occasion of loss by the privateers and
corsairs it sent out to prey on trading and fishing vessels, while at
the same time it was a standing menace as the possible naval base for
one of those armaments against the New England capital which were often
threatened, though never carried into effect. Hence, in 1707 the New
England colonists made, in their bungling way, a serious attempt to get
possession of it.

Dudley's enemies raised the old cry that at heart he wished Port Royal
to remain French, and was only forced by popular clamor to countenance
an attack upon it. The charge seems a malicious slander. Early in March
he proposed the enterprise to the General Court; and the question being
referred to a committee, they reported that a thousand soldiers should
be raised, vessels impressed, and her Majesty's frigate "Deptford," with
the province galley, employed to convoy them. An Act was passed
accordingly.[112] Two regiments were soon afoot, one uniformed in red,
and the other in blue; one commanded by Colonel Francis Wainwright, and
the other by Colonel Winthrop Hilton. Rhode Island sent eighty more men,
and New Hampshire sixty, while Connecticut would do nothing. The
expedition sailed on the thirteenth of May, and included one thousand
and seventy-six soldiers, with about four hundred and fifty sailors.

The soldiers were nearly all volunteers from the rural militia, and
their training and discipline were such as they had acquired in the
uncouth frolics and plentiful New England rum of the periodical "muster
days." There chanced to be one officer who knew more or less of the work
in hand. This was the English engineer Rednap, sent out to look after
the fortifications of New York and New England. The commander-in-chief
was Colonel John March, of Newbury, who had popular qualities, had seen
frontier service, and was personally brave, but totally unfit for his
present position. Most of the officers were civilians from country
towns,--Ipswich, Topsfield, Lynn, Salem, Dorchester, Taunton, or
Weymouth.[113] In the province galley went, as secretary of the
expedition, that intelligent youth, William Dudley, son of the governor.

New England has been blamed for not employing trained officers to
command her levies; but with the exception of Rednap, and possibly of
Captain Samuel Vetch, there were none in the country, nor were they
wanted. In their stubborn and jealous independence, the sons of the
Puritans would have resented