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 all, to prove to the Indian tribes
that prudence dictated alliance with the French and not with the
English.
Frontenac wrote a tale of blood. There were three war parties;
one set out from Montreal against New York, and one from Three
Rivers and one from Quebec against the frontier settlements of
New Hampshire and Maine. To describe one is to describe all. A
band of one hundred and sixty Frenchmen, with nearly as many
Indians, gathers at Montreal in mid-winter. The ground is deep
with snow and they troop on snowshoes across the white wastes.
Dragging on sleds the needed supplies, they march up the
Richelieu River and over the frozen surface of Lake Champlain.
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