244 MASSACHUSETTS ATTACKS QUEBEC. [1690. 



Boston alive with martial preparation. A bold 

 enterprise was afoot. Massachusetts of her own 

 motion had resolved to attempt the conquest of 

 Quebec. She and her sister colonies had not yet 

 recovered from the exhaustion of Philip's war, 

 and still less from the disorders that attended the 

 expulsion of the royal governor and his adherents. 

 The public treasury was empty, and the recent 

 expeditions against the eastern Indians had been 

 supported by private subscription. "Worse yet, 

 New England had no competent military com- 

 mander. The Puritan gentlemen of the original 

 emigration, some of whom were as well fitted for 

 military as for civil leadership, had passed from 

 the stage • and, by a tendency which circumstances 

 made inevitable, they had left none behind them 

 equally qualified. The great Indian conflict of 

 fifteen years before had, it is true, formed good 

 partisan chiefs, and proved that the New England 

 yeoman, defending his family and his hearth, was 

 not to be surpassed in stubborn fighting ; but, since 

 Anclros and his soldiers had been driven out, there 

 was scarcely a single man in the colony of the 

 slightest training or experience in regular war. 

 Up to this moment, New England had never asked 

 help of the mother country. When thousands of 

 savages burst on her defenceless settlements, she 

 had conquered safety and peace with her own 

 blood and her own slender resources ; but now, as 

 the proposed capture of Quebec would inure to the 

 profit of the British crown, Braclstreet and his 

 council thought it not unfitting to ask for a supply 



