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The designs upon New York were frustrated almost at their inception. The ships intended for the expedition were disabled, while the Iroquois, who had been reckoned upon for assistance in the land attack, declined to be imposed upon by the Count's smooth words and artifices, and, in spite of his strenuous efforts, concluded an alliance with the English.

Frontenac was more successful with the Wapanakis, partly because their feelings toward the colonists at that time moved them to yield the more readily to his overtures.

The year before, in 1688, Andros, then Governor of Massachusetts, had foolishly broken the ten years' peace, which began shortly after King Philip's war, by the unprovoked and unjustifiable destruction of Baron St. Castine's establishment at the mouth of the Penobscot. Castine had married the daughter of the Penobscot sachem Madokawando, at that time one of the most influential chiefs of the Wapanaki League, and by sympathizing with the Indians and adopting their mode of life the Frenchman had gained their loyal attachment. The tribes were enraged at Andros' action and were eager to avenge it. At this juncture the seizure of sixteen Indians at Saco, in retaliation for the killing of a few cattle at Yarmouth, started into life the smouldering fire and opened what Cotton Mather styled "the melancholy decade"—the ten years' war. In June, 1689, came the destruction of Dover, where Major Waldron repaid so terribly for his treachery of some thirty years before, and this was followed by the capture of Pemaquid and the massacre of the people. John Gyles has told the gruesome story of that transaction.

During the autumn of that year—1689—Frontenac organized the bands for those offensive operations against the English, which have gone into history as the "winter raids." The Indians who were engaged in these exploits