d men. Other remoter colonies were to aid on a smaller scale.
These contingents were to attack Canada by way of Lake Champlain. Twelve
hundred men from New England were to join the regulars from England and
go against Quebec by way of the sea and master Canada once for all.

The plan was similar to the one which Amherst and Wolfe carried to
success exactly fifty years later, and with a Wolfe in command it might
now have succeeded. The troops from England were to be at Boston before
the end of May, 1709. The colonial forces gathered. New Jersey and
Pennsylvania refused, indeed, to send any soldiers; but New York and
the other colonies concerned did their full share. By the early summer
Colonel Francis Nicholson, with some fifteen hundred men, lay fully
equipped in camp on Wood Creek near Lake Champlain, ready to descend
on Montreal as soon as news came of the arrival of the British fleet
at Boston for the attack on Quebec. On the shores of Boston harbor lay
another colonial army, large for the time--the levies from New England
which were to sail to Quebec. Officers had come out from England to
drill these hardy men, and as soldiers they were giving a good account
of themselves. They watched, fasted, and prayed, and watched again for
the fleet from England. Summer came and then autumn and still the fleet
did not arrive. Far away, in the crowded camp on Wood Creek, pestilence
broke out and as time wore on this army slowly melted away either by
death or withdrawal. At last, on October 11, 1709, word came from the
British ministry, dated the 27th of July, two months after the promised
fleet was to arrive at Boston, that it had been sent instead to
Portugal.

In spite of this disappointment the resolution endured to conquer
Canada. New York joined New England in sending deputations to London to
ask again for help. Four Mohawk chiefs went with Peter Schuyler from New
York and were the wonder of the day in London. It is something to have
a plan talked about. Malplaquet, the last of Marlborough's great
victories, had been won in the autumn of 1709 and the thought of a new
enterprise was popular. Nicholson, who had been sent from Boston, urged
that the first step should be to take Port Royal. What the colonies
required for this expedition was the aid of four frigates and five
hundred soldiers who should reach Boston by March.

The help arrived, though not in March but in July, 1710. Boston was
filled with enthusiasm for the ent