378 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND. [1694. 



lives were spared for the sake of this ransom. 

 Sometimes, but not always, the redeemed captives 

 w r ere made to work for their benefactors. They 

 were uniformly treated well, and often with such 

 kindness that they would not be exchanged, and 

 became Canadians by adoption. 



Villebon was still full of anxiety as to the adhe- 

 sion of the Abenakis. Thury saw the danger still 

 more clearly, and told Frontenac that their late 

 attack at Oyster River was due more to levity than 

 to any other cause ; that they were greatly alarmed, 

 w r avering, half stupefied, afraid of the English, and 

 distrustful of the French, whom they accused of 

 using them as tools. 1 It was clear that something 

 must be done ; and nothing could answer the pur- 

 pose so well as the capture of Pemaquicl, that 

 English stronghold which held them in constant 

 menace, and at the same time tempted them by 

 offers of goods at a low rate. To the capture of 

 Pemaquicl, therefore, the French government turned 

 its thoughts. 



One Pascho Chubb, of Andover, commanded 

 the post, with a garrison of ninety-five militia- 

 men. Stoughton, governor of Massachusetts, had 

 written to the Abenakis, upbraiding them for 

 breaking the peace, and ordering them to bring in 

 their prisoners without delay. The Indians of 

 P>igot's mission, that is to say, Bigot in their name, 

 retorted by a letter to the last degree haughty and 

 abusive. Those of Thury' s mission, however, were 

 so anxious to recover their friends held in prison 



1 Thury a Frontenac, 11 Sept., 1694. 



