lls and
other places under Beaubassin in 1703, he wrote: "It would have been
well if this expedition had not taken place. I have certain knowledge
that the English want only peace, knowing that war is contrary to the
interests of all the colonies. Hostilities in Canada have always been
begun by the French."[83] Afterwards, when these bloody raids had
produced their natural effect and spurred the sufferers to attempt the
ending of their woes once for all by the conquest of Canada,
Ponchartrain changed his mind and encouraged the sending out of
war-parties, to keep the English busy at home.

The schemes of a radical cure date from the attack on Deerfield and the
murders of the following summer. In the autumn we find Governor Dudley
urging the capture of Quebec. "In the last two years," he says, "the
Assembly of Massachusetts has spent about L50,000 in defending the
Province, whereas three or four of the Queen's ships and fifteen hundred
New England men would rid us of the French and make further outlay
needless,"--a view, it must be admitted, sufficiently sanguine.[84]

But before seeking peace with the sword, Dudley tried less strenuous
methods. It may be remembered that in 1705 Captain Vetch and Samuel
Hill, together with the governor's young son William, went to Quebec to
procure an exchange of prisoners. Their mission had also another object.
Vetch carried a letter from Dudley to Vaudreuil, proposing a treaty of
neutrality between their respective colonies, and Vaudreuil seems to
have welcomed the proposal. Notwithstanding the pacific relations
between Canada and New York, he was in constant fear that Dutch and
English influence might turn the Five Nations into open enemies of the
French; and he therefore declared himself ready to accept the proposals
of Dudley, on condition that New York and the other English colonies
should be included in the treaty, and that the English should be
excluded from fishing in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Acadian seas.
The first condition was difficult, and the second impracticable; for
nothing could have induced the people of New England to accept it.
Vaudreuil, moreover, would not promise to give up prisoners in the hands
of the Indians, but only to do what he could to persuade their owners to
give them up. The negotiations dragged on for several years. For the
first three or four months Vaudreuil stopped his war-parties; but he let
them loose again in the spring, and the New Engl