All the attempts of the English failed; in a fierce combat at Beauport they were repulsed.  There perished the brave Le Moyne de Sainte-Helene; there, too, forty pupils of the seminary established at St. Joachim by Mgr. de Laval distinguished themselves by their bravery and contributed to the victory.  Already Phipps had lost six hundred men.  He decided to retreat.  To cap the climax of misfortune, his fleet met in the lower part of the river with a horrible storm; several of his ships were driven by the winds as far as the Antilles, and the rest arrived only with great difficulty at Boston.  Winthrop’s army, disorganized by disease and discord, had already scattered.

A famine which followed the siege tried the whole colony, and Laval had to suffer by it as well as the seminary, for neither had hesitated before the sacrifices necessary for the general weal.  “All the furs and furniture of the Lower Town were in the seminary,” wrote the prelate; “a number of families had taken refuge there, even that of the intendant.  This house could not refuse in such need all the sacrifices of charity which were possible, at the expense of a great portion of the provisions which were kept there.  The soldiers and others have taken and consumed at least one hundred cords of wood and more than fifteen hundred planks.  In brief, in cattle and other damages the loss to the seminary will amount to a round thousand crowns.  But we must on occasions of this sort be patient, and do all the good we can without regard to future need.”

The English were about to suffer still other reverses.  In 1691 Major Schuyler, with a small army composed in part of savages, came and surprised below the fort of the Prairie de la Madeleine a camp of between seven and eight hundred soldiers, whose leader, M. de Saint-Cirque, was slain; but the French, recovering, forced the major to retreat, and M. de Valrennes, who hastened up from Chambly with a body of inhabitants and Indians, put the enemy to flight after a fierce struggle.  The English failed also in Newfoundland; they were unable to carry Fort Plaisance, which was defended by M. de Brouillan; but he who was to do them most harm was the famous Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville, son of Charles Le Moyne.  Born in Montreal in 1661, he subsequently entered the French navy.  In the year 1696 he was ordered to drive the enemy out of Newfoundland; he seized the capital, St. John’s, which he burned, and, marvellous to relate, with only a hundred and twenty-five men he subdued the whole island, slew nearly two hundred of the English, and took six or seven hundred prisoners.  The following year he set out with five ships to take possession of Hudson Bay.  One day his vessel found itself alone before Fort Nelson, facing three large ships of the enemy; to the amazement of the English, instead of surrendering, d’Iberville rushes upon them.  In a fierce fight lasting four hours, he sinks the strongest, compels the second to surrender, while the third flees under full sail.  Fort Bourbon surrendered almost at once, and Hudson Bay was captured.