The French officers and men in the fort when it was taken were but two hundred and fifty-eight. Some of the soldiers and many of the armed inhabitants deserted during the siege, which, no doubt, hastened the surrender; for Subercase, a veteran of more than thirty years' service, had borne fair repute as a soldier.
Port Royal had twice before been taken by New England men,--once under Major Sedgwick in 1654, and again under Sir William Phips in the last war; and in each case it had been restored to France by treaty. This time England kept what she had got; and as there was no other place of strength in the province, the capture of Port Royal meant the conquest of Acadia.[146]
[110] Church, _Entertaining Passages_. "Un habitant des Mines a dit que les ennemis avaient été dans toutes les rivières, qu'il n'y restait plus que quatre habitations en entier, le restant ayant été brulé."--_Expéditions faites par les Anglois, 1704._ "Qu'ils avaient ... brulé toutes les maisons à la reserve du haut des rivières."--Labat, _Invasion des Anglois_, 1704.
[111] On this affair, Thomas Church, _Entertaining Passages_ (1716). The writer was the son of Benjamin Church. Penhallow; Belknap, i. 266; _Dudley to ----, 21 April, 1704_; Hutchinson, ii. 132; _Deplorable State of New England_; _Entreprise des Anglais sur l'Acadie_, 1704; _Expéditions faites par les Anglais de la Nouvelle Angleterre_, 1704; Labat, _Invasion des Anglois de Baston_, 1704.
[112] _Report of a Committee to consider his Excellency's Speech, 12 March, 1707._ _Resolve for an Expedition against Port Royal_ (Massachusetts Archives).
[113] _Autobiography of Rev. John Barnard_, one of the five chaplains of the expedition.
[114] _A Boston Gentleman to his Friend, 13 June, 1707_ (Mass. Archives).
[115] _Autobiography of Rev. John Barnard._
[116] _A Boston Gentleman to his Friend, 13 June _(old style)_, 1707._ The final attack here alluded to took place on the night of the sixteenth of June (new style).
[117] _William Dudley to Governor Dudley, 24 June, 1707._
[118] _Stuckley to Dudley, 28 June, 1707._
[119] A considerable number of letters and official papers on this expedition will be found in the 51st and 71st volumes of the Massachusetts Archives. See also Hutchinson, ii. 151, and Belknap, i. 273. The curious narrative of the chaplain, Barnard, is in _Mass. Hist. Coll., 3d Series_, v. 189-196. The account in the _Deplorable State of New England_ is meant solely to injure Dudley. The chief French accounts are _Entreprise des Anglois contre l'Acadie, 26 Juin, 1707_; _Subercase au Ministre, même date_; _Labat au Ministre, 6 Juillet, 1707_; _Relation_ appended to Dièreville, _Voyage de l'Acadie_. The last is extremely loose and fanciful. Subercase puts the English force at three thousand men, whereas the official returns show it to have been, soldiers and sailors, about half this number.