tenac seemed to yield. He would not
take, he said, an hour to reply, but would answer at once. He knew no
such person as King William. James, though in exile, was the true King
of England and the good friend of the King of France. There would be no
surrender to a pirate. After this outburst, the envoy asked if he might
have the answer in writing. "No!" thundered Frontenac. "I will answer
only from the mouths of my cannon and with my musketry!"

Phips could not take Quebec. In carrying out his plans, he was slow and
dilatory. Nature aided his foe. The weather was bad, the waters before
Quebec were difficult, and boats grounded unexpectedly in a falling
tide. Phips landed a force on the north side of the basin at Beauport
but was held in check by French and Indian skirmishing parties. He
sailed his ships up close to Quebec and bombarded the stronghold, but
then, as now, ships were impotent against well-served land defenses.
Soon Phips was short of ammunition. A second time he made a landing in
order to attack Quebec from the valley of the St. Charles but French
regulars fought with militia and Indians to drive off his forces. Phips
held a meeting with his officers for prayer. Heaven, however, denied
success to his arms. If he could not take Quebec, it was time to be
gone, for in the late autumn the dangers of the St. Lawrence are great.
He lay before Quebec for just a week and on the 23d of October sailed
away. It was late in November when his battered fleet began to straggle
into Boston. The ways of God had not proved as simple as they had seemed
to the Puritan faith, for the stronghold of Satan had not fallen before
the attacks of the Lord's people. There were searchings of heart,
recriminations, and financial distress in Boston.

For seven years more the war endured. Frontenac's victory over Phips at
Quebec was not victory over the Iroquois or victory over the colony of
New York. In 1691 this colony sent Peter Schuyler with a force against
Canada by way of Lake Champlain. Schuyler penetrated almost to Montreal,
gained some indecisive success, and caused much suffering to the unhappy
Canadian settlers. Frontenac made his last great stroke in duly, 1696,
when he led more than two thousand men through the primeval forest
to destroy the villages of the Onondaga and the Oneida tribes of the
Iroquois. On the journey from the south shore of Lake Ontario, the old
man of seventy-five was unable to walk over the rough portages a