FISHERIES OF THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC 45 



mon, specimens of which were to be sent to Mgr. le Marquis 

 de Seignelay. 



PIRATES AT PERCE. 



Brief reference has already been made to the destruction 

 at Petite Riviere and Perce, in 1690, of the settlements of the 

 Recollet Fathers. 



They were twice pillaged during that summer; first in 

 the early part of August, by a couple of New England pri- 

 vateers fitted out against the commerce of New France by 

 the English speaking settlement of New York, and secondly 

 by a portion of Admiral Phips' fleet on its way to its dra- 

 matic repulse at Quebec by the Count de Frontenac. 



Father Emmanuel Jusneau, one of the Recollet mission- 

 aries at Perce, wrote on the 15th October, 1690, from Isle 

 Dieu, to which place he had made his escape, a very melan- 

 choly description of the havoc wrought by the privateers from 

 New York among the Perce fishermen, and of their sacri- 

 legious destruction of the chapel there and of its contents. 

 This letter has been preserved for us by Father LeClercq, to 

 whom it was addressed by its author. 1 It contains such in- 

 teresting details of the assault as an account of the piratical 

 manner in which the two privateers took the little Perce col- 

 ony by surprise, by appearing in the roadstead of Bonaven- 

 ture, flying French colors. According to Jusneau 's story, 

 five fishing vessels were seized by the marauders, and after 

 the discovery of the fact that the new arrivals were only 

 wolves in sheep's clothing, and when both priests and people 

 had saved their lives by fleeing to the woods, the fanatics of 

 the expedition landed and proceeded to the desecration of the 

 chapel and of the holy vessels and emblems that it contained. 



Another version of this affair was given as follows by 

 De Monseignat, in a Relation de ce qui s'est passe de plus 

 remarquable en Canada, depuis le depart des vaisseaux, an 

 mois de Novembre 1689, jusqu'an mois de Novembre 1690, 



i Nouvelle relation de la Gaspesie.... Par le Pere Chrestien le 

 Clercq, Paris MC. XCI. pp. 7 et seq. 



