In 1691, the year after Phipps had taken Port Royal, a new charter was granted by the Crown to Massachusetts, which included Acadia within the limits of the colony. But in the same year, and in the very month of September in which the charter was given, the Frenchman Villebon reoccupied Port Royal, and four years later, Massachusetts, unwilling or unable to make good its claim, petitioned the British Government to take over its rights and responsibilities in regard to the Acadian peninsula. Whether in English or in French hands, Port Royal remained a small, ill-fortified, and poorly defended post, constantly open to, and constantly threatened with attack. In 1704, after and in consequence of the French raid on Deerfield, a buccaneering force from New England, under Major Benjamin Church, appeared before it, having previously burnt the Acadian settlement of Grand Pré, but sailed away without venturing to attack the fort. In 1707, a stronger expedition was sent from Massachusetts and the neighbouring colonies under Colonel John March; but again, though the troops landed, skirmished, and began a siege, the enterprise came to nothing. {140} [Sidenote: _Samuel Vetch._] In 1709 preparations were made for more vigorous and more effective action. In the previous year the colony of Massachusetts resolved to appeal to the British Government for help from home to attack Canada. Their emissary to England was Samuel Vetch, a notable man of the time in North American history. He was a Scotchman, the son of a Presbyterian minister, born and bred in Puritan surroundings; he had served in the Cameronian regiment, and had fought on the continent in William III's armies. After the Peace of Ryswick he went out with other would-be colonists to the Isthmus of Darien, and, on the failure of the scheme, came over to New York. There he married and engaged in trade with Canada, gaining a knowledge of New France, its river, and its people, which subsequently stood him in good stead. Like Phipps, he was a shrewd, self-made man, whose enemies accused him, apparently with reason, of illicit dealings; like Phipps, he had seen the world outside New England and New York; and, having seen it and having taken stock of Canada as well as of the English colonies, he was a warm advocate, as Phipps had been before him, of united and aggressive action against the French. [Sidenote: _His mission to England._] [Sidenote: _British aid promised to New England._]