[Footnote: _Lettre pastorale pour disposer les Peuples de ce
Diocese a se bien deffendre contre les Anglois_ (Reg. de l'Eveche de
Quebec).] Laval, the former bishop, aided his efforts. "We appealed,"
he writes, "to God, his Holy Mother, to all the Angels, and to all the
Saints." [Footnote: _Laval a ----, Nov_. 20, 1690.] Nor was the appeal
in vain: for each day seemed to bring some new token of celestial
favor; and it is not surprising that the head-winds which delayed the
approach of the enemy, the cold and the storms which hastened his
departure, and, above all, his singularly innocent cannonade, which
killed but two or three persons, should have been accepted as proof of
divine intervention. It was to the Holy Virgin that Quebec had been
most lavish of its vows, and to her the victory was ascribed.
One great anxiety still troubled the minds of the victors. Three
ships, bringing large sums of money and the yearly supplies for the
colony, were on their way to Quebec; and nothing was more likely than
that the retiring fleet would meet and capture them. Messengers had
been sent down the river, who passed the English in the dark, found
the ships at St. Paul's Bay, and warned them of the danger. They
turned back, and hid themselves within the mouth of the Saguenay; but
not soon enough to prevent Phips from discovering their retreat.
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