had been at Quebec and had actually charted a part of the river
and was more familiar with it, he believed, than were the
Canadians themselves. What pilots there were declared, however,
that to go on was impossible and the helpless captains of the
ships were of opinion that, with the warning of such a disaster,
they could not disregard this counsel. Though the character of
the English is such that usually a reverse serves to stiffen
their backs, in this case it was not so. A council of war yielded
to the panic of the hour and the great fleet turned homeward.
Soon it was gathered in what is now Sydney harbor in Cape Breton.
>From here the New England ships went home and Walker sailed for
England. At Spithead the Edgar, the flag-ship, blew up and all on
board perished. Walker was on shore at the time. So far was he
from being disgraced that he was given a new command. Later, when
the Whigs came in, he was dismissed from the service, less, it
seems, in blame for the disaster than for his Tory opinions. It
is not an unusual irony of life that Vetch, the one wholly
efficient leader in the expedition, ended his days in a debtor's
prison.

Quebec had shivered before a menace, the greatest in its history.
Through the long months of the summer of 1711 there had been
prayer and fasting to avert the danger. Apparently trading ships
had deserted the lower St. Lawrence in alarm, for no word had
arrived at Quebec of the approach of Walker's fleet. Nor had the
great disaster been witnessed by any onlookers. The island where
it occurred was then and still remains desert. Up to the middle
of October, nearly two months after the disaster, the watchers at
Quebec feared that they might see any day a British fleet
rounding the head of the Island of Orleans. On the 19th of