A congress, composed of governors, and of delegates from several of the assemblies, met at Rhode Island, and recommended the appointment of agents to assist colonel Nicholson in representing the state of the country to the Queen, and soliciting troops for an expedition against Canada, the next spring. Government seems at first to have thought favourably of this proposal, but finally determined to proceed only against Port Royal. Five frigates and a bomb ketch, which were assigned for this service, arrived with Nicholson, in July. Although the troops were then to be raised, the whole armament, consisting of one regiment of marines, and four regiments of infantry, sailed from Boston the 18th of September; and on the 24th arrived before Port Royal. The place was immediately invested, and, after the exchange of a few shot and shells, was surrendered. Vietch was appointed governor, and its name, in compliment to the Queen, was changed to Annapolis.
After the reduction of Port Royal, Nicholson returned to England to renew the often repeated solicitations for an expedition against Canada. The ministry was now changed; and the colonists despaired of obtaining from those in power, any aids against the French. Contrary to the general expectation, his application succeeded; and he arrived at Boston, in June, with orders to the governors as far south as Pennsylvania, to get their quotas of men and provisions in readiness to act with the fleet and army expected from Europe. Within sixteen days, while the several governors were yet deliberating on the subject of these orders, the fleet arrived. The service according perfectly with the wishes of the people as well as of the governors, every practicable exertion was made; and difficulties were overcome which, on other occasions, might have been deemed insurmountable. To supply the money which the English treasury could not then advance, the general court of Massachusetts issued bills of credit to the amount of forty thousand pounds; and the example was followed by Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. Provisions were obtained by impressment.
The army consisted of seven veteran regiments, who had served under the duke of Marlborough; one regiment of marines; and two regiments of provincials; amounting, in the whole, to six thousand five hundred men; a force equal to that which afterwards reduced Quebec, when in a much better state of defence. This armament sailed from Boston on the 30th of July. Their sanguine hopes were all blasted in one fatal night. On the 23d of August, in the river St. Lawrence, the weather being thick and dark, eight transports were wrecked on Egg Island, near the north shore, and one thousand persons perished. The next day the fleet put back, and was eight days beating down the river against an easterly wind, which, in two, would have carried it to Quebec. After holding a fruitless consultation respecting an attempt on Placentia, the expedition was abandoned; and the squadron sailed for England. Loud complaints were made, and heavy charges reciprocated, on this occasion. The ignorance of the pilots, the obstinacy of the admiral, the detention of the fleet at Boston, its late arrival there, the want of seasonable orders, and the secret intentions of the ministry, were all subjects of bitter altercation; but no regular inquiry was ever made into the causes of the miscarriage.
