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Englanders deemed the conquest of Quebec and Montreal quite within possibility. Phips was selected to command the Quebec forces, and with a fleet of armed vessels and transports sailed from Boston early in August.

The New York and Connecticut forces, under command of General Winthrop, assembled at Albany and proceeded in canoes and on foot toward Montreal, but their expedition was a failure. The bulk of the men advanced no farther than Lake Champlain, where smallpox and hunger and factional disputes left them stranded and thoroughly demoralized. Captain John Schuyler, with a small company of volunteers, made a raid on La Prairie, and continued to harass the French outposts for a short time, but, while they kept the country in alarm, they were at no time a serious menace to Montreal.

Frontenac happened to be in Montreal when Winthrop's advance was reported to him. He had just concluded an alliance with some five hundred Indians from the upper lakes—Ojibwas, Hurons, Ottawas, Nipissings and others, who had come to Montreal with furs for sale—and he readily induced these braves to join him in a fight with the English and their traditional foes, the Iroquois, whom the scouts had seen on Lake Champlain. The English and their allies eluded Frontenac, but he had gained the friendly support of these Western tribes, to his great advantage.

Winthrop's army having retired, Frontenac, being apprised of Phips' departure from Boston, was enabled to reinforce the garrison at Quebec and to strengthen that city's defenses before the Colonial fleet arrived. Phips had reckoned upon a weak garrison and fortifications of little consequence, but found himself confronted by a force which was more than a match for his command, while his guns made no appreciable effect upon the forts that crowned the great cliff. After several days of fighting and bombarding, in which the New England yeoman who