It
is not an unusual irony of life that Vetch, the one wholly
efficient leader in the expedition, ended his days in a debtor's
prison.
Quebec had shivered before a menace, the greatest in its history.
Through the long months of the summer of 1711 there had been
prayer and fasting to avert the danger. Apparently trading ships
had deserted the lower St. Lawrence in alarm, for no word had
arrived at Quebec of the approach of Walker's fleet. Nor had the
great disaster been witnessed by any onlookers. The island where
it occurred was then and still remains desert. Up to the middle
of October, nearly two months after the disaster, the watchers at
Quebec feared that they might see any day a British fleet
rounding the head of the Island of Orleans. On the 19th of
October the first news of the disaster arrived and then it was
easy for Quebec to believe that God had struck the English
wretches with a terrible vengeance. Three thousand men, it was
said, had reached land and then perished miserably. Many bodies
had been found naked and in attitudes of despair.
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