Notwithstanding all their assurances, within six weeks the whole country from Casco to Wells was in a flame, and another terrible ten years' war begun. Parties of French and Indians spread havoc through the feeble settlements, sparing neither old nor young. Wells, Winter Harbor, and Spurwink were among the towns destroyed. The whole of the exposed northern border of Massachusetts, from Casco Bay to the Connecticut River, was watched from hiding-places offering every facility for sudden invasion and safe retreat. For this reason little impression could be made upon the Indians, as they could rarely be found. De Vaudreuil, Governor of Canada, succeeded in keeping the Iroquois neutral. Between the Abenakis and the French a close friendship already existed.

Deerfield, a palisaded village on the Connecticut, enclosing twenty acres, had a garrison of twenty soldiers quartered in different houses. The town was still suffering from the ravages of the previous war. A party of two hundred French and one hundred and forty-two Indians, on snow-shoes, under the lead of Hertel de Ronville, made their way from Canada, reaching its vicinity on the last night of February, 1704. The drifted snow enabled them to enter the town over the pickets early next morning, and the sentinels having deserted their posts, the terrible warwhoop was the first notice the doomed villagers received of their approach. The torch was applied, and only the church and one dwelling-house escaped. Death or captivity was the lot of the inhabitants, one hundred and twelve of whom, including Rev. John Williams, the minister, and his family, were carried to Canada.

Mr. Williams, who, after his return home, published a narrative of this tragedy, tells us that he was roused from sleep by the sound of axes and hatchets plied against his doors and windows. Leaping from his bed, he seized his arms, and put a pistol to the breast of the first Indian who came up; but it missed fire, and he was seized and bound. He and his family were allowed to put on some clothing, and, "the sun about an hour high," they began their march, the snow being knee-deep. His wife, having recently become a mother, was feeble, and on the second day she fell from weariness, and was tomahawked.

During the march his life was often threatened. Nineteen of his fellow-prisoners were murdered and two starved to death by the way. "And yet," says the narrator, "God made the Indians so to pity our children that, though they had several of their own wounded to carry upon their shoulders for thirty miles before they came to the river, yet they carried our children, incapable of travelling, in their arms and upon their shoulders."

Williams's feet were "so full of pain" he could scarce stand upon them, but was forced to travel in snow-shoes twenty-five miles a day and sometimes more. The party were eight weeks reaching Montreal, where the governor took him from the Indians and treated him kindly. After a captivity of two years and a half he was exchanged, and with fifty-seven other prisoners, two of whom were his children, he returned home.

Eunice, his youngest daughter, was adopted by the Indians, who refused to ransom her, and she became the wife of a Caughnawaga chief. Long afterwards she visited her friends in Deerfield in her Indian dress, and, notwithstanding a day of fasting and prayer by the whole village for her deliverance, she returned to her Indian home and her Mohawk children.

On Lake St. Louis, near Montreal, the Indian village of Caughnawaga (St. Regis), with its wretched log-houses, clusters round a fine stone church with a glittering tin roof. The early Jesuits induced the Indians to collect furs, which they sent to France in exchange for a church-bell. The return ship was captured by the English, and the bell was sent to Deerfield, Massachusetts.

When the Caughnawagas heard where their bell had gone, they to obtain possession of it. They took part in Hertel's expedition on condition that Deerfield should be the first place attacked. When in the midst of the massacre the tones of the bell sounded, they knelt in superstitious awe. Then, with shouts of victory, they bore it on poles through the forests, while it tolled with doleful sound. Exhausted with the terrible march in midwinter, they buried it at Burlington, Vermont. Next summer they dug it up, and it was borne into their village in triumph between two white oxen.

One house in Deerfield escaped destruction and stood until within a few years, the marks of the Indian bullets being still visible. It was courageously defended by seven men, who fired from the windows upon the enemy, the women with them running bullets and loading their guns. Several times the enemy tried to set fire to the house, but failed. Captain Stoddard, watching his opportunity, sprang from a window and made his way to Hatfield, giving the alarm. Soon the settlers were in pursuit, and gave De Rouville battle, but were forced to retreat.

