[291] A Boston fisherman, who had seen the burning fort at Canseau, gave the colonies notice of the outbreak of the war. Shirley at once sent a message to Gov. Mascarene at Annapolis to hold out till he could be reinforced. The messenger being captured, the French vessels had time to escape before Capt. Edward Tyng, who left Boston July 2d with a force, could arrive. He reached Annapolis July 4, to find Le Loutre and his Indians besieging the town. The enemy withdrew; Tyng threw men into the fort, and by the 13th was back in Boston. Capt. John Rouse, the Boston privateersman, had also been sent off during the summer, and had made havoc among the French fishing stations on the Newfoundland shore.
[292] See post, ch. vii.
[293] R. I. Col. Record, v. 100, 102.
[294] Shirley despatched expresses the next day. His letter to Wanton, of Rhode Island, urged him to store up powder. A few weeks later, Phips, the lieutenant-governor, writes to the governor of Rhode Island, Aug. 14, 1745: “This province is exhausted of men, provisions, clothing, ammunition, and other things necessary for the support of the garrison at Louisbourg. If his Majesty’s other provinces and colonies will not do something more than they have done for the maintaining of this conquest, we apprehend great danger that the place will fall into the enemy’s hands again.” R. I. Col. Records, v. p. 142.
[295] Cf. A brief state of the services and expences of the Province of Massachusetts Bay in the common cause. London, 1765. (Carter-Brown, iii. 1467.)
[296] Christopher Kilby, the agent of the province, had, July 1, 1746, memorialized the home government to send succor to the colonies, in case a French fleet was sent against them. Pepperrell Papers, ed. by A. H. Hoyt (Boston, 1874), p. 5. Cf. Mem. Hist. Boston, ii. 119. Kilby was the province’s agent from Feb. 20, 1744, to Nov. 1748. Cf. Mass. Archives, xx. 356, 409, 469. The relations of the province with its agents are set forth in vols. xx.-xxii. of the Archives. Cf. the chapter on the Royal Governors, by Geo. E. Ellis, in the Mem. Hist. Boston, ii. The apprehension was strong in England that D’Anville would succeed in recovering Acadia and establish himself at Chebuctou, “which it is evident they design by their preparations.” Bedford Corresp., i. 156.
[297] The Duke of Bedford, who was the chief English patron of the expedition of 1746, recognized how great the exhaustion of the colonies had been in doing their part to bring the movement about. Bedford Corresp., i. 182.
[298] War was burdensome; but it had some relief. A Boston ship belonging to Josiah Quincy had, by exposing hats and coats on handspikes above her rail, allured a heavier Spanish ship into a surrender; and when the lucky deceiver brought her prize into Boston, the boxes of gold and silver which were carted through the streets required an armed guard for their protection. Other profits were less creditable. Governor Cornwallis writes from Halifax (November 27, 1750) to the Lords of Trade: “Some gentlemen of Boston who have long served the government, [and] because they have not the supplying of everything, have done all the mischief they could. Their substance, which they have got from the public, enables them to distress and domineer. Without them they say we can’t do, and so must comply with what terms they think proper to impose. These are Messrs. Apthorp and Hancock, the two richest merchants in Boston,—made so by the public money, and now wanton in their insolent demands.” Akins’ Pub. Doc. of Nova Scotia, 630. Thomas Hancock’s letter book (April, 1745-June, 1750), embracing many letters to Kilby, in London, is now in the Mass. Hist. Society’s Cabinet. It is a sufficient exposure of the mercenary spirit affecting the operations of these contractors of supplies.
[299] Mass. Hist. Coll., ix. 264; Bishop, Amer. Manuf., i. 486-7.
[300] Douglass (Summary, i. 552-3) enumerates the frontier forts and cantonments maintained against the French and the Indians, to the west and to the east.