The French hoped to seize Boston, to destroy its
industries and sink its ships, then to advance beyond Boston and
deal out to other places the same fate. The rivalry of New
England was to be ended by making that region a desert.
The first fury of the war raged on the frontier of Maine, which
was an outpost of Massachusetts. On an August day in 1703 the
people of the rugged little settlement of Wells were at their
usual tasks when they heard gunshots and war-whoops. Indians had
crept up to attack the place. They set the village on fire and
killed or carried off some twoscore prisoners, chiefly women and
children. The village of Deerfield, on the northwestern frontier
of Massachusetts, consisted of a wooden meeting-house and a
number of rough cabins which lodged the two or three hundred
inhabitants. On a February night in 1704 savages led by a young
member of the Canadian noblesse, Hertel de Rouville, approached
the village silently on snowshoes, waited on the outskirts during
the dead of night, and then just before dawn burst in upon the
sleeping people.
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