Massachusetts and New Hampshire now offered a reward of £20 for every Indian captured, and £40 for each scalp. Evidently they thought one dead Indian worth two living ones. The old Indian fighter Church, prominent thirty years before in Philip's war, at the head of five hundred and fifty men, carried destruction through all the French settlements east of the Penobscot, but effected nothing of consequence.

An attack on a garrison-house at Oyster River was repelled in a singular manner. It happened at the moment to be occupied only by women. "They put on hats, letting their hair hang down, and fired so briskly that they struck a terror into the enemy, and they withdrew."

A formidable inroad upon the English settlements was planned by the French at Montreal in 1708, who fixed upon Lake Winnipiseogee as the place of rendezvous for their Indian allies. A few only came at the appointed time. The expedition was led by Des Chaillons, who attacked Haverhill, Massachusetts, in the night, burned the fort and many dwellings, and killed or captured about one hundred persons, including Rev. Benjamin Rolfe, the minister, his wife and child. A few brave men, led by Samuel Ayer, rallied a short distance from the town, formed an ambush, and by a vigorous attack succeeded in reselling a number of the prisoners and inflicted some loss on the enemy. Ayer lost his life in this daring attempt.

Haverhill was at this time a cluster of thirty cottages and log cabins near the Merrimac. In its centre stood the new meeting-house. On the north the unbroken wilderness stretched far away to the White Mountains.

The Indian leader on this occasion was Assacambuit. He had visited France in 1706, and having been knighted by Louis XIV., on his return wore the insignia of his rank upon his breast. He was also presented with a sword for his services. A famous club which he always carried had on it at this time ninety-eight notches, denoting the number of English he had slain.

It was estimated that one-third of the English population of Maine had fallen in this disastrous war. Some families had become extinct, others mourned the loss or captivity of parents, children, or husbands. The country was reduced to poverty, trade was ruined, houses burned, and fields devastated. A hundred miles of sea-coast, lately the scene of prosperity, was now a complete desert. There was one year of this war when one-fifth part of all capable of bearing arms were in active service. No wonder if the cruelties of the savage enemy inspired our fathers with a deep hatred of the French missionaries who instigated them, and even made them desire the extermination of the natives.

The treaty of Utrecht surrendered to England Acadia (New Brunswick and Nova Scotia). New England fishermen and traders at once pushed their enterprises over the ceded territory, revived the villages that had been desolated by the war, and laid on the east bank of the Kennebec the foundations of new settlements, and protected them by forts.

But the tribe of Abenakis inhabiting this region had prior claims of ownership, which they resolved not to abandon. "I have my land," said their chief, "where the Great Spirit placed me, and while one of my tribe remains I shall fight to preserve it." Several chiefs had been treacherously seized by the New England government and kept as hostages. Though their ransom had been paid, they had not been set free. The Abenakis demanded that their territory should be evacuated and their chiefs liberated, or war would follow. This tribe formed the barrier of Canada against New England, as did the Iroquois that of New York against Canada.

The answer to this demand was the seizure of the young Baron St. Castin, who, besides holding a French commission, was an Indian chief, and an expedition against Norridgewock, a village of the Abenakis, on the banks of the Kennebec, and the headquarters of hostile Indians. Here dwelt Sebastian Rasle, a French priest, who was thought by the English to be the instigator of the depredations of these Indians whose war parties prowled ceaselessly along the frontier, murdering and capturing the defenceless settlers and destroying their homes.

Rasle had erected a church in Norridgewock, and had adorned its walls with paintings from his own hand. Forty young savages had been trained by him, who, in cassock and surplice, assisted in the service and chanted the hymns of the church, and their public processions attracted great numbers of the red men. He was kind to them, and they revered him.

A reward was offered for the head of Rasle by the Massachusetts government, and two unsuccessful expeditions were sent to capture him. No peace could be had until "this incendiary of mischief," for so he was regarded by the New England people, was "wiped out."

