The New England frontier.—In 1693 an English fleet from the West Indies arrived at Boston and the idea of an expedition against Quebec was revived, but there was so much sickness among the men that the plan was abandoned. During 1693 and 1694 both English and French sought to control the Abenaki, but in spite of a treaty made by Phips, the French succeeded in holding their allies. In July, 1694, the Indians attacked Durham, massacring over a hundred of the inhabitants, and a few days later killed about forty people at Groton. Two years later Iberville again appeared before Pemaquid and this time succeeded in capturing it. He then sailed to Newfoundland, captured and burned St. Johns, and plundered the settlements on the coast. The English retaliated by burning the French settlement at Beaubassin but were repulsed at Naxouat. In March, 1697, Haverhill was raided by the Indians, and in February, 1698, after the treaty of peace, they attacked Andover. In the last year of the war an attack upon Boston and New York by land and sea was determined upon and a fleet set sail from France, but the treaty of peace ended hostilities.
ACTIVITIES ON HUDSON BAY; PEACE
Operations of Iberville.—When the war opened, the French were in control of the posts about James Bay, while Fort Nelson, commanding the great interior water-ways, was in the hands of the Hudson's Bay Company. In 1689 Fort Albany was captured by the English. The following year Iberville recaptured it, but in 1692 it again passed out of French hands. In 1694 the French government determined to assist the Compagnie du Nord; Iberville, being sent to the bay with two frigates, captured Fort Nelson. Two years later it was retaken by the English. In 1697 Iberville penetrated the bay, this time with five vessels. Becoming separated from the rest of the fleet, Iberville encountered three armed vessels of the Hudson's Bay Company. After a thrilling naval battle the English were worsted, and the French once more took possession of Fort Nelson. At the end of the war the only important post left in English hands was Fort Albany.
The Peace of Ryswick.—In 1697 the war was brought to an end by the peace of Ryswick, by which Louis XIV acknowledged William III as king of England. The results of the fighting in America were ignored, the powers agreeing to restore to each other all places taken in the war. The ownership of the Abenaki and Iroquois lands, and of the Hudson Bay country was left unsettled.
THE WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION
French expansion.—The peace of Ryswick was only a truce. France took advantage of the peace to begin to establish her power in the Mississippi Valley and to strengthen her hold upon the Northwest. In 1699 Biloxi was founded on the Gulf and in succeeding years France brought under control most of the tribes of the lower Mississippi Valley. In 1701 the French occupied Detroit to cut off the English from one of the routes to the fur country, and strengthened their hold on the Illinois country.[1]
The Spanish Succession.—Upon the death of Philip IV in 1665 the incompetent Charles II came to the throne of Spain. Court intrigues stimulated by France and Austria, and utter lack of statesmanship at a time when France was reaching out in every direction, brought Spain to the lowest point in her history. Fearing that she would pass under French control, thereby destroying the balance of power in Europe, William III of England sought to check French power by the so-called Second Treaty of Partition, by which the Austrian Archduke Charles was to inherit the crown of Spain upon the death of Charles II, Spanish possessions in Italy were to go to the Dauphin of France, and Spanish and Austrian possessions were never to be united. To this arrangement France, Austria, and England agreed, but the treaty proved to be but a scrap of paper. In 1700 Charles II died and his will designated Philip of Anjou, a grandson of Louis XIV, as his heir.
England determines upon war.—War was not at once declared, for the English people were slow to recognize the danger. But when French troops occupied the border fortresses in the Spanish Netherlands, when French edicts excluded British manufactures, when the English and Dutch trade, especially the slave trade, was hampered in the Spanish colonies, and when Louis XIV acknowledged the son of James II as king of England, English statesmen were convinced that war was necessary. When Anne ascended the throne in 1702, war was a foregone conclusion.
War zones in America.—The war areas were even more extensive in America than in the War of the English Succession. In the South, the West Indies, and the Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana frontiers, and in the North, the New England border, Acadia, Newfoundland, and Hudson Bay were the scenes of conflict.
[1] For details see Chapter XV.