504 NATURAL AND CIVIL 



fusion ; alarms were every where taking place j 

 and the whole frontier from Deerfield on Con- 

 tlecticut river, to Casco bay on the sea coast, 

 was kept in one continual terror by small par- 

 ties of the enemy.* 



The neutrality which New York maintained 

 widi the French and Indians, and the supplies 

 which they afforded them in their descents upon 

 the eastern colonies, was extremely blamed and 

 censured in all the New England colonics. It 

 was however attended with one good effect ; 

 the Indians, in their trading visits to Albany, 

 frequently gave accounts of the expeditions the 

 Trench were preparing against the eastern col- 

 onies : and Col. Schuyler never failed to give 

 the most faithful and early intelligence of such 

 designs. Deriving his information from this 

 source, lord Cornbur}-, governor of New York, 

 advised Mr. Dudley, governor of Massachu- 

 setts, so early as the month of May, that the 

 French and Indians intended to make a descent 

 upon Deerfield. The design not being carried 

 into execution in the course of the summer, the 

 intelligence \\'as not enough regarded. But tiie 

 next winter, 1704, M. Vaudrieul, governor of 

 Canada, resumed the project with much atten- 

 tion. 



Deer ra ELD, at that time, was the most nor- 

 therly settlement on Connecticut river, a few 

 families at Northfield excepted. Against this 

 place M. Vaudrieul sent out a party of about 

 three hundred French and Indians, They v. ere 

 put under the command of Ilertel de Rouville, 



• Belknap's Hist. Nfir Hampshire, Vel.i. p. 331— ^3«, 



