times dumb,
sometimes blind. Oftentimes, they were at once deaf, dumb, and blind.
Their tongues were drawn down their throats, and then pulled out upon
their chins to a prodigious length. Their mouths were forced open to
such a wideness, that their jaws went out of joint, only to clap again
together, with a force like that of a spring lock. Shoulder-blades,
elbows, wrists, and knees were similarly affected. Sometimes the
sufferer was benumbed, or drawn violently together, and immediately
afterwards stretched out and drawn back.

De Frontenac set earnestly to work to pacify his old enemies of the
Five Nations. A new and more dreaded enemy had to be encountered. The
Puritans of Massachusetts, provoked by De Frontenac's aggressions,
resolved to attack Canada, in self-defence. Sir William Phipps,
afterwards the first Captain General of Massachusetts, born on the
River Kennebec, a man of extraordinary firmness and great energy, who
had raised himself to eminence by honesty of purpose, a strong will,
and good natural ability, was appointed to the command of an
expedition, consisting of seven vessels and eight hundred men. The
object of the expedition was the reduction of Port Royal, or Annapolis,
in Nova Scotia, which Sir William speedily and easily accomplished. A
second expedition, under Sir William, was resolved upon, for the
reduction of Montreal and Quebec. Two thousand men were to penetrate
into Canada by Lake Champlain, to attack Montreal, at the same time
that the naval armament, consisting of between thirty and forty ships,
should invest Quebec. The expedition failed. The Commissariat and
Pontoon Departments of the land expedition, were sadly deficient, and
the naval expedition did not reach Quebec until late in October. The
weather became tempestuous, and scattered the fleet, while the land
force to Montreal mutinied through hunger. Sir William, on the 22nd of
October, re-embarked the soldiers which he had landed, and sailed,
without carrying with him his field pieces or ammunition waggons.
Humiliating as the repulse was to Massachusetts, it was highly
creditable to De Frontenac, who now easily succeeded in winning over
the Five Nation Indians. Indeed, matters had so very much changed, that
these enemies of his most Christian Majesty solicited the Governor to
rebuild the fort at Cataraqui, which was accordingly done. The Indians
were not, however, unanimous in their desire for peace. There was a war
and a peace par