The anger of New England was further kindled by what
was happening on the sea. Privateers from Port Royal, in Acadia,
attacked New England commerce and New England fishermen and made
unsafe the approaches to Boston. This was to touch a commercial
community on its most tender spot; and a deep resolve was formed
that Canada should be conquered and the menace ended once for
all.
It was only an occasional spirit in Massachusetts who made
comprehensive political plans. One of these was Samuel Vetch, a
man somewhat different from the usual type of New England leader,
for he was not of English but of Scottish origin, of the
Covenanter strain. Vetch, himself an adventurous trader, had
taken a leading part in the ill-fated Scottish attempt to found
on the Isthmus of Panama a colony, which, in easy touch with both
the Pacific and the Atlantic, should carry on a gigantic commerce
between the East and the West. The colony failed, chiefly,
perhaps, because Spain would not have this intrusion into
territory which she claimed. Tropical disease and the disunion
and incompetence of the colonists themselves were Spain's allies
in the destruction.
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