been equal to the task.
While Massachusetts was making ready to conquer Quebec by sea, the militia of the land expedition against Montreal had mustered at Albany. Their strength was even less than was at first proposed; for, after the disaster at Casco, Massachusetts and Plymouth had recalled their contingents to defend their frontiers. The rest, decimated by dysentery and small-pox, began their march to Lake Champlain, with bands of Mohawk, Oneida, and Mohegan allies. The western Iroquois were to join them at the lake, and the combined force was then to attack the head of the colony, while Phips struck at its heart.
Frontenac was at Quebec during most of the winter and the early spring. When he had despatched the three war-parties, whose hardy but murderous exploits were to bring this double storm upon him, he had an interval of leisure, of which he made a characteristic use. The English and the Iroquois were not his only enemies. He had opponents within as well as without, and he counted as among them most of the members of the supreme council. Here was the bishop, representing that clerical power which had clashed so often with the civil rule; here was that ally of the Jesuits, the intendant Champigny, who, when Frontenac arrived, had written mournfully to Versailles that he would do his best to live at peace with him; here were Villeray and Auteuil, whom the governor had once banished, Damours, whom he had imprisoned, and others scarcely more agreeable to him. They and their clerical friends had conspired for his recall seven or eight years before; they had clung to Denonville, that faithful son of the Church, in spite of all his failures; and they had seen with troubled minds the return of King Stork in the person of the haughty and irascible count. He on his part felt his power. The country was in deadly need of him, and looked to him for salvation; while the king had shown him such marks of favor, that, for the moment at least, his enemies must hold their peace. Now, therefore, was the time to teach them that he was their master. Whether trivial or important the occasion mattered little. What he wanted was a conflict and a victory, or submission without a conflict.
The supreme council had held its usual weekly meetings since Frontenac's arrival; but as yet he had not taken his place at the board, though his presence was needed. Auteuil, the attorney-general, was thereupon deputed to invite him. He visited the count at his apartment in the château, but could get from him no answer, except that the council was able to manage its own business, and that he would come when the king's service should require it. The councillors divined that he was waiting for some assurance that they would receive him with befitting ceremony; and, after debating the question, they voted to send four of their number to repeat the invitation, and beg the governor to say what form of reception would be agreeable to him. Frontenac answered that it was for them to propose the form, and that, when they did so, he would take the subject into consideration. The deputies returned, and there was another debate. A ceremony was devised, which it was thought must needs be acceptable to the count; and the first councillor, Villeray, repaired to the château to submit it to him. After making him an harangue of compliment, and protesting the anxiety of himself and his colleagues to receive him with all possible honor, he explained the plan, and assured Frontenac that, if not wholly satisfactory, it should be changed to suit his pleasure. "To which," says the record, "Monsieur the governor only answered that the council could consult the bishop and other persons acquainted with such matters." The bishop was consulted, but pleaded ignorance. Another debate followed; and the first councillor was again despatched to the château, with proposals still more deferential than the last, and full power to yield, in addition, whatever the governor might desire. Frontenac replied that, though they had made proposals for his reception when he should present himself at the council for the first time, they had not informed him what ceremony they meant to observe when he should come to the subsequent sessions. This point also having been thoroughly debated, Villeray went again to the count, and with great deference laid before him the following plan: That, whenever it should be his pleasure to make his first visit to the council, four of its number should repair to the château, and accompany him, with every mark of honor, to the palace of the intendant, where the sessions were held; and that, on his subsequent visits, two councillors should meet him at the head of the stairs, and conduct him to his seat. The envoy farther protested that, if this failed to meet his approval, the council would conform itself to all his wishes on the subject. Frontenac now demanded to see the register in which the proceedings on the question at issue were recorded. Villeray was directed to carry it to him. The records had been cautiously made; and, after studying them carefully, he could find nothing at which to cavil.
He received the next deputation with great affability, told them that he was glad to find that the council had not forgotten the consideration due to his office and his person, and assured them, with urbane irony, that, had they offered to accord him marks of distinction greater than they felt were due, he would not have permitted them thus to compromise their dignity, having too much regard for the honor of a body of which he himself was the head. Then, after thanking them collectively and severally, he graciously dismissed them, saying that he would come to the council after Easter, or in about two months. [18] During four successive Mondays, he had forced the chief dignitaries of the colony to march in deputations up and down the rugged road from the intendant's palace to the chamber of the château where he sat in solitary state. A disinterested spectator might see the humor of the situation; but the council felt only its vexations. Frontenac had gained his point: the enemy had surrendered unconditionally.
[18] "M. le Gouverneur luy a répondu qu'il avoit reconnu avec plaisir que la Compagnie (le Conseil) conservoit la considération qu'elle avoit pour son caractère et pour sa personne, et qu'elle pouvoit bien s'assurer qu'encore qu'elle luy eust fait des propositions au delà de ce qu'elle auroit cru devoir faire pour sa reception au Conseil, il ne les auroit pas acceptées, l'honneur de la Compagnie luy estant d'autant plus considérable, qu'en estant le chef, il n'auroit rien voulu souffrir qui peust estre contraire à sa dignité." Registre du Conseil Souverain, séance du 13 Mars, 1690. The affair had occupied the preceding sessions of 20 and 27 February and 6 March. The submission of the councillors did not prevent them from complaining to the minister. Champigny au Ministre, 10 Mai, 1691; Mémoire instructif sur le Canada, 1691.
Having settled this important matter to his satisfaction, he again addressed himself to saving the country. During the winter, he had employed gangs of men in cutting timber in the forests, hewing it into palisades, and dragging it to Quebec. Nature had fortified the Upper Town on two sides by cliffs almost inaccessible, but it was open to attack in the rear; and Frontenac, with a happy prevision of approaching danger, gave his first thoughts to strengthening this, its only weak side. The work began as soon as the frost was out of the ground, and before midsummer it was well advanced. At the same time, he took every precaution for the safety of the settlements in the upper parts of the colony, stationed detachments of regulars at the stockade forts, which Denonville had built in all the parishes above Three Rivers, and kept strong scouting parties in continual movement in all the quarters most exposed to attack. Troops were detailed to guard the settlers at their work in the fields, and officers and men were enjoined to use the utmost vigilance. Nevertheless, the Iroquois war-parties broke in at various points, burning and butchering, and spreading such terror that in some districts the fields were left untilled and the prospects of the harvest ruined.
Towards the end of July, Frontenac left Major Prévost to finish the fortifications, and, with the intendant Champigny, went up to Montreal, the chief point of danger. Here he arrived on the thirty-first; and, a few days after, the officer commanding the fort at La Chine sent him a messenger in hot haste with the startling news that Lake St. Louis was "all covered with canoes." [19] Nobody doubted that the Iroquois were upon them again. Cannon were fired to call in the troops from the detached posts; when alarm was suddenly turned to joy by the arrival of other messengers to announce that the new comers were not enemies, but friends. They were the Indians of the upper lakes descending from Michillimackinac to trade at Montreal. Nothing so auspicious had happened since Frontenac's return. The messages he had sent them in the spring by Louvigny and Perrot, reinforced by the news of the victory on the Ottawa and the capture of Schenectady, had had the desired effect; and the Iroquois prisoner whom their missionary had persuaded them to torture had not been sacrificed in vain. Despairing of an English market for their beaver skins, they had come as of old to seek one from the French.