This was at length accomplished by a party led by Colonel Moulton, who succeeded in reaching Norridgewock without being discovered. Dividing his force, one party proceeded directly to the village, while the other intercepted such as attempted flight. His men were already among the wigwams, when an Indian carne out of one of them and gave the alarm. The old men, women, and children fled. The warriors, sixty in number, tried to make a stand. The English held their fire until the Indians had discharged their guns in a hurried and ineffective volley, and then fired with fatal effect. After their second discharge the Indians fled to the river, which was about sixty feet wide. Some were shot while endeavoring to swim across.

Rasle tried to shield his flock, and succeeded in drawing the fury of the assailants upon himself. Pierced with bullets, he fell dead near the cross in the centre of the village where he had labored thirty-seven years. His church was plundered and burned to the ground, and a violent end was thus put to Jesuit missions and French influence in New England. Among the dead were Mogg and Bomazeen, two prominent chiefs of the Abenakis.

At this time the bounty for Indian scalps was £100. One of the most successful scalp-hunters of the day was John Lovewell, of Dunstable. His father, who was one of Cromwell's soldiers, emigrated to that place, and died there, it is said, at the great age of one hundred and twenty years. In March, 1725, Lovewell brought in ten scalps to the treasurer in Boston, received his money, and was highly applauded for his success.

The business was profitable, and Lovewell easily enlisted a party for an expedition against the tribe of Pequawkets. Their village lay at the southern base of the White Mountains, on the Saco River, near what is now Fryeburg, Maine. Their chief, Paugus, was well known in the white settlements, but the tribe had joined with the hostile Abenakis, and was supplied with powder and ball by the French at Montreal.

It was a lovely morning in spring when Lovewell found himself in close proximity to the Indian village. Leaving their packs, his men moved cautiously forward. Suddenly they came upon an Indian, who fired, mortally wounding Lovewell, and was himself shot by Ensign Wyman. Had the English been prudent, they would now have made a hasty retreat, since their attempted surprise had failed, and they themselves had been discovered by a much more numerous enemy, but they were brave men, and no doubt hoped to win the large reward promised them, so they kept on.

On seeking for their packs, they found that the Indians had secured them. This was an important advantage to the red men, as it told them just how many, or rather how few, white men there were, and inspired them with confidence. Lovewell had passed their village, and they had followed, intercepting his retreat; and had placed themselves in ambush. When discovered, they had nearly surrounded his small party. All at once eighty Indians, yelling and whooping like demons, confronted them.

The Indians advanced without firing, as if unwilling to begin the fight, and hoping, by their great superiority of numbers, that the English would yield without a battle. They thus threw away their chance for the first fire. They then held up ropes, which they had provided for securing captives.

"You shall have quarter," said the Indians.

"At the muzzles of our guns," was the reply of the English, as they rushed upon the enemy, firing as they advanced, and, killing several, drove them some rods. But the warriors soon rallied, and obliged the English in their turn to give ground, leaving nine dead and three wounded when the fight began—twelve men out of the thirty-four with which they started.

"Retreat to the pond!" shouted Wyman, who had succeeded Lovewell in command, to his men. They did so, and thus were protected on that side. Sheltering themselves as well as they could behind trees, the little band resolved to fight to the last. The contest was long and obstinate. The Indians kept up all kinds of hideous noises, sometimes howling like wolves, at others barking like dogs—the English frequently shouting and huzzaing.

The medicine-man of the tribe held a powwow, calling on the spirits for aid, but Wyman put an end to his mummery somewhat abruptly by sending a ballet through him. Finally, Paugus, their chief, fell; they lost heart, and when night came they stole away. The English had lost their captain, Lieutenant Robbins, and Chaplain Frye, and four were so badly wounded that they could not be removed. The survivors, sixteen in number, only nine of whom were unwounded, faint and weary, marched twenty miles that night to Ossipee, only to find the place abandoned by the men left there in charge of the supplies they so greatly needed. They were three days reaching home, which they at length succeeded in doing after severe toil and privation.

Tradition says that one of the rangers, while at the pond, cleaning his gun, which had become foul, discovered Paugus at a little distance similarly engaged. Both loaded their pieces, and dropped their ramrods upon the ground at the same moment, Paugus exclaiming,

"Me kill you quick!"

