Twenty-five hundred pounds of gunpowder, six thousand pounds of
lead, and a multitude of other presents, were given this year to the
Indians of Acadia. [Footnote: _Estat de Munitions, etc., pour les
Sauvages de l'Acadie_, 1693.] Two of their chiefs had been sent to
Versailles. They now returned, in gay attire, their necks hung with
medals, and their minds filled with admiration, wonder, and
bewilderment.
The special duty of commanding Indians had fallen to the lot of an
officer named Villieu, who had been ordered by the court to raise a
war-party and attack the English. He had lately been sent to replace
Portneuf, who had been charged with debauchery and peculation.
Villebon, angry at his brother's removal, was on ill terms with his
successor; and, though he declares that he did his best to aid in
raising the war-party, Villieu says, on the contrary, that he was
worse than indifferent. The new lieutenant spent the winter at
Naxouat, and on the first of May went up in a canoe to the Malicite
village of Medoctec, assembled the chiefs, and invited them to war.
They accepted the invitation with alacrity. Villieu next made his way
through the wilderness to the Indian towns of the Penobscot. On the
ninth, he reached the mouth of the Mattawamkeag, where he found the
chief Taxous, paddled with him down the Penobscot, and, at midnight on
the tenth, landed at a large Indian village, at or near the place now
called Passadumkeag.
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