A council of war was held on board the admiral's ship on that lamentable Sunday. Further offensive schemes were discussed; but, even as they talked, the leaders knew that nothing of any moment could be accomplished. They had all but exhausted their ammunition, and their provisions were running low. There was a great deal of sickness among the men, and the casualties ashore and in the bombardment had not been inconsiderable. In the end, they appointed a prayer-meeting for next day "to seek God's direction" as Walley expresses it, but the weather was unfavourable for a meeting. Some of the ships, in fact, dragged their anchors, and were in danger of being driven on the town. The following day the whole fleet slipped down to the Island of Orleans on the homeward track.
Walley in his Journal, apparently an honest piece of work, sums up comprehensively the causes of the failure: "The land army's failing, the enemy's too timely intelligence, lying three weeks within three days' sail of the place, by reason whereof they had time to bring in the whole strength of their country, the shortness of our ammunition, our late setting out, our long passage, and many sick in the army—these," he says, "may be reckoned as some of the causes of our disappointment." Reasons enough surely. On both sides the hand of Providence was seen. "Well may you speak of this country," writes Laval to Denonville, "as the country of miracles." Had Phipps arrived but one week sooner he would certainly, in Laval's opinion, have captured the city, and that he did not arrive sooner was due to unfavourable winds. Similarly, Sister Anne Bourdon, archivist of the Ursuline Convent, writes that, when the first news of the approach of the English was received, nothing was spared in the way of religious practices "to appease divine justice." The happy result was that "Heaven, granting our prayers, sent winds so contrary that the enemy in nine days only made the distance they might otherwise have made in half a day." So Mère Juchereau of the Hôtel Dieu: "God doubtless stopped them, to give the Montrealers time to arrive." Bishop Saint Vallier improved the occasion to stimulate the piety of his people. "Let us," he said, "raise our eyes, my dear children, and see God holding the thunder in His hand, which He is ready to let fall on us. He is causing it now to rumble in order to awaken you from the slumber of your sins."
On the English side no less solemn a view was taken of the events of the time. Governor Bradstreet, of Massachusetts, writing to the agents of the colony in England, speaks of "the awful frown of God in the disappointment of that chargeable [costly] and hazardous enterprise." "Shall our Father," he exclaims, "spit in our face, and we not be ashamed? God grant that we may be deeply humbled and enquire into the cause, and reform those sins that have provoked so great anger to smoke against the prayers of his people, and to answer us by terrible things in righteousness." Cotton Mather in like manner speaks of "an evident hand of Heaven, sending one unavoidable disaster after another." He also reports a saying of Phipps, that, though he had been accustomed to diving in his time, he "would say that the things which had befallen him in this expedition were too deep to be dived into." The total loss of life on the part of the New England forces, taking shipwreck and disease into account, must have run far into the hundreds. Phipps estimated his loss in the engagements at Quebec at thirty, and possibly the number of those actually killed did not much exceed that figure. On the Canadian side the number of killed has been placed at nine, and of the wounded at fifty-two.[50]
All that remained now was to make the best of their melancholy way to Boston. Frontenac had sent a small force under M. Subercase to the Island of Orleans to watch the departing fleet, which might, had its commander been so minded, have committed serious depredations on the parishes along the river. Phipps sent ashore to ask Subercase if there would be any objection to his buying supplies from the inhabitants. The reply was that he might buy what he liked, and a lively trade, very profitable to the farmers, at once sprang up between them and the squadron. Negotiations for an exchange of prisoners followed. Phipps, as we have seen, had captured some on his way up; and he had with him two ecclesiastics whom he had taken in Acadia. The French on their side had Sylvanus Davis, the former commandant of Fort Loyal, two daughters of Captain Clarke who had been killed in the attack on that fort, and a little girl called Sarah Gerrish. All these had received good treatment during their detention at Quebec, and the little girls had particularly endeared themselves to the nuns to whose charge they had been confided, and who were much grieved at having to give them up.
If the weather had been bad on the way to Quebec it was worse on the return. Without the aid of a pilot, Phipps had succeeded in bringing all his vessels safely to Quebec, but on the home voyage several were lost. One, Cotton Mather relates, was never heard of. A second was wrecked, but most of its crew were saved. A third was cast on the coast, and all on board, with the exception of one man, perished through drowning, starvation, or at the hands of the Indians. A fourth was stranded on the Island of Anticosti. There seemed to be no means of escape from this dreary shore; and forty-one of the crew had already died of hardship, when the captain, John Rainsford by name, and four others determined that they would try to reach Boston in an open boat, in order that, if they escaped the perils of the sea, they might send help to those still alive on the island. It was the 25th March when they put forth in their most precarious craft. "Through a thousand dangers from the sea and ice, and almost starved with hunger and cold," to use the words of Cotton Mather's recital, they arrived at Boston on the 11th May. As soon as a proper vessel could be procured, Rainsford started back to rescue the survivors. Four had died during his absence. Death was staring the remainder in the face, when the sail they had hardly dared to hope for flickered on the horizon. It was too good to be true, and yet it was true. Their heroic captain had come to their relief; and on the 28th June he landed them, seventeen in number, once more on New England soil.
CHAPTER XI
FIRE AND SWORD ON THE BORDER
The departure of the New England fleet left the French colony in a condition of great exhaustion, and, for a time, of poignant anxiety. Three vessels were on their way out from France laden with military and other supplies, and were due just about this time. Should Phipps encounter them in the lower St. Lawrence, they would assuredly become his prey, and what the country would do in that case it was painful to speculate. Frontenac writing after Phipps had left, and before he had news of the safety of the expected vessels, gives a vivid account of the situation. There had been a serious failure of the crops. Early in the season the grain had looked very promising; but cold and rainy weather during the harvest had almost ruined it. What made matters worse was that there had been a short crop the year before, so that they were already, in November, consuming the little grain they had just harvested. Unless a supply is received by the ships, there will be hardly any to be got in the country for love or money. Everything else is at the lowest ebb, wine, brandy, goods of all kinds. The servants in the château have for some time had only water to drink, and in a week the governor himself will be brought to the same sad necessity. This letter was written on the 11th November; fortunately before the week expired the vessels had arrived; and the gallant count was not reduced to being an involuntary total abstainer. The quantity of provisions brought out, however, was very scanty, not exceeding a month's supply; and as the colony managed to struggle through the winter, and had a sufficiency of seed-grain for the following spring, perhaps things were not quite so bad as represented. The ships owed their escape from capture to measures wisely taken by the governor in sending boats down the river to advise them to slip into the Saguenay till Phipps should have passed down, which they did.