ons of
Frontenac, made an attack upon Casco, in Maine. The expedition was
commanded by M. De Portneuf. Hertel, on his return to Canada, met with
this expedition, and, joining it with the force under his command, came
back to the scene of warfare in which he had been so unhappily
successful. As the hostile army marched through the country of the
Abenakis, numbers of them joined it. Portneuf, with his forces thus
augmented, came into the neighborhood of Casco, about the 25th of May,
1690. On the following night, an Englishman who entered the well-laid
ambush was captured and killed. This so excited the Indians that they
raised the war-whoop. Fifty English soldiers were sent from the fort to
ascertain the occasion of the yelling, and were drawn into the
ambuscade. A volley from the woods on either side swept them down, and
before the remainder could recover from the panic into which they were
thrown by the volley, they were assailed with swords, bayonets and
tomahawks, and but four out of the party escaped and these with severe
wounds.

"The English seeing now that they must stand a siege, abandoned four
garrisons, and all retired into one which was provided with cannon.
Before these were abandoned, an attack was made upon one of them, in
which the French were repulsed with an Indian killed and a Frenchman
wounded. Portneuf now began to doubt of his ability to take Casco,
fearing the issue; for his commission only ordered him to lay waste the
English settlements, and not to attempt fortified places; but, in this
dilemma, Hertel and Hopehood (a celebrated chief of the tribe of the
Kennebec), arrived. It was now determined to press the siege. In the
deserted forts they found all the necessary tools for carrying on the
work, and they began a mine within fifty feet of the fort, under a steep
bank, which entirely protected them from its guns. The English became
discouraged, and, on the 28th of May, surrendered themselves as
prisoners of war. There were seventy men and probably a greater number
of women and children; all of whom, except Captain Davis, who commanded
the garrison, and three or four others, were given up to the Indians,
who murdered most of them in their most cruel manner; and, if the
accounts be true, Hopehood excelled all other savages in acts of
cruelty."

These barbarous transactions produced both terror and indignation in New
York and New England, and an attempt at a formidable demonstration
against the ene