lOO HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF NEWFOUNDLAND 



The Com- 

 mandants 

 organized 

 defence. 



his accounts, retired to Placentia by D'lberville*s short cut 

 with his plunder. Then other Canadians, after the manner 

 of blackmailers, returned by the same route to Bonavista, 

 ' re-squeezed the Quaker, and re-fleeced the shorn.* Once 

 more it was reported in England and in France that the 

 English colony was all but wiped out, and once more the 

 report was wildly wrong. De Subercase was less deadly 

 than D'Iberville, but there was one difference between this 

 and the earlier foray. Some two hundred inhabitants of 

 Placentia took part in the second foray, and it struck 

 thoughtful people how easily the young Englishmen, who 

 clung to the skirts of the settlers, by whom during winter 

 they were only half employed, might, if drilled and taught or 

 made to fight, sweep the few concentrated Placentians into 

 the sea. 



Major Lloyd, when commandant at St. John's, persuaded 

 sixty settlers to subscribe £30 to send spies to Placentia 

 (1703), reconnoitred it himself, found that it was guarded by 

 352 inhabitants and soldiers, and tried to organize a counter- 

 attack by land with his eighty soldiers and the thousand odd 

 male inhabitants of the EngHsh colony (1706); but of the 

 latter only forty-two responded and the design was aban- 

 doned. Plans for defence made some progress. In 1706 

 the convoy-captain formally instituted a colonial militia, 

 appointing officers in St. John's and Ferryland, and com- 

 missioning Major Lloyd to appoint officers and places of 

 refuge in Conception and Trinity Bays. Seven commanding 

 officers and seven places of refuge were named — a fact 

 which history would not have recorded had not the colonists 

 accused the commandant of serving out half powder and 

 bullets at whole cost. The commandant and colonists were 

 at variance with one another. So were the soldiers and the 

 commandant. In 1704 Major Lloyd reported to Captain 

 Bridge, R.N., that his garrison threatened wholesale desertion. 

 They were demoralized by barrack routine during the winter 



