allies. He had before him the King's instructions as to the means for
effecting this. The King aimed at nothing less than the conquest of the
English colonies in America. In 1664 the English, by a sudden blow in
time of peace, had captured New Netherland, the Dutch colony on the
Hudson, which then became New York. Now, a quarter of a century later,
France thought to strike a similar blow against the English, and Louis
XIV was resolved that the conquest should be thoroughgoing. The Dutch
power had fallen before a meager naval force. The English now would have
to face one much more formidable. Two French ships were to cross the sea
and to lie in wait near New York. Meanwhile from Canada, sixteen hundred
armed men, a thousand of them French regular troops, were to advance by
land into the heart of the colony, seize Albany and all the boats there
available, and descend by the Hudson to New York. The warships, hovering
off the coast, would then enter New York harbor at the same time that
the land forces made their attack. The village, for it was hardly more
than this, contained, as the French believed, only some two hundred
houses and four hundred fighting men and it was thought that a month
would suffice to complete this whole work of conquest. Once victors,
the French were to show no pity. All private property, but that of
Catholics, was to be confiscated. Catholics, whether English or Dutch,
were to be left undisturbed if not too numerous and if they would take
the oath of allegiance to Louis XIV and show some promise of keeping it.
Rich Protestants were to be held for ransom. All the other inhabitants,
except those whom the French might find useful for their own purposes,
were to be driven out of the colony, homeless wanderers, to be scattered
far so that they could not combine to recover what they had lost. With
New York taken, New England would be so weakened that in time it too
would fall. Such was the plan of conquest which came from the brilliant
chambers at Versailles.

New York did not fall. The expedition so carefully planned came to
nothing. Frontenac had never shown much faith in the enterprise. At
Quebec, on his arrival in the autumn of 1689, he was planning something
less ideally perfect, but certain to produce results. The scarred old
courtier intended so to terrorize the English that they should make
no aggressive advance, to encourage the French to believe themselves
superior to their rivals, and, above a