King William's War

by Michael G Laramie

  On January 19, the war party arrived at the bottom of Conception Bay. Here they encountered eleven Englishmen busy sawing planks, which no doubt made surprising them much easier. All were captured without a struggle, but more importantly, their fishing vessel was captured. Iberville dispatched Montigny in the seized shallop to Harbor Main half a dozen miles away on the west side of the bay. The surprise was near total, and by the time Iberville arrived by foot with the main column, Montigny and his men had taken sixteen prisoners, two shallops, and a skiff.

  Now equipped with enough vessels to carry his entire detachment Iberville set sail for Port de Grave. Here, nestled within a cove midway along a thin spit of land that jutted into the bay, was a hamlet of seventeen homes and a number of warehouses. “This place is very beautiful,” Father Baudoin noted in his journal, struck by the shingled rock beaches that the homes sat up against. The 116 men and 26 women and children that occupied this town never realized what was happening until Iberville and his men were inside the town. There were no shots fired, and the entire village surrendered without a struggle.

  Carbonear, a dozen miles to the north, was Iberville’s next target. The village was the primary fishing post on Conception Bay and by now had likely been warned of the French raiders. On January 23, Montigny and a detachment of fifty men sailed to Musket Cove (Bristol’s Hope). The following day Iberville sailed to within sight of Carbonear. When he approached Carbonear Island, which sat at the mouth of the bay, he realized that he was too late. The inhabitants of this town had long since eyed the island as a possible place of refuge. Some 2,200 feet long and half as wide Carbonear Island was essentially a grass-covered rock, but the cliffs along its circumference and the limited number of landing points made it a natural fortress. As the little fleet sailed past the island Iberville’s men noted the large number of English defenders along the heights, and a few puffs of smoke announced that they had cannon, which would make seizing one of the few possible landing sites a costly proposition. Iberville was not interested in attacking and set sail north where he surprised and sacked Old Pelican and Bay de Verde on February 4 and 6. He then moved down the east shore of Trinity Bay and seized three more towns before returning to Carbonear on February 11. Iberville sought a negotiated solution, but the English refused. Frustrated by the impasse Iberville turned to burning Carbonear. Every building was put to the torch, including a number of homes owned by wealthy merchants, considered by one witness to be “some of the finest in Newfoundland.”9

  Although portions of his detachment continued to operate in the north, by the end of March Iberville was back at Placentia. When the losses to the English colony and the fishing industry in Newfoundland were tallied, Iberville’s campaign was nothing short of an astounding success. Combined with Brouillan’s efforts, the pair had captured and destroyed thirty-six English settlements. Only Bonavista and the settlers entrenched on Carbonear Island remained on the Avalon Peninsula. Estimates are that a little over 100 English settlers were killed and another 791 captured. Most of those taken prisoner were placed on a few of the 435 captured fishing vessels and sent back to England. A portion of the captured vessels were used to haul enormous amounts of cod, seized at the various settlements, back to France and Placentia. The rest of the fishing fleet was burned, as was everything that stood at each of the settlements. For all practical purposes the English had been ejected from the Avalon Peninsula and the English fishing industry in Newfoundland destroyed.10

  Militarily Iberville’s campaign showed the potential of the petite guerre. A handful of Canadians and colonial marines had struck from where no one expected, wreaking havoc on an entire colony in the dead of winter when communications were at their worst. The entire campaign took little in the way of resources and played upon the strength of the colony’s skills in adapting native tactics to strike at their larger enemy. It was a campaign that even Robert Rogers and the later French partisans would never accomplish and one which begs the question of what might have occurred if Frontenac had put Iberville at the head of 1,500 Canadians and native warriors and let him loose on the New York and New England frontier.

  The attacks were carried out with a ruthless efficiency; destroy everything, send the occupants of the settlement away, and collect the booty. As Iberville stood to profit from this venture one gets a mercenary or buccaneer feeling from the campaign, but there should be little doubt that the French commander believed that his work would strengthen the colony he called home. There were no massacres, although English rumors claimed otherwise, and almost all of the English who fell did so fighting. Fortunately, most of the communities simply surrendered, which was far easier on the exhausted detachment and minimized the bloodshed on both sides.

