Considering the resources of the colonies, it was no mean effort they were putting forth. Some hundreds of men volunteered for the expedition; but, the number being insufficient, a press was resorted to in order to make up the total required, namely, twenty-two hundred. Of these about three hundred were sailors, and the rest soldiers. Provisions for four months were taken on board, and the expedition, under the command of Phipps, sailed from Nantasket on the 9th August 1690.
What progress was being made in the meantime with the land expedition against Montreal in which New York was to take the lead? The answer must be, very poor progress indeed. At Boston there was a considerable measure of unity of action; in New York there was almost none. It had been agreed that Connecticut should furnish a contingent of troops, and that the whole expedition should be placed under the command of one of its officers, Fitz-John Winthrop, afterwards governor. Winthrop organized a force of two or three hundred men, and started from Hartford for Albany on the 14th July. A week later he arrived at the latter town only to find everything in complete disorder. "I found," he says, "the design against Canada poorly contrived and little forwarded, all things confused and in no readiness or position for marching towards Canada; yet every one disorderly projecting something about it."[44] The Dutch displayed the greatest indifference in the matter, and the English, for want of any commanding influence or unquestioned authority, were irresolute and vacillating. There was no definite understanding with the Indians; and what help they were going to give was quite uncertain. Organizing his forces as best he could in these most disadvantageous circumstances, Winthrop set out from Albany on his march northwards. He had not gone far when he was overtaken by a despatch from the governor of Massachusetts and Connecticut, telling him that the fleet was in readiness to sail. Eager to do his part in the combined operations, Winthrop pressed on and encamped at Wood Creek at the southern extremity of Lake Champlain. Here smallpox broke out among the troops; disagreements arose with the Indians; and, to make matters still worse, the provisions which should have been pushed on from Albany failed to arrive. After waiting several days in inactivity, Winthrop became persuaded that an advance to Montreal with the body of his troops was out of the question. He allowed the mayor of Albany, Captain John Schuyler, to go on with a small detachment, while he with the rest of his force, largely consisting of sick men, returned to Albany. All that Schuyler succeeded in doing was to perpetrate a rather ignoble raid upon the hamlet of Laprairie near Montreal, where he killed ten or twelve of the inhabitants, destroyed the farms and the cattle, and made a number of prisoners, including some women. As an act of retaliation for Schenectady it was a feeble performance; as an act of war it was not a heroic exploit. Winthrop, before the month of September closed, marched back to Hartford, and thus ended the New York expedition. Clearly, if anything effective is to be done against Canada, the Boston men must do it.