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were drawn from the mission stations near Quebec. From Lorette were taken the Mohawks who had been converted by the Jesuits, and these were put in the band which was sent against Schenectady. In two other bands, destined for services in Maine and New Hampshire, were exiles from various Wapanaki tribes, gathered at St. Francis, who had sought refuge under the French flag at the close of Philip's war. Besides the Indians in each band were an equal number of Canadian Bush Rangers—Courier-de-bois—who were quite as wild and savage as their red-skinned allies. The leaders of these bands of marauders were French officers of rank.

In February of that winter the settlement at Schenectady was totally wiped out with torch and tomahawk, and the Colonists had not recovered from the shock this occasioned when they were again terrified by a similar report from Salmon Falls, New Hampshire, and later by the downfall of Casco and an aftermath of smaller depredations. From all the doomed hamlets came the same horrifying tale—houses burned; men, women, and children slaughtered or carried into captivity. Frontenac had decided that he could only succeed in holding Canada for the French crown by enlisting the aid of the savages, and to secure that aid he must permit them to make war in their own savage way.

The Colonists were incensed against the French for their participation in this unrighteous warfare and determined upon retaliation. A conference was held at New York in May, 1690, at which it was agreed that an army organized by Connecticut and New York, and including Mohegan and Iroquois Indians, should attack Montreal by land, while Massachusetts made an assault on Quebec from the sea. A squadron of Massachusetts vessels, under command of Sir William Phips, had already, in May of that year, forced the French garrison at Port Royal to capitulate, and elated by this success the New