e St. John river. These marauders burned the houses
and killed the cattle; they even hanged two of the inhabitants and
burned a woman and her children in her own dwelling. What was still
worse for Villebon they captured the ship Union, just arrived from
France with merchandize, provisions, ammunition and presents for the
savages.

Villebon was well fitted for such an emergency as this; he assembled
his dusky allies, explained the loss of their presents and offered
himself to go to their great father, the King of France, for more. The
Indians pledged their fidelity and promised him one hundred and fifty
warriors the next spring to aid him in his designs against the
English.

At the court of France Villebon was favorably received and returned
with a commission from the king to command in Acadia. Soon after he
abandoned the Jemseg Fort and moved up the river to the mouth of the
Nashwaak where in the upper angle formed by the junction of that river
with the St. John he built in 1692 a new fort which he called Fort St.
Joseph. It was an ordinary palisaded fort about 120 feet square, with
four bastions, and had eight cannon mounted. In the old French
documents of the period it is usually called Fort Nachouac, with many
varieties of spelling, such as Naxoat, Naxouac, Natchouak, etc. The
older French maps place the fort on the south, or Fredericton side of
the river, but there can be no doubt as to its proper location in the
upper angle formed by the junction of the River Nashwaak with the St.
John. The greater portion of the site has been washed away, but traces
of the ramparts were visible within the memory of those yet living and
many cannon balls and other relics have been found in the vicinity.

Villebon had now been some years in Acadia, for Bishop St. Vallier
says that he was in command of the garrison at Port Royal at the time
of his visit there in 1686. He had ample opportunity of becoming
familiar with the country and its native inhabitants, and was in this
way fitted to second the ambitious designs of the French, which
embraced the destruction of New York and the conquest of New England.

When Count Frontenac came out to Quebec in 1689, to fill for the
second time the position of Governor and Commander-in-Chief of New
France, he was in his seventieth year, yet his old time vigor and
determination were unabated. It was part of his plan to avail himself
of the hostility of the savages to wear down and discourage th