Sword!"

While Boston was attempting to wreak vengeance on Acadia for the
raiders of Quebec, the bushrovers from the St. Lawrence continued to
scourge the outlying settlements of New England. To post soldiers on
the frontier was useless. Wherever there were guards the raiders
simply passed on to some unprotected village, and to have kept soldiers
along the line of the whole frontier would have required a standing
army. Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, northern New
York,--on the frontier of each reigned perpetual terror. And the
fiendish work was a paying business to the pagan Indian; for the
Christian white men paid well for all scalps, and ransom money could
always be extorted for captives. Barely had the Boston raid on Port
Royal failed, when Governor de Vaudreuil of Quebec {198} retaliated by
turning his raiders loose on Haverhill. The English fleet failed at
Port Royal in June. By dawn of Sunday, August 29, Hertel de Rouville
had swooped on the English village of Haverhill with one hundred
Canadian bushrovers and one hundred and fifty Indians. The story of
one raid is the story of all; so this one need not be told. As the
raiders were discovered at daylight, the people had a chance to defend
themselves, and some of the villagers escaped, the family of one being
hidden by a negro nurse under tubs in the cellar. Alarm had been
carried to the surrounding settlements, and men rode hot haste in
pursuit of the forty prisoners. Hertel de Rouville coolly sent back
word, if the pursuers did not desist, all the prisoners would be
scalped and left on the roadside. Some fifty English had fallen in the
fight, but the French lost fifteen, among them young Jared of
Vercheres, brother of the heroine.

[Illustration: CONTEMPORARY PLAN OF PORT ROYAL BASIN]

The only peace for Massachusetts was the peace that would be a victory,
and again New England girded herself to the task of capturing Acadia.
It was open war now, for the crowns of England and France were at odds.
The troops were commanded by General Francis Nicholson, an English
officer who brought out four war ships and four hundred trained
marines. There were, besides, thirty-six transports and three thousand
provincial troops, clothed and outfitted by Queen Anne of England.
Sunday, September 24, 1710, the fleet glides majestically into Port
Royal Basin. That night the wind blew a hurricane and the transport
_Caesar_ went aground with a crash tha