  When combined with the capture of Pemaquid, the failed siege of Fort St. Joseph, and Frontenac’s campaign against the Onondaga it had been a terrible year for the northern English colonies. And now with reports that Iberville might be planning a descent upon the New England or New York seaboard, things only seemed to be getting worse. Every colony’s trade had been hit hard by French privateers, and the economic impact of the war was showing not only in New York and New England but farther south where the tobacco crops of Maryland and Virginia sat in warehouses waiting for escorts and ships to be transported to England. Maryland had been one of the few colonies to actually contribute to the defense of the New York frontier with monetary donations, but now with trade dwindling from maritime threats they now asked to be exempted from making this contribution.

  A number of prominent colonists made the plight of the king’s North American colonies clear in a letter to the Board of Trade. “We are under deep apprehension from the late attempts of the French, wherein we have in a manner lost our fishing, furs, mast, timber and peltry-trade alike in Newfoundland, New England and New York, so that unless the further progress of the enemy be checked it will end in the subversion of the Colonies.”11

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The War at the Top of the World

  WHILE THE ENGLISH PUSHED FORWARD a plan to retake their conquered Newfoundland settlements, Iberville waited at Placentia for orders from France. Small detachments of his men harassed what was left of the English on the peninsula, while each morning he hoped for his brother Serigny and the fleet promised from France, which would allow him to finish his work in Newfoundland. Finally on May 18, 1697, the flotilla he had been waiting for dropped anchor at Placentia. As soon as he was ashore Serigny handed his brother a set of orders from France. They were not what Iberville had expected, but on the other hand, they did not come as a total surprise. He was to leave the remaining operations in Brouillan’s hands and set sail for Hudson Bay as soon as possible to capture Fort Nelson and secure the area for France.1

  The destination was a familiar place to both Iberville and his brother. After demonstrating his abilities during the taking of the English forts on James Bay, Iberville was left in charge of these posts when Troyes’s detachment returned to Quebec on August 19, 1686. The twenty-five-year-old commander did not experience any difficulties with the English at Fort Nelson, which was helpful, as failing food supplies proved enough of an adversary for his forty-man detachment. The next summer Iberville returned to France to solicit aid from the Compagnie du Nord, not only in the way of men and supplies but also in terms of providing trade merchandise that would help lure the local tribes away from Fort Nelson. To his credit Iberville was successful in both areas. He was also able to secure the twenty-eight-gun frigate Soleil d’Afrique, in which he returned to James Bay during the spring of 1688, just in time to capture the English supply ship Churchill, which had spent the winter trapped in the ice at Charlton Island.2

  A few months later three English vessels entered Hudson Bay. Looking to seize an opportunity and reverse their losses a pair of vessels anchored at the mouth of the Albany River, effectively blockading the Soleil d’Afrique. The English demanded the fort’s surrender and Iberville promptly refused. A brief exchange of a
rms took place before the situation devolved into a stalemate. Within a few weeks all three vessels were locked in the ice. The winter treated the intruders poorly and Iberville refused to allow the English a pass to hunt game. The English outnumbered his garrison five-to-one and he was not going to do anything to help them. When the English, who had encamped on a small island in the river, did attempt to venture out Iberville organized ambuscades that sent them scurrying back to their encampment. It did not take long after that. Disease and exposure had killed a third of the ships’ crews before they surrendered under terms that Iberville would send them back to England in one of their vessels when the ice broke.3

  In early June Iberville’s brother St. Helene arrived with orders for Iberville to return to Quebec. On September 12, the Soleil d’Afrique, with the larger of the English prizes in tow, set out for the colonial capital. To his surprise Iberville fell in with an English ship near the Hudson Straits. The enemy vessel was too powerful to attack so he raised an English flag and managed to convince the English captain that he was a friend. The trio of vessels navigated the straits together and then went their separate ways.

