THE FIRST ANGLO-FRENCH DUEL 99 



but mist, sickness, the late season, and his own irresolution 

 led him to postpone the execution of his threats; and then 

 once more the French invaded the English colony like thieves 

 in the night. In 1704, or thereabouts, twenty-five families 

 of Micmac Indians were transplanted from Acadia to 

 Placentia. 1 Early on a Sunday morning in January, 1 705, 

 amid deep snow, De Subercase, De Costebelle, L'Hermitte, 

 and De Montigny, with 450 French soldiers, French in- 

 habitants, Canadians, and Indians, surprised St. John's. In 

 the harbour no guard was kept that winter, and soldiers slept 

 there instead of in the fort (!). Indiscipline met its merited 

 reward, and 317 inhabitants were folded like sheep into their 

 new church. While the human wolves were performing the 

 functions of sheep-dogs, Lieutenants Moody and Latham put 

 the fort and castle into a state of defence, disposed of their 

 garrison of seventy or eighty men, and awaited the onset of 

 the enemy. De Subercase disgraced himself by threatening 

 them in English, French, and Latin with the fury of the 

 Indians ; but the little band of regulars held out heroically, 

 and after thirty-three days' siege the Frenchmen having 

 loaded up some eighty poor colonists like beasts of burden 

 with their booty retired, plundering and burning, as in 

 1697. As in 1697, De Montigny and his Indians prowled 

 round Conception and Trinity Bay like beasts of prey, and 

 after being baffled at Carbonear Island were rewarded by 

 a stroke of good luck. De Montigny had just written that 

 he was 500 out of pocket on his Indians, when a Quaker, 

 named George Skeffington, who had been appointed com- 

 mandant at Bonavista, ' the spirit not moving him,' sur- 

 rendered his post 2 with 120 men and 8 guns, and ransomed 

 his precious self for &45O. 3 De Montigny, having squared 



1 Edouard Richard, of. '/., pp. 393, 394, 433. 



2 On Green Island. 



3 Captain Moody's dispatch, Nov. 21, 1705 ; 4,000 livres in Canadian 

 Documents, vol. i, p. 613. 



H 2 



