Canada Under Attack Read Free Page B

Baudoin, “we sent to Bay Boulle for the mortars and bombs and powder. On the night of the 29th and 30th MM. de Mins and de Montigny went with sixty Canadians to burn the houses near the fort.” 6 For three days, the citizens remained locked within the city walls, defying the French attackers. Then the French captured a hapless colonist by the name of William Drew. Holding him down, they ripped his scalp from his forehead to the nape of his neck and then sent it into the English fort with a warning that they would do the same to every Englishman there if they did not soon surrender.
    This had the effect that D’Iberville was looking for,
    The 30th, the day of St. Andrew, a man came from the fort with a white flag, to speak of surrender. Afterwards the Governor with four of the principal citizens came for an interview. They would not allow us to enter the fort, lest we should see the miserable plight to which they were reduced. It was agreed they should surrender on condition of being allowed to depart for England. The capitulation was brought in writing to the fort, and approved of by the principal citizens and signed by the Governor and M. de Brouillon. 7
    Once the city had offered terms, D’Iberville quickly burnt it to the ground. As he had promised, he did send the citizens back to Britain but he forced all 224 men, women, and children to crowd onto a single tiny ship. The crossing, made in the dead of winter, must have been horrific for those aboard. Most would never return to Newfoundland. If they had, they would have found that the large, so phisticated settlement they had once called home had been completely destroyed.
    The English capital on the great rock was no more. It seemed to be the end of English rule on the Atlantic seaboard. Indeed, as the British Board of Trade informed their king, William III, the French were masters of the entire island.
    Master or not, D’Iberville was not yet finished. His orders had been to drive every Englishman from Newfoundland, and he was determined to do so. He dispatched small raiding parties to wreak terror across the remaining outposts of the English colony. No hamlet or cove — no matter how tiny and insignificant — was spared. His men burned, looted, and took prisoners, expelling every English man, woman, and child they encountered. In just four short months, D’Iberville destroyed 36 settlements. Only two managed to defy him: Bonavista and Carbonear Island. Of the latter, Baudoin wrote,
    Around 9am we also left in five shallops for Carbonear. Passing in front of the point of the island of Carbonear, we saw the enemy lined up in great numbers. They fired a few canon shots at us. On this island were the people of Carbonear, of Harbour Grace, of Mosquito Cove, of other little harbours, and the refugees from St. John’s. They seem to be about 200 men, already lodged in barracks which they have made since they started worrying we would come … We cannot attack unless we are insane, unless we have more than 200 men. “The abbé continued, somewhat ominously,” Besides which, there are still many other places to take. 8
    But tiny Carbonear proved to be D’Iberville’s undoing. When he left for France, still unable to take the island, the English Navy finally arrived, spurred to action by the report given to them by the English Board of Trade. New English forts were constructed and a significant military presence was permanently garrisoned on the island. By the spring of 1697, 1,500 British troops were guarding the island. The settlers were slowly enticed to return and in less than 12 years the population of the island exceeded what it had been when D’Iberville invaded.

    Forts on Hudson Bay.
    By that time, D’Iberville’s attention had return to Canada’s northern bays. He made one last, spectacular attempt to invade the James Bay coast, heading north on a perilous journey at the head of a flotilla of French