"I, the aforesaid William Phipps, Knight, do hereby in the name and on behalf of their most excellent Majesties, William and Mary, King and Queen of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, Defenders of the Faith, and by order of their said Majesties' government of Massachusetts colony in New England, demand a present surrender of your forts and castles, undemolished, and the king's and other stores, unembezzled, with a reasonable delivery of all captives; together with a surrender of all your persons and estates to my dispose: upon the doing whereof you may expect mercy from me, as a Christian, according to what shall be found to be for their Majesties' service and the subjects' security. Which, if you refuse forthwith to do, I am come provided, and am resolved, by the help of God, in whom I trust, by force of arms to revenge all wrongs and injuries offered, and bring you under subjection to the Crown of England, and, when too late, make you wish you had accepted of the favour tendered.
"Your answer positive in an hour returned by your own trumpet, with the return of mine, is required upon the peril that will ensue."[45]
Frontenac was not versed in the English language, so the letter was given to an interpreter to translate. When the latter had finished the reading, the envoy presented his watch to the governor, observing that it was then ten o'clock, and that he would have to have an answer by eleven. The dignity of the assembled officers was much hurt by the brusque terms of Phipps's summons; and, before Frontenac had had time to frame his reply, one of them cried out that Phipps was nothing but a pirate, and that the man before them should be hanged. Frontenac was not disposed to go so far. "Tell your general," he said, "that I do not recognize King William, and that the Prince of Orange is a usurper, who has violated the most sacred ties of blood in attempting to dethrone his father-in-law. I recognize no other sovereign in England than King James. Your general ought not to be surprised at the hostilities he says are carried on by the French against the Massachusetts colony; since he might expect that the king, my master, having received the King of England under his protection, and being ready to replace him on the throne by force of arms, as I am informed, would order me to wage war in this country on a people in rebellion against their lawful sovereign. Does your general imagine," he continued, pointing to the officers who filled the room, "that, even if he offered me better conditions, and I were of a temper to accept them--does he think that so many gallant gentlemen would consent to it, or advise me to place any confidence in the word of a man who violated the capitulation he made with the governor of Port Royal, one who has been wanting in loyalty to his rightful sovereign, and who, unmindful of the personal benefits received by him from that sovereign, adheres to the fortunes of a prince who, while trying to persuade the world to accept him as the liberator of England and defender of the faith, tramples on the laws and privileges of the kingdom, and overturns the English Church? This is what the divine justice invoked by your general in his letter will not fail some day to punish severely."