e
English settlers and so to pave the way for French supremacy. He had
no abler lieutenants in the work he had undertaken than the sons of
Charles le Moyne, of whom Villebon, Portneuf and d'Iberville were
particularly conspicuous in the Indian wars. Immediately after his
arrival, Frontenac encouraged the savages to begin those operations
against the English settlements known in the history of New England as
the "winter raids." Montague Chamberlain tersely describes the
situation thus: "Frontenac 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, and so from all the doomed hamlets came the same
horrifying tale--houses burned, men, women and children slaughtered or
carried into captivity."

It is difficult at this distant day to conceive the horrors of the
savage warfare that prevailed at this time on the New England
frontiers. The Indians roamed over the country like wolves, and the
white settlers never knew when their appalling war whoop would ring in
their startled ears. It was an age of cruelty and the outrages
perpetrated provoked reprisals on the part of the New Englanders. The
close alliance between the Indians and the French, and the fact that
in several of the raids the savages were led by French officers, led
to a bitter race hatred and mutual distrust between the descendants of
the Saxon and the Gaul, which lasted for generations.

In the course of the desultory warfare that followed the destruction
of Falmouth, more than 200 houses were burned in various parts of the
country, and Frontenac himself speaks of the ravages of the savages as
"impossible to describe." On the 5th February, 1692, they raided the
frontier settlement of York, which they left in ashes after killing
about seventy-five persons and taking 100 prisoners--among those
killed was the venerable Mr. Dummer, the minister of the place.

With the opening of the spring time Villebon received a delegation of
100 warriors of the Kennebec and Penobscot tribes at his fort. The
visitors were welcomed with imposing ceremonies; there was the usual
interchange of compliments and speeches by the chiefs and captains,
presents from the king were distributed and the inevitable banquet
followed with its mirth and revelry. It was agreed at this conference
to organize a great war party. Couriers were dispatched to summon all