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Parkman, Francis, 1823-1893

"Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV"


Thury said mass, and then the victors retreated in a body to the place
where they had hidden their canoes. Here Taxous, dissatisfied with the
scalps that he and his band had taken, resolved to have more; and with
fifty of his own warriors, joined by others from the Kennebec, set out
on a new enterprise. "They mean," writes Villieu in his diary, "to
divide into bands of four or five, and knock people in the head by
surprise, which cannot fail to produce a good effect." [Footnote:
"Casser des testes a la surprise apres s'estre divises en plusieurs
bandes de quatre au cinq, ce qui ne peut manquer de faire un bon
effect." Villieu, _Relation_.] They did in fact fall a few days after
on the settlements near Groton, and killed some forty persons.
Having heard from one of the prisoners a rumor of ships on the way
from England to attack Quebec, Villieu thought it necessary to inform
Frontenac at once. Attended by a few Indians, he travelled four days
and nights, till he found Bigot at an Abenaki fort on the Kennebec.
His Indians were completely exhausted. He took others in their place,
pushed forward again, reached Quebec on the twenty-second of August,
found that Frontenac had gone to Montreal, followed him thither, told
his story, and presented him with thirteen English scalps.


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