[EDITORIAL NOTES.]
A. A Commissioner of Public Records of Nova Scotia was appointed in 1857, and by his list, printed in 1864, it appears that but one of the two hundred and four volumes in which the archives were arranged had papers of a date earlier than 1700, and that this volume contained copies of copies from the archives in Paris made for the Canadian Government, and covered the years 1632-1699. The Library of Parliament Catalogue, p. 1538, shows that vol. i. of the third series of manuscripts (1654-1699) is devoted to Acadia. A Nova Scotia Historical Society, instituted a few years ago, has as yet published but one volume of Reports and Collections for 1878, but it contains contributions to a later period in the history of Acadia than that now under consideration.
B. The War in Maine and Acadia.—The revolution which deposed Andros in Boston was also the occasion of withdrawing the garrisons from the English posts toward Acadia; and this invited in turn the onsets of the enemy. It was calculated in 1690 that there were between Boston and Canso four thousand two hundred and ten Indians,—a census destined to be diminished, indeed, so that in 1726 the savages were only rated for the same territory at five hundred and six (N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., 1866, p. 9). But this diminution meant a process of appalling war. In the spring of 1689 came the catastrophe at Choceco (now Dover). Belknap, in his New Hampshire, gives a sufficient narrative; and Dr. Quint, in his notes to Pike’s Journal (Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., xiv. 124), indicates the manuscript sources. For the capture of the stockade at Pemaquid, which quickly followed, we have the French side in the Relation of Father Thury, the priest of the mission to the Penobscot Indians, who was in the action, and La Motte-Cadillac’s Mémoire sur l’Acadie, 1692. Cf. the references in Shea’s Charlevoix, iv. 42. The English side can be gathered from Mather’s Magnalia; Andros Tracts, vol. iii.; 3 Mass. Hist. Coll. vol. i.; Hough’s “Pemaquid Papers,” in Maine Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. v.; Hubbard’s Indian Wars, and John Gyles’s Memoirs, Boston, 1736 (see Mem. Hist. Boston, ii. 336). The story, more or less colored, under new lights or local associations, is told in Hutchinson’s Massachusetts, Thornton’s Ancient Pemaquid, Johnston’s Bristol, Bremen, and Pemaquid (p. 170), and of course in Williamson and Parkman.
The Relation of Monseignat (N. Y. Col. Doc., vol. ix.) and La Potherie are the chief French accounts on the surprise at Salmon Falls, in March, 1690, and according to Parkman, “Charlevoix adds various embellishments not to be found in the original sources.” On the English side, it is still Mather’s Magnalia upon which we must depend, and, as a secondary authority, upon Belknap’s New Hampshire and Williamson’s Maine. Parkman points out the help which sundry papers in the Massachusetts Archives afford; and Dr. Quint, in his notes to Pike’s Journal (Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., xiv. 125), has indicated other similar sources.
POSITION OF FORT LOYAL.
The attack on Fort Loyal (Portland), in May, 1690, is studied likewise from Monseignat, La Potherie, Mather, with some fresh light out of the “Declaration” of Sylvanus Davis, in 3 Mass. Hist. Coll., i. 101, and Bradstreet’s letter to Governor Leisler, in Doc. Hist. N. Y., ii. 259. Le Clercq gives the French view; cf. Shea’s Charlevoix, iv. 133, and Le Clercq, ii. 295; Willis’s Portland, p. 284, and N. Y. Col. Doc., ix. 472.
Meanwhile Phips had sailed from Boston in April to attack Port Royal. He anchored before its defences on the 10th of May. The place was quickly surrendered to Phips, on the 11th of May, by De Meneval, its governor, who did not escape the imputation of treachery at the time. Parkman (Frontenac, pp. 237,) and Shea (Charlevoix, iv. 155) give the authorities. Parkman says Charlevoix’s own narrative is erroneous; but on the French side we still have Monseignat and Potherie, though both are brief; the Relation de la prise du Port Royal par les Anglois de Baston, May 27, 1690; the official Lettre au Ministre of Meneval, and the Rapport de Champigny, of October, 1690. Cf. N. Y. Col. Doc., iii. 720; ix. 474, 475.