1688-89.] THE ABENAKI WAR. 221 



no pains to induce more of the Abenakis to join 

 these mission colonies. They were in good measure 

 successful, though the great body of the tribe still 

 clung to their ancient homes on the Saco, the Ken- 

 nebec, and the Penobscot. 1 



There were ten years of critical and dubious 

 peace along the English border, and then the war 

 broke out again. The occasion of this new up- 

 rising is not very clear, and it is hardly worth 

 while to look for it. Between the harsh and reck- 

 less borderer on the one side, and the fierce savage 

 on the other, a single spark might at any moment 

 set the frontier in a blaze. The English, however, 

 believed firmly that their French rivals had a hand 

 in the new outbreak ; and, in fact, the Abenakis told 

 some of their English captives that Saint-Castin, a 

 French adventurer on the Penobscot, gave every 

 Indian who would go to the war a pound of gun- 

 powder, two pounds of lead, and a supply of to- 

 bacco. 2 The trading house of Saint-Castin, which 

 stood on ground claimed by England, had lately 

 been plundered by Sir Edmund Anclros, and some 

 of the English had foretold that an Indian war 

 would be the consequence ; but none of them seem 

 at this time to have suspected that the governor of 

 Canada and his Jesuit friends had any part in their 

 woes. Yet there is proof that this was the case ; 



1 The Ahenaki migration to Canada began as early as the autumn 

 of 1675 {Relation, 1676-77). On the mission of St. Francis on the Chau- 

 diere, see Bigot, Relation, 1684 ; Ibid., 1685. It was afterwards removed 

 to the river St. Francis. 



2 Hutchinson, Hist. Mass., I. 326. Compare N. Y. Col. Docs., IV. 282, 

 476. 



