for his king and the home he was defending.  His stand at the bridge over the Wooster river, sword in hand, when pressed on his retreat by an overwhelming force of English, holding the pass till all his men are over, is worthy of an epic.  He was forty-seven years old at the time.  The three eldest of his nine sons were with him in that little band of twenty-six Frenchmen, and two of his nephews.  ‘To the New England of old,’ says Parkman ’Francois Hertel was the abhorred chief of Popish malignants and murdering savages.  The New England of to-day will be more just to the brave defender of his country and his faith.’

The atrocities committed by the French and Indians are enough to make one shudder even at this distance of time.  As Frontenac adopted the plan and sent forth the war-parties, the moral responsibility in large part rests with him.  There are, however, some facts to consider before judgment is passed as to the degree of his culpability.  The modern distinction between combatants and non-combatants had little meaning in the wilds of America at this period.  When France and England were at open war, every settler was a soldier, and as such each man’s duty was to keep on his guard.  If caught napping he must take the consequences.  Thus, to fall upon an unsuspecting hamlet and slay its men-folk with the tomahawk, while brutal, was hardly more brutal than under such circumstances we could fairly expect war to be.

The massacre of women and children is another matter, not to be excused on any grounds, even though Schenectady and Salmon Falls are paralleled by recent acts of the Germans in Belgium.  Still, we should not forget that European warfare in the age of Frontenac abounded with just such atrocities as were committed at Schenectady, Dover, Pemaquid, Salmon Falls, and Casco Bay.  The sack of Magdeburg, the wasting of the Palatinate, and, perhaps, the storming of Drogheda will match whatever was done by the Indian allies of Frontenac.  These were unspeakable, but the savage was little worse than his European contemporary.  Those killed were in almost all cases killed outright, and the slaughter was not indiscriminate.  At Schenectady John Sander Glen, with his whole family and all his relations, were spared because he and his wife had shown kindness to French prisoners taken by the Mohawks.  Altogether sixty people were killed at Schenectady (February 9, 1690), thirty-eight men, ten women, and twelve children.  Nearly ninety were carried captive to Canada.  Sixty old men, women, and children were left unharmed.  It is not worth while to take up the details of the other raids.  They were of much the same sort—­no better and no worse.  Where a garrison surrendered under promise that it would be spared, the promise was observed so far as the Indians could be controlled; but English and French alike when they used Indian allies knew well that their excesses could not be prevented, though they might be moderated.  The captives as a rule were treated with kindness and clemency when once the northward march was at an end.