  Iberville arrived at Quebec on October 28, 1689. His return coincided with Frontenac’s plans to attack the New York and New England frontier. He soon joined the expedition led by his brother St. Helene, which destroyed the town of Schenectady in February 1690. By summer, however, Iberville was anxious to return to Hudson Bay. In July, he set sail from Quebec with three small vessels: the St. Anne, the St. Francis, and a tender. His force amounted to some eighty men and thirty guns. It was nowhere near what he would have liked, but the northern sailing season dictated his departure, leaving him with little choice other than to abandon the project.4

  By August Iberville was approaching Fort Nelson. His fears had come to fruition. The English were on their guard, but more importantly a thirty-six-gun enemy frigate forced the French commander to flee toward Fort St. Anne. Along the way he planned to attack the English position at New Severn, but with little in the way of defenses the commander of this post had it put to the torch and marched the garrison to Fort Nelson.

  Matters would not improve for Iberville for several years. He returned to Quebec the following year and accepted command of another expedition against Fort Nelson, but it fell through, as did planned campaigns in 1692 and 1693. In 1694 Iberville would have more success. In mid-August he left Quebec with three hundred men in the frigates Poli and Salamander. It was by far the most powerful French expedition yet to be launched against the English Hudson Bay stronghold. After a harrowing passage through the gale and iceberg-strewn Hudson Straits, Iberville’s force dropped anchor before Fort Nelson on September 24.

  Fort Nelson appeared impressive. The fort sat on a peninsula formed by the conjunction of the Nelson and Hayes Rivers. Located on a high spot along the north bank of the Hayes River the four-bastioned wooden structure was surrounded by a cheval-de-frise and supported by a battery of six guns, which were positioned in a redoubt on the river side of the fort. When combined with the other outworks and the guns within the stronghold, there were over eighty cannon available with which to repel an attacker, making Fort Nelson, on paper at least, one of the more heavily defended posts in colonial North America. The problem was that the garrison of fifty-three men were not soldiers. They were traders, merchants, and trappers and all ill prepared to handle any kind of an assault.

  The French moved upriver past the fort and skirmished with the garrison for a few days while siege batteries were being raised. On October 13 the cannon were in place and ready to fire. Iberville summoned the fort’s commander to surrender, and to his delight, the garrison hauled down the English flag. Captured along with the fort was a remarkable haul of artillery, trade stores, and a warehouse full of furs, all of which was now claimed by the victors. It was too late in the season to depart, so the entire force along with their fifty-three English prisoners remained at Fort Nelson for the winter. When the ice cleared in early summer Iberville placed his warships in the river and waited to pounce upon the yearly English supply fleet. By September he had seen nothing and, with the window of opportunity to leave closing, he assigned a garrison to the fort under Lt. La Forest and departed for Quebec.5

  Fort Nelson, or Fort Bourbon as it was now called, would not remain in French hands very long. In late August 1696, an English squadron of five vessels cleared the Hudson Straits and steered for Fort Bourbon. Captain William Allen, in command of the forty-gun Bonaventure along with the frigates Seaford and Dering and two smaller vessels, had been given express orders to take Fort Bourbon and reestablish the Hudson Bay Company’s presence in the area. Lt. La Forest, who Iberville had left along with a garrison of sixty-seven men, did his best to resist. He ambushed the initial English landing, forcing the attackers back into their boats, but this only bought a short amount of time. Allen maneuvered the fleet closer to the fort and began a bombardment. The English commander had brought a bomb ketch as part of his force, and after twenty-two mortar rounds exploded within the fort La Forest became convinced that it was senseless to resist. When Allen halted the firing to demand the fort’s surrender, La Forest agreed under the conditions that he and his men march out under honors of war and be transported, along with two pieces of artillery and the furs they had accumulated, to Placentia on an English vessel. The terms were agreed to and the French flag lowered. To La Forest’s dismay, instead of being returned to Placentia, he soon found himself in England answering charges about how he and Iberville had treated the English prisoners from the capture of Fort Nelson in 1694.6

