Francis Parkman - France and England in N America, Part VII, Vol 1 - A Half-Century of Conflict

"Sans se destourner et sans s'arrester au bruit des jappereaux qui crient après luy."— Mémoire de La Mothe-Cadillac adressé au Comte de Maurepas.

Mémoire adressé au Comte de Maurepas , in Margry, v. 138.

La Mothe-Cadillac, Rapport au Ministre , 1700, in Margry, v. 157.

Rapport au Ministre , 1700.

Cadillac's report of this interview is given in Sheldon, Early History of Michigan , 85-91.

La Mothe-Cadillac à un premier commis, 18 Octobre, 1700 , in Margry, v. 166.

Callières au Ministre, 4 Octobre, 1701. Autre lettre du même, sans date , in Margry, v. 187, 190.

Callières et Champigny au Ministre, sans date.

Relation du Destroit (by the Jesuit who accompanied the expedition).

Description de la Rivière du Détroit, jointe à la lettre de MM. de Callières et de Champigny, 8 Octobre, 1701.

Callières au Ministre, 9 Novembre, 1700.

Traité fait avec la Compagnie de la Colonie de Canada, 31 Octobre, 1701.

Lamothe-Cadillac à Ponchartrain, 31 Aoust, 1703 (Margry, v. 301). On Cadillac's relations with the Jesuits, see Conseils tenus par Lamothe-Cadillac avec les Sauvages (Margry, v. 253-300); also a curious collection of Jesuit letters sent by Cadillac to the minister, with copious annotations of his own. He excepts from his strictures Father Engelran, who, he says, incurred the ill-will of the other Jesuits by favoring the establishment of Detroit, and he also has a word of commendation for Father Germain.

La Mothe-Cadillac à Ponchartrain, 31 Août, 1703. "Toute impiété à part, il vaudroit mieux pescher contre Dieu que contre eux, parce que d'un costé on en reçoit son pardon, et de l'autre, l'offense, mesme prétendue, n'est jamais remise dans ce monde, et ne le seroit peut-estre jamais dans l'autre, si leur crédit y estoit aussi grand qu'il est dans ce pays."

Ponchartrain à La Mothe-Cadillac, 14 Juin, 1704.

Deed from the Five Nations to the King of their Beaver Hunting Ground , in N. Y. Col. Docs. , iv. 908. It is signed by the totems of sachems of all the Nations.

Count Frontenac, 231.

Ibid. , chaps, xi. xvi. xvii.

Penhallow, History of the Wars of New England with the Eastern Indians , 16 (ed. 1859). Penhallow was present at the council. In Judge Sewall's clumsy abstract of the proceedings ( Diary of Sewall , ii. 85) the Indians are represented as professing neutrality. The governor and intendant of Canada write that the Abenakis had begun a treaty of neutrality with the English, but that as "les Jésuites observoient les sauvages, le traité ne fut pas conclu." They add that Rale, Jesuit missionary at Norridgewock, informs them that his Indians were ready to lift the hatchet against the English. Vaudreuil et Beauharnois au Ministre , 1703.

Penhallow, 17, 18 (ed. 1859). There was a previous meeting of conciliation between the English and the Abenakis in 1702. The Jesuit Bigot says that the Indians assured him that they had scornfully repelled the overtures of the English, and told them that they would always stand fast by the French. ( Relation des Abenakis , 1702.) This is not likely. The Indians probably lied both to the Jesuit and to the English, telling to each what they knew would be most acceptable.

See "Count Frontenac," 371.

Bourne, History of Wells and Kennebunk .

The above particulars are drawn from the History of Wells and Kennebunk , by the late Edward E. Bourne, of Wells,—a work of admirable thoroughness, fidelity, and candor.

On these attacks on the frontier of Maine, Penhallow, who well knew the country and the people, is the best authority. Niles, in his Indian and French Wars , copies him without acknowledgment, but not without blunders. As regards the attack on Wells, what particulars we have are mainly due to the research of the indefatigable Bourne. Compare Belknap, i. 330; Folsom, History of Saco and Biddeford , 198; Coll. Maine Hist. Soc. , iii. 140, 348; Williamson, History of Maine , ii. 42. Beaubassin is called "Bobasser" in most of the English accounts.

The careful and well-informed Belknap puts it at only 130. History of New Hampshire , i. 331.

Charlevoix, ii. 289, 290 (quarto edition).

Penhallow, Wars of New England with the Eastern Indians .

Doddridge, Notes on Western Virginia and Pennsylvania .

On this affair, see the note of Elisha Plaisted in Massachusetts Archives; Richard Waldron to Governor Dudley, Portsmouth, 19 September, 1712 ; Bourne, Wells and Kennebunk , 278.

Vaudreuil au Ministre, 14 Novembre, 1703 ; Ibid., 3 Avril, 1704 ; Vaudreuil et Beauharnois au Ministre 17 Novembre, 1704 . French writers say that the English surprised and killed some of the Abenakis, who thereupon asked help from Canada. This perhaps refers to the expeditions of Colonel March and Captain Tyng, who, after the bloody attacks upon the settlements of Maine, made reprisal upon Abenaki camps.

English accounts make the whole number 342.

Stephen W. Williams, Biographical Memoir of Rev. John Williams .

Account of y edestruction at Deref d, February 29, 1703/4.

Papers in the Archives of Massachusetts. Among these, a letter of Rev. John Williams to the governor, 21 October, 1703, states that the palisade is rotten, and must be rebuilt.

The names of nearly all the inhabitants are preserved, and even the ages of most of them have been ascertained, through the indefatigable research of Mr. George Sheldon, of Deerfield, among contemporary records. The house of Thomas French, the town clerk, was not destroyed, and his papers were saved.

On the thirty-first of May, 1704, Jonathan Wells and Ebenezer Wright petitioned the General Court for compensation for the losses of those who drove the enemy out of Deerfield and chased them into the meadow. The petition, which was granted, gives an account of the affair, followed by a list of all the men engaged. They number fifty-seven, including the nine who were killed. A list of the plunder retaken from the enemy, consisting of guns, blankets, hatchets, etc., is also added. Several other petitions for the relief of men wounded at the same time are preserved in the archives of Massachusetts. In 1736 the survivors of the party, with the representatives of those who had died, petitioned the General Court for allotments of land, in recognition of their services. This petition also was granted. It is accompanied by a narrative written by Wells. These and other papers on the same subject have been recently printed by Mr. George Sheldon, of Deerfield.