"Maybe not," was the ranger's cool reply. Those were the days of flintlocks, and while the Indian was priming his gun from his powder-horn, a precious moment was gained by the ranger, who primed his by a smart blow of the butt on the ground. Just as the chief raised his gun to take aim, he received his adversary's bullet, and fell dead.

One of the old ballads on "Lovewell's Fight," familiar to the past generation, refers to Wyman as the slayer of Paugus. Another, from which I quote, awards the honor to a different man. Here is a stanza—

Of the slain chaplain, Jonathan Frye of Andover, the old song says—

The escape of one of the men wounded in this fight was almost miraculous. Solomon Keyes, having been three times wounded, hid himself so that he might die where the Indians could not find him. As he crawled along the shore of the pond, some distance from the scene of action, he found a canoe into which he rolled himself, and was drifted away by the wind. To his great astonishment he was cast ashore at no great distance from the fort at Ossipee, which he succeeded in reaching. There he found several of his companions, and, gaining strength, returned home with them. The little lake which was the scene of the action is now called Lovewell's Pond.

We turn once more to the old ballad—

In November following this occurrence four Abenaki chiefs made a treaty at Boston, promising to maintain peace and to deliver up their prisoners. The treaty was faithfully kept, and the eastern colonies had a season of rest from the horrors of Indian warfare. The remainder of the Pequawkets, together with the Androscoggins, soon afterwards withdrew to the sources of the Connecticut River, and finally settled in Canada.

The war of the Austrian Succession not only set all Europe aflame, but it also again put in motion the Indian tomahawk and scalping-knife to do their terrible work upon the outlying settlements of New England. The news reached Canada much sooner than New England, where the arrival at Boston of prisoners captured by the French at Casco was the first intimation that war had begun. Hostilities in the East, the commencement of a long catalogue of horrors, began in the summer near Fort George, now Thomaston, Maine. In America the principal event of the war was the capture by New England troops of the strong fortress of Louisburg.

Number Four, now Charlestown, New Hampshire, was the most prominent and the most exposed of the posts in northern New England, as it stood directly in the way of Indian inroads to the settlements below. It had been several times attacked, but always without success. On one occasion Captain Stevens, its commander, with fifty men armed as usual, was in the field at work. He sent his dogs into the woods as scouts. They soon came back growling, and with their hair on end. The woods were full of Indians. One of his men catching sight of one fired on him, and the battle begun. Stevens's men took to the trees. They drove the Indians into a swamp, after killing twelve of them, and put the others to flight. Hatchets and blankets were left behind in their haste. Stevens had seven men wounded.

Another and more determined effort was made for its capture in the following year by a force of more than four hundred French and Indians.

Every effort that Indian subtlety and French skill could devise proved fruitless against its brave defenders, and after a three days' siege they withdrew discomfited. In the following letter to Governor Shirley, Stevens in his own way describes the affair. He says:

"Our dogs being very much disturbed, which gave us reason to think the enemy was about, we did not open the gate at the usual time; but one of our men ventured out privately to set on the dogs about nine o'clock in the morning, and when about twenty rods from the fort fired off his gull, whereupon the enemy, being within a few rods, rose from their cover and fired; but through the goodness of God the man got into the fort with only a slight wound.

"They then attacked us on all sides. The wind being high, and everything exceedingly dry, they set fire to the fences, and also to a log-house about forty rods distant, so that within a few minutes we were entirely surrounded with fire—all which was performed with the most hideous shouting and firing from all quarters, which they continued in a very terrible manner until the next day, at ten o'clock at night, without intermission, during which time we had no opportunity either to eat or sleep. I had trenches dug from under the fort, about a yard outward in several places, at so near a distance to each other as by throwing water we might put out the fire.

