ships, and was able with them to rout D'Aulnay's three vessels. His lady alertly followed up this advantage, visiting France to help strengthen his cause, and coming back by way of Boston. This visit on the part of the redoubtable madam seems not to have been of her planning, however. She had engaged Captain Bayley to transport her from London to Acadia whither she was anxious to bring, as soon as might be, stores and munitions which should aid her husband. But Bayley chose to put in at Boston. Promptly Madam La Tour sued him for damages, alleging that the six months consumed by the voyage had been an unreasonable length of time and that he had not taken her to Acadia as bargained for. The jury awarded her £2,000, for which Captain Bayley's ship was attached. This proved to be worth only £1,100, however, and it cost the Lady about £700 to hire vessels to convey her and her effects to Acadia. The colony, too, had ultimately to pay the damages it had awarded her. For the owners of the ship and cargo which Lady La Tour had attached promptly seized a Boston ship in London to indemnify themselves and, when it became doubtful whether they would be able to hold her, attached the bodies of Stephen Winthrop, the governor's son, who happened to be then in London, and of Captain Joseph Weld, who had been on the jury when the La Tour damages were awarded. Sir Harry Vane nobly came to the rescue of the Bostonians, thus winning from Winthrop the acknowledgment that "both now and at other times Mr. Vane showed himself a true friend of New England and a man of a noble and generous mind." Meanwhile Lady La Tour had arrived back at her stamping-ground and had offered her husband a very shrewd piece of advice. "Go to Boston, declare yourself to be a Protestant," she counselled, "ask for a minister to preach to the men at the fort, and promise that if the Bostonians help us to master D'Aulnay and conquer Acadia, we will share our conquests with them." This Machiavellian suggestion La Tour seized with avidity, and sailed gaily forth. Scarcely had he gone when his lady, falling one day into a transport of fury at some unpleasant turn of events, so berated and reviled the Récollet friars at Fort St. Jean, that they refused to stay under her roof, and set out for Port Royal in the depth of winter, taking with them eight strong soldiers, who were too good Catholics to remain longer in such a hotbed of heresy. At Port Royal this little party was most warmly received. D'Aulnay paid the eight soldiers their long overdue wages and lodged the friars with his own priests. Then he plied them all with questions and, learning that La Tour had gone to Boston, leaving only forty-five men to defend his wife and his fortress, he saw Heaven's smile at last, and leaped to seize the golden opportunity opened to him. Every man about Port Royal was hastily mustered into action. Then D'Aulnay crossed the Bay of Fundy with all his force, erected a fort on the west side of the river, and, after delaying for a time in an attempt to win over more of La Tour's men (capturing incidentally a small vessel which had been sent from Boston loaded with provisions and bearing a letter to tell Lady La Tour that her husband would join her in a month), he brought his cannons into position, and made as if he would batter down the fortress. The garrison was summoned to surrender, but when for answer they hung out a red flag and "shouted a thousand insults and blasphemies," accompanying the same with a volley of cannon shots directed by the intrepid Amazon, D'Aulnay could do nothing but fight the thing to a finish. In spite of the gallant |