Page:Public School History of England and Canada (1892).djvu/217

 much more rapidly than the French settlement. It needed but the treachery of Denonyille, one of Frontenac's successors, to bring on the colony a terrible calamity. To gratify a whim of the King, he seized at Fort Frontenac fifty Iroquois chiefs, who had come to a friendly meeting, and sent them in chains to France to work at the galleys. He followed up this outrage by leading two thousand men into the country of the Senecas, one of the five nations of the Iroquois. For several days he pillaged and burned their villages, destroying their food supplies, and putting many to death.

The Five Nations soon united to punish the French. Fort Niagara at the mouth of the Niagara River, and but recently built, was levelled to the ground. Fort Frontenac had to be abandoned and burnt, with all its stores and trading vessels. The Island of Montreal was surprised and more than a thousand of its inhabitants were killed or earried off prisoners for further torture. This is the Massacre of Lachine, 1689. The colony was in despair, and its people had to take shelter in the forts of Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal.

To save the colony from perishing Frontenac was again despatched to Canada as Governor. He brought with him the chiefs seized by Denonyille, and sent them back to their tribes to act as peace-makers. At this time a war arising out of the English Revolution of 1688 was going on in Kurope between England and France. Frontenac determined to punish the English colonists for the part they had taken in stirring up the Iroquois to attack the French settlements. Bands of French and their Indian allies made frequent raids into New York, New Hampshire, and other border colonies, scalping and murdering the defenceless people. Schenectady in New York, and Salmon Falls in New Hampshire were burned to the ground, and their inhabitants butchered. For years this cruel border warfare lasted, leaving a dark stain on the early history of the American settlements.

In 1690 an effort was made by the British colonists to drive the French out of Canada. Sir Wm. Phips was sent by Massachusetts to capture Port Royal in Acadia (Nova Scotia). This he accomplished, and then sailed up the St. Lawrence to take Quebec. Before this, however, an expedition under the command of Colonel Winthrop had been sent to take Montreal. Sickness and a lack of supplies led to its failure and it returned to Albany. But Phips