"He hasn't forbidden it so far, aunt. Don't you remember what father and uncle heard from those aboard of the last vessel they spoke with? They were told that when Master Peabody and his wife were murdered, there were ten French soldiers with the Indians." [9]
"Can it be that they have come to aid the savages against us?" and Mistress Harding's face grew pale.
"Ay, that is the way the French king fights us in this country, and if we are murdered it will be because his agents have decided upon it in revenge for that which was done here so many years ago to the missionaries!"
And now while the little party of besieged stands on the shore facing this new and unexpected peril, suppose we set down that which Mr. Williamson wrote in his "History of Maine."
"A communication was received at Boston in August, 1758, from Brigadier-General Monkton, stationed in Nova Scotia, which stated that a body of Frenchmen, in conjunction with the Indians of the rivers St. John, Penobscot, and probably Passamaquoddy, were meditating an attempt upon the fort at St. Georges, and the destruction of all the settlements on the coast."
"Immediately Governor Pownal collected such a military force as was at command, and embarked with them on board the King George, and the sloop Massachusetts. Arriving, he threw these auxiliaries with some warlike stores into the fort at a most fortunate juncture; for within thirty-six hours after the departure the fort was actually assailed by a body of four hundred French and Indians."
"But so well prepared was the garrison to receive them, that they were unable to make the least impression. Nor did any representations of their numbers, nor any threats, communicated to the fort by a captive woman, whom they purposely permitted to escape hither, occasion the least alarm. Hence, the besiegers gave vent to their resentiments and rage by killing the neighboring cattle, about sixty of which they shot or butchered." [10]
It was well for the little families who were so sorely beset that they remained in ignorance of what the French assisted by the Indians of several tribes, were trying to do, otherwise their despair would have been even greater than it was as they watched the reception of the Abenakis by those on board the schooner.
It will never be known whether this attack on Mount Desert was made in revenge for what had been done by Argall to the French missionaries; but certain it was that all the settlements on the coast, large or small, had been marked for destruction under the guise of legitimate warfare.
During five minutes or more, while the besieged watched the movements on the deck of the schooner until there was no longer any question but that the number of their enemies had been largely increased, not a word was spoken, and then Mistress Harding broke the painful stillness by exclaiming: