The garrison at Fort Nashwaak was always small, comprising only about forty soldiers besides an armorer, gunner and surgeon. There was also a chaplain of the Recollet order, Father Elizee, who is described as a man so retiring by nature as to meddle with nothing outside his ministerial duty. This was not the case with the other missionary priests, however, who influenced by patriotic motives and encouraged by the French authorities took quite an energetic part in helping on the warfare against New England. The French owed much of the aid afforded their cause, including the co-operation of their Indian allies, to the zeal of the missionaries settled on the different rivers, Ralle on the Kennebec, Thury on the Penobscot and Simon on the St. John. The only woman who lived within the ramparts of Fort Nashwaak seems to have been the wife of the armorer. She was deemed one of the garrison and received her daily allowance with the rest.
In spite of Villebon’s energy and ability and of his zeal in the service of his country very serious complaints were made against him by some of the French people living on the St. John river. They asserted that his threats and ill usage had caused several of the settlers to abandon their habitations and remove to Quebec with their families; that he tried to monopolize the fur trade, sending his brothers Portneuf and des Isles into the woods to engage in unlawful traffic with the Indians; that the former was guilty of gross immorality and the latter traded the peltry obtained from the savages with one John Alden, an Englishman, by whom it was carried to Boston. This John Alden was, by the way, the eldest son of the famous John Alden of the “Mayflower,” the Plymouth magistrate, by his wife Priscilla, the Puritan maiden immortalized by Longfellow. He made many trading voyages to the Bay of Fundy and on several occasions narrowly escaped capture by the French.
That there was some ground for the charges preferred against Villebon seems likely from the fact that most of the missionaries censured him and confirmed the reports of the inhabitants concerning the misconduct of his brothers. The chaplain at Fort Nachouac, however, spoke favorably of Villebon, although he was silent with regard to Portneuf. In his letters to the authorities in France, Villebon vigorously replies to his accusers and brings counter charges; he is seemingly very indignant with the d’Amour brothers of whom we shall hear more in another chapter.
In consequence of the charges preferred against him Portneuf was superseded by Villieu, an officer of reputation whom Count Frontenac sent to Acadia in October, 1693, to lead the savages against the English. This new lieutenant spent the winter at the Nashwaak fort and as soon as the ice was out of the river went in a canoe to Medoctec, where he assembled the chiefs who promised to assist him. He then proceeded to Penobscot resolved to put an end, if possible, to the parleys that the savages had been holding with the English and to incite them to renew the war. After a week’s negotiation, in which he was aided by the powerful influence of the missionaries Bigot and Thury, he returned to Fort Nachouac with a delegation of the Indians to receive the presents which the King of France had sent to them, and at the same time to secure the assistance of some of Governor Villebon’s soldiers. The governor, however, piqued by the dismissal of Portneuf, contented himself with entertaining the delegates. He declined to furnish provisions or supplies, and kept his soldiers from joining the expedition. Father Simon, the Recollet missionary on the St. John, also displayed little sympathy with Villieu and kept many of the Indians from joining him. However, with the help of the Penobscot and Kennebec tribes a band of 250 warriors was at last collected and Villieu placed himself at their head arrayed in the war paint and feathers of an Indian chief. It was decided to strike a blow at the settlement of Oyster River, twelve miles from Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The English settlers, having been informed that peace had been made with the Indians and that they could now work with safety on their farms, were totally unprepared for an attack. Among their unprotected houses the carnage was horrible. One hundred persons, chiefly women and children, half naked from their beds, were tomahawked, shot, or killed by slower and more cruel methods, twenty seven were kept as prisoners.
After engaging in some minor depredations Villieu proceeded to Montreal accompanied by several of the chiefs where they presented a string of English scalps to Count Frontenac as a token of their success and received his hearty congratulations. Villieu thus summed up the results of the campaign: “Two small forts and fifty or sixty houses captured and burnt, and one hundred and thirty English killed or made prisoners.” He had done his work all too well and had sown such seeds of distrust between the English and the Indians as to render it almost impossible to re-establish peace between them. The enmity lasted for generations and almost every year witnessed some act of hostility even though the crowns of France and England were themselves at peace.
In the midst of their triumphs an appalling pestilence swept away great numbers of the Indians. On the River St. John more than one hundred and twenty persons died, including some of the most noted warriors and their chief. The pestilence scattered the savages in all directions and for a time their town of Medoctec was abandoned. A party of warriors who went with Montigny, an officer of Villebon’s garrison, to assist their brethren to the westward was sent back to Medoctec on account of the contagion that had broken out among them. The nature of the disease it is impossible at this distance of time to determine. It could scarcely have been smallpox, according to the description of John Gyles, who says: “A person seeming in perfect health would bleed at the mouth and nose, turn blue in spots and die in two or three hours.” The first outbreak of the pestilence was in the autumn of 1694. A year later Mon. Tibierge, agent of the company of Acadia, writes that “the plague (la maladie) had broken out afresh: there had died on the river more than 120 persons of every age and sex.”
The pestilence, however, did not put a stop to the Indian warfare. In June, 1695, Villebon assembled at his fort a general representation of the tribes of Acadia, including fourteen chiefs and their attendants; the conference lasted three days and the proceedings are reported at length in his journal. After the customary feasting and distribution of presents a standard of prices for the purchase and sale of goods was agreed upon more favorable to the natives than heretofore. The chiefs departed firmly resolved to continue the war against the English. Their opportunity did not come until the following summer when a combined effort on the part of the French and Indians resulted in the destruction of Fort William Henry at Pemaquid. This fortification had just been rebuilt by the colony of Massachusetts at a cost of £20,000 and was the strongest work the English colonists had up to that time erected in America. The walls had a compass in all of 747 feet and were of solid masonry, varying from 10 to 22 feet in height. Eight feet from the ground, where the walls had a thickness of six feet, there was a tier of 28 port holes. At one corner was a round tower 29 feet high. The fort was well manned and provisioned and was thought to be impregnable.
The leader of the enterprise, which resulted in the destruction of Fort William Henry, was Villebon’s brother d’Iberville, whose romantic career has earned for him the description of “the Cid of New France.” D’Iberville’s Indian auxiliaries included Micmacs from Cape Breton, a large band of Maliseets and many of their 46 kindred of Passamaquoddy, Penobscot and Kennebec. Two warships lately arrived from Quebec, accompanied the expedition.