onel Nicholson, same date._

[141] _Instructions to Richard Viscount Shannon, July, 1710._ A report
of the scheme reached Boston. Hutchinson, ii. 164.

[142] The troops, however, were actually embarked. _True State of the
Forces commanded by the Right Honble The Lord Viscount Shannon, as they
were Embarkd the 14th of October, 1710._ The total was three thousand
two hundred and sixty-five officers and men. Also, _Shannon to
Sunderland, 16 October, 1710_. The absurdity of the attempt at so late a
season is obvious. Yet the fleet lay some weeks more at Portsmouth,
waiting for a fair wind.

[143] _Archives of Massachusetts_, vol. lxxi., where the original papers
are preserved.

[144] _Nicholson and Vetch to the Secretary of State, 16 September,
1710_; Hutchinson, ii. 164; Penhallow. Massachusetts sent two battalions
of four hundred and fifty men each, and Connecticut one battalion of
three hundred men, while New Hampshire and Rhode Island united their
contingents to form a fourth battalion.

[145] The contemporary English translation of this letter is printed
among the papers appended to _Nicholson's Journal_ in _Collections of
the Nova Scotia Historical Society_, i.

[146] In a letter to Ponchartrain, _1 October, 1710_ (new style),
Subercase declares that he has not a sou left, nor any credit. "I have
managed to borrow enough to maintain the garrison for the last two
years, and have paid what I could by selling all my furniture."
Charlevoix's account of the siege has been followed by most writers,
both French and English; but it is extremely incorrect. It was answered
by one De Gannes, apparently an officer under Subercase, in a paper
called _Observations sur les Erreurs de la Relation du Siege du Port
Royal ... faittes sur de faux memoires par le reverend Pere Charlevoix_,
whom De Gannes often contradicts flatly. Thus Charlevoix puts the
besieging force at thirty-four hundred men, besides officers and
sailors, while De Gannes puts it at fourteen hundred; and while
Charlevoix says that the garrison were famishing, his critic says that
they were provisioned for three months. See the valuable notes to Shea's
_Charlevoix_, v. 227-232.

The journal of Nicholson was published "by authority" in the _Boston
News Letter, November, 1710_, and has been reprinted, with numerous
accompanying documents, including the French and English correspondence
during the siege, in the _Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical
Society_,