THE FIRST ANGLO-FRENCH DUEL 93 



Beaudoin pronounced a general absolution, and the English- 

 men, who were badly armed, fled, losing 55 men. A vessel 

 which was in harbour escaped with 100 inhabitants, and, 

 what pained the raiders to the quick, with * the most precious 

 articles from the private houses '. On November 30 the fort, 

 after three days' siege, surrendered. It had only been held, 

 says Charlevoix, by * wretched fishermen who could scarcely 

 fire a gun, and their commandant was a simple settler 

 (habitani) chosen by the ships' captains '. The surrenderers 

 feared that the Canadian or Acadian Indians would scalp 

 them, and one eyewitness declared that an inhabitant was 

 actually scalped and forced to walk discrowned into the fort, 

 thus warning the garrison of what was in store for them if 

 they resisted. If this grisly story were true it would recall 

 the picture of Dante's Bertram de Born carrying in his hand 

 his head as a lantern. The horrors of Salmonfalls and 

 Schenectady were not repeated, and in accordance with 

 the terms of capitulation 220 men, women, and children 

 were sent off in a ship, which arrived in Dartmouth on 

 January 9. Another batch of 80 prisoners was dispatched 

 in a ship which was wrecked off Spain. Except a few houses 

 which were left for the sick, all the houses in St. John's 

 were burned. In January De Brouillan, L'Hermitte, and 

 St. Ovide sailed with their soldiers for Placentia, and 

 D'lberville, De Montigny, and their Canadians made snow- 

 shoes like tea-trays, on which they glided noiselessly round 

 Conception and Trinity Bays, laying waste every settlement 

 except Carbonear Island and Bonavista with fire and sword, 

 and taking to Placentia Bay — across the two-mile neck which 

 divides it from Bull's arm in Trinity Bay — and so to Placentia, 

 much loot and 700 prisoners, most of whom escaped and 

 returned.^ English and French accounts agree that but for 



1 Sieur de '^Q.xxd.oin, Journal, 1696-7; Bacqueville de la Potherie, 

 Hist, de VAmirique Septentrionale, 1722, vol. i, Letter ii ; Charlevoix, 

 History, ed. by J. Shea, vol. v, pp. 33 et seq.; Calendar of State Papers, 

 Colonial Series, Jan. 14, 1697, &c. 



