Nearly a quarter of a century passed. France and England
were at peace and Acadia enjoyed freedom from foreign
attack. But the accession of William of Orange to the
throne of England heralded the outbreak of another
Anglo-French war. The month of May 1690 saw Sir William
Phips with a New England fleet and an army of over a
thousand men off Port Royal, demanding its surrender.
Menneval, the French governor, yielded his fortress on
the understanding that he and the garrison should be
transported to French soil. Phips, however, after pillaging
the place, desecrating the church, hoisting the English
flag, and obliging the inhabitants to take the oath of
allegiance to William and Mary, carried off his prisoners
to Boston. He was bent on the capture of Quebec in the
same year and had no mind to make the necessary arrangements
to hold Acadia. Hardly had he departed when a relief
expedition from France, under the command of Menneval's
brother Villebon, sailed into Port Royal. But as Villebon
had no sufficient force to reoccupy the fort, he pulled
down the English flag, replaced it by that of France,
and proceeded to the river St John. After a conference
with the Indians there he went to Quebec, and was present
with Frontenac in October when Phips appeared with his
summons to surrender. [Footnote: See The Fighting Governor
in this Series, chap. vii.] Villebon then went to France.
A year later he returned as governor of Acadia and took
up his quarters at Fort Jemseg, about fifty miles up the
St John river. Here he organized war-parties of Indians
to harry the English settlements; and the struggle
continued, with raid and counter-raid, until 1697, when