Note D — Chapter XVI
Reading edition
One incident will suffice to show the character of these forays. A small island on Passamaquoddy Bay was invaded by the forces under Col. Church, at night. The inhabitants made no resistance. All gave up; "but," says Church in his dispatch to the governor, "looking over a little run, I saw something look black just by me: stopped and heard a talking; stepped over and saw a little hut, or wigwam, with a crowd of people round about it, which was contrary to my former directions. I asked them what they were doing? They replied, 'there were some of the enemy in a house, and would not come out.' I asked what house? They said, 'a bark house' I hastily bid them pull it down, and knock them on the head, never asking whether they were French or Indians, they being all enemies alike to me." Such was the merciless character of these early expeditions to peaceful Acadia.
"Herod of Galilee's babe-butchering deed Lives not on history's blushing page alone; Our skies, it seems, have seen like victims bleed, And our own Ramahs echoed groan for groan; The fiends of France, whose cruelties decreed Those dexterous drownings in the Loire and Rhone, Were, at their worst, but copyists, second-hand, Of our shrined, sainted sires, the Plymouth Pilgrim band."