  Now, as Iberville read over the orders his brother Serigny had presented him, it seemed clear that he was not finished with Hudson Bay. Once again the king had ordered him to the frozen waters of the north to seize Fort Nelson. At least this time he had a sizable force at his disposal. His flagship would be the fifty-gun Pelican, while his brother Serigny would command the forty-gun Palmier. The frigate Profond was stripped down to twenty-six guns so it could take on more supplies, and the smaller Wesp along with the supply ship Esquimeau, carrying another two-dozen guns between them, rounded out the squadron. Together the five vessels carried close to 500 men and could bring 140 cannon to bear, making it more than twice as strong as the force Iberville had used to capture Fort Nelson a few years before.

  After over a month of refitting and preparation at Placentia, Iberville’s squadron put out to sea on July 8. By late July the force arrived at the entrance to the Hudson Straits. Here they faced their first enemy—ice. Shifting frozen mountains and their fractured remnants littered the passage. Coupled with the currents it made for treacherous going, often forcing the crews to grapple with the ice to keep it away from their ships. Amidst such circumstances disaster could strike quickly, as the crew of the Esquimeau discovered when two shifting bergs crushed their vessel in a horrifying cacophony of cracking wood and splintering ice. The twelve-man crew clung to their frozen attackers before being rescued, but their ship and a good portion of the expedition’s supplies had gone to the bottom.

  A few days later on July 24, a gale blew through the straits, scattering Iberville’s fleet and covering everything in several inches of ice. Iberville, ahead in the Pelican, cleared the straits and waited for the rest of the fleet. After a few days, however, the French commander became convinced that the fleet must have passed him and he set sail for Fort Nelson. In fact Iberville’s fleet was far behind him and on August 25 they encountered a second enemy—the English.7

  To secure Fort Nelson the Admiralty had assigned Captain John Fletcher of the frigate Hampshire to escort three Hudson Bay Company ships to the Hayes River. Led by Fletcher’s fifty-two-gun warship, the Dering, the Royal Hudson’s Bay and the fireship Owner’s Love arrived at the entrance to the Hudson Straits a few days behind Iberville’s fleet. As with the French the common enemy claimed another victim when the Owner’s Love was crushed in the ice flows and lost with all hands.8

  On August 25, the rema
ining elements of the English fleet awoke to find the Profond not far away to the south. The French frigate had become separated from the rest of the fleet and stumbled upon Fletcher’s convoy. In a running battle that lasted throughout the day the four vessels fired upon one another when the ice flows permitted.

  The outnumbered Profond was hit a number of times and badly damaged but managed to fend off the enemy until the sight of the Wesp and Palmier convinced the English to move on with their mission.

  The Pelican had dropped anchor near Fort Nelson on September 4. Even though his fleet had yet to arrive, Iberville wasted no time in launching into operations and sent twenty-five men ashore to scout the approaches to the fort and to select a site to land the artillery. At six the next morning a shout came from the lookout on the Pelican. Three ships, about ten miles away, were approaching. The French commander shouted at the gun crews to fire the prearranged signals. A pattern of cannon shots rang out. Iberville and his crew listened for an answer and when none came he ordered his crew to clear for action. With the men left ashore and the sick on board Iberville was down close to one hundred men, but it did not dissuade his decision. To the hoarse shouts of the ship’s officers the sails on the Pelican dropped and caught the wind. Without hesitation the French commander turned the warship in a wide arc and steered directly at the oncoming English.

  Iberville soon saw the three vessels before him: a Royal Navy frigate about the Pelican’s size and two smaller converted merchant ships, each carrying about thirty guns. This placed the French commander at a distinct disadvantage, but he suspected that the armed merchantmen would not put up much of a fight, and with the wind in his favor he set his sights on the Hampshire.9