repair of the fort and deliver it at Annapolis. They had
complied for a time and had then quit work, fearing, as
they said, attacks from the Indian allies of the French,
who threatened to kill them if they aided the enemy.
Thereupon Vetch ordered an officer to take seventy-five
men and go up the river to the place where the timber
was being felled and 'inform the people that if they
would bring it down they would receive every imaginable
protection,' but if they were averse or delayed to do so
he was to 'threaten them with severity.' 'And let the
soldiers make a show of killing their hogs,' the order
ran, 'but do not kill any, and let them kill some fowls,
but pay for them before you come away.' Armed with this
somewhat peculiar military order, the troops set out.
But as they ascended the river they were waylaid by a
war-party of French and Indians, and within an hour every
man of the seventy-five English was either killed or
taken captive.

Soon after this tragic affair Vetch went to Boston to
take a hand in an invasion of Canada which was planned
for that summer. This invasion was to take place by both
sea and land simultaneously. Vetch joined the fleet of
Sir Hovenden Walker, consisting of some sixty vessels
which sailed from Boston in July. Meanwhile Colonel
Nicholson stood near Lake Champlain, with a force of
several thousand colonial troops and Six Nation Indians,
in readiness to advance on Canada to co-operate with the
fleet. But the fleet never got within striking distance.
Not far above the island of Anticosti some of the ships