"But notwithstanding all their shoutings and threatenings our men seemed not in the least daunted, but fought with great resolution, which doubtless gave the enemy reason to think we had determined to stand it out to the last. The enemy had provided themselves with a sort of fortification which they had determined to push before them, and bring fuel to the side of the fort in order to burn it; but instead of performing what they had threatened, they called to us, and asked a cessation of arms until sunrise next morning, at which time they would come to a parley. Accordingly, the French general, Debeline, came, with about sixty of his men, with a flag of truce, and stuck it down within about twenty rods of the fort.

"Upon our men going to meet the monsieur, he proposed that in case we would immediately resign up the fort we should have all our lives, and liberty to put on all the clothes we had; and also a sufficient quantity of provisions to carry us to Montreal; and we might bind up our provisions and blankets, lay down our arms, and march out of the fort. He desired that the captain of the fort would meet him half-way, and give an answer to the above proposal, which I did; but without waiting to hear it, he went on to say that what had been promised he was ready to perform, but upon refusal he would immediately set the fort on fire, and run over the top, for he had seven hundred men with hint; and if we made any further resistance, or should happen to kill one Indian, we might all expect to be put to the sword.

"'The fort,' said Debeline, 'I am resolved to have or die; now do what you please, for I am as ready to have you fight as give it up.'

"I told the general that in case of extremity his proposal would do, but, inasmuch as I was sent here by the captain-general to defend this fort, it would not be consistent with my orders to give it up unless I was better satisfied that he was able to perform what he had threatened; and, furthermore, I told him that it was poor encouragement to resign into the hands of an enemy, that upon one of their number being killed they would put all to the sword, when it was probable that we had killed some of them already.

"'Well,' said he, 'go into the fort and see whether your men dare fight any more or not, and give me an answer quick, for my men want to be fighting.'

"Whereupon I came into the fort and called the men together, and informed them what the French officer said, and then put it to vote which they chose, either to fight or resign, and they voted to a man to stand it out as long as they had life. I returned this answer, upon which the enemy gave a shout, and then fired, and so continued firing and shouting until daylight next morning.

"About noon they called to us and said, 'Good-morning,' and desired another parley. Two Indians came within about two rods of the fort and stuck down their flag, proposing that if I would send them provisions they would leave and not fight any more. I answered that if they would send in a captive for every five bushels of corn I would supply them. After this they withdrew, and we heard no more of them. In all this time we had scarce opportunity to eat or sleep. There were but thirty men in the fort, but two of whom were wounded, and those slightly."

This letter exhibits the modesty of Stevens, which is in striking contrast with the braggadocio of the French commander.

Phineas Stevens, the hero of Number Four, was a native of Sudbury, Massachusetts. At the age of sixteen he, with three younger brothers, was taken by the Indians, who slew two of them, and were about to kill the youngest, then but four years of age. Phineas succeeded, however, in making the savages understand that if they would spare the life of his little brother he would carry him on his back. He conveyed him in this manner all the way to Canada, whence they were eventually returned. In 1746, when Number Four was abandoned by its inhabitants, he was ordered to occupy the fort, a small structure of timber with a garrison of thirty men. For his gallant defence of the fort he was presented with an elegant silver-hilted sword by Admiral Sir Charles Knowles, for whom Number Four was afterwards named Charlestown.

In January, 1747, Colonel Arthur Noble, with seven hundred men, undertook to drive the French and Indians out of Nova Scotia. While on the way he was surprised in his camp by a superior force, and himself, four of his principal officers, and seventy men were killed, and the remainder made prisoners.

A severe conflict occurred in the following year, near Number Four, between a party of forty men, under Captain Hobbs, and a much larger body of Indians who had waylaid them. Notwithstanding the smallness of his force, Hobbs stood his ground, giving the enemy a warm reception. For four hours the conflict continued, when, fortunately, the English captain got a shot at their leader, whom he either killed or badly wounded, as the Indians immediately afterwards drew off. In this well-fought contest the Indian loss exceeded that of the whites.

Although the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was signed in October 1748, it was not formally proclaimed in Boston until six months after, so slow was the means of communication between distant points at that time. War parties from Canada continued to hover on the border as before, committing depredations, but early in 1749 the Indians met in council and agreed to make peaceful overtures, and a treaty was finally concluded at Falmouth.