A detail of the sources on the different attacks and fights of this war is given in Vol. IV. of the present work, pp. 159-161.
B. Queen Anne’s or Governor Dudley’s War.—One of the first acts of the ministry of Queen Anne was to issue a declaration of war against France, May 15, 1702, opening what is known in Europe as the “War of the Spanish Succession.” Governor Dudley in June, 1703, went to Casco, to avert by a conference the Indian participancy in the war, if possible. Campbell, the Boston postmaster, in one of his Public Occurrences says that Dudley found the Indians at the eastward “two thirds for peace, and one third for war.” (Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., ix. 495.) These latter were the more easterly tribes, who came under French influence, and in Aug., 1703, Dudley issued at Boston a broadside declaration against the Penicooke and eastern Indians. (Haven’s list, p. 351.) Plunder and massacre along the frontier settlements at the eastward soon convinced the people of New England that they must prepare for another murderous war. (Cf. “Indian Troubles on the Coast of Maine,” documents in Maine Hist. Coll., iii. 341.)
The first organized retaliatory assault was the maritime expedition to the Bay of Fundy, led in 1704 by Col. Benjamin Church.
Church’s own part in this expedition is set forth in the Entertaining Passages,[911] where will be found Governor Dudley’s instructions to Church (p. 104). John Gyles, who in his youth had been a captive among the French and Indians, when he learned to speak French, served as interpreter and lieutenant.[912] Church’s conduct of the expedition, which had promised much and had been of heavy cost to the province, had not answered public expectation, and crossed the judgment of such as disapproved the making of retaliatory cruelties the object of war. This view qualifies the opinions which have been expressed upon Church’s exploits by Hutchinson (Hist. Mass., ii. 132); Williamson (Hist. Maine, ii. 47); and Palfrey (Hist. N. Eng., iv. 259). Hannay (Acadia, 264) calls Church “barbarous.” It is his own story and that of Penhallow which have given rise to these opinions.
Church’s instructions had not contemplated the risks of an attack on Port Royal, and in ignorance of this Charlevoix accuses the assailants of want of courage, and Dr. Shea, in editing that writer,[913] stigmatizes the devastations as “inhuman and savage,” and refers to a French account in Canada Documents[914] (III. ii. pp. 648-652) called “Expeditions faites par les Anglois de la Nouvelle Angleterre au Port Royal, aux Mines et à Beaubassin de l’Acadie.”
The French early the next year, under Subercase, inflicted similar devastation upon the Newfoundland coast, though the forts at St. John resisted an attack. There is an original account by Pastour de Costebelle, dated at Plaisance, Oct. 22, 1705, in the possession of Dr. Geo. H. Moore, which has been printed in the Mag. of Amer. Hist., Feb., 1877. Charlevoix (Shea’s translation, iv. 172) naturally relishes the misery of these savages better than he does the equally brutal business of Church.
Palfrey (iv. 269) found in the British Colonial Office a paper dated Quebec, Oct. 20, 1705, containing proposals for a peace between New England and Canada, in which Vaudreuil[915] suggested that both sides should “hinder all acts of hostility” on the part of the Indians.
Cf. for this attempted truce and for correspondence at this time between Dudley and Vaudreuil, Collection de manuscrits relatifs à l’histoire de la Nouvelle France (Quebec, 1884), vol. ii. pp. 425-28, 435-40, 452.
The Abenakis continuing to disturb the borders,[916] Dudley planned an attack on Port Royal, which should be carried out, and be no longer a threat;[917] and Subercase, then in command there, was in effect surprised in June, 1707, at the formidable fleet which entered the basin. Inefficiency in the English commander, Colonel March, and little self-confidence and want of discipline in his force, led to the abandonment of the attack and the retirement of the force to Casco Bay, where, reinforced and reinspirited by a commission of three persons[918] sent from angry Boston, it returned to the basin, but accomplished no more than before.[919]