Sixty years had passed since David Kirke took Quebec. A better leader than Phipps, he had had an easy task in starving out an infant settlement. The interval had been for Quebec a time of comparative peace. Sheltered on the land side by Three Rivers, Montreal, and the military outposts of the Richelieu, the town was practically safe from the Iroquois, while civil wars and Stuart Kings in England prevented invasion from the sea. One year and another {132} the furs which came down the river, or the supplies which were brought from France, were intercepted; but in the main the capital of New France enjoyed security and peace. It had grown, but was a very small town still, ill fortified, except by nature, and, if fortune and skill had combined, might well have been taken. But in 1690 there was no luck and little skill on the attacking side. The land campaign, which was to have kept Frontenac and his best troops at Montreal, failed just in time to enable all the available French forces to concentrate at Quebec. England, when asked by Massachusetts to help the expedition by arms and ammunition, sent nothing; and, while the appeal was being made, valuable time was lost. Phipps was at first too leisurely and afterwards too impatient to succeed, and wind and weather befriended the Frenchmen in Quebec. [Sidenote: _Phipps' expedition against Quebec._] [Sidenote: _Its failure._] It was the ninth of August when the New England commander sailed from Nantucket with thirty-four ships, and soldiers and sailors to the number of 2,200 men. It was the sixteenth of October when he anchored before Quebec. He sent a pompous summons to surrender, which provoked an insulting reply, and then prepared to land his troops below the town, to attack it in rear, while his ships opened fire in front. It was a hopeless enterprise. The night after the English fleet appeared, strong reinforcements came in from Montreal, and Frontenac had at his disposal not far short of 3,000 fighting men. On the eighteenth, the New England levies were landed on the Beauport shore, having the river St. Charles between them and Quebec. They were between 1,200 and 1,300 in number, commanded by Major Walley. Short of food and supplies, sickening in the wet weather, out-numbered by disciplined troops and Canadian rangers, who fought under cover and with the advantage of the ground, they could do nothing but prove themselves brave and stubborn men. Phipps on shipboard gave them no support, wasting his ammunition in a wild and useless cannonade {133} against the face of the cliff and the walls of the upper town; and in ten days time all the men were re-embarked and the ships set sail for home. [Sidenote: _Boldness of the attempt._]