King William’s War (1689-1697), with its eight years of conscious peril, set new thoughts astir. It made America part of the stage upon which the great European conflict between French and English was to be fought out; and immediately a sort of continental air began to blow through colonial affairs. Colonial interests began to seem less local, more like interests held in common, and the colonies began to think of themselves as part of an empire. They had no great part in the war, it is true. Hale Sir William Phips, that frank seaman adventurer, led an expedition against Acadia in 1690, took Port Royal, and stripped the province of all that could be brought away; but that had hardly had the dignity of formal war. He had chiefly relished the private gain got out of it as a pleasant reminder of that day of fortune when he had found the Spanish treasure-ship sunk upon a reef in far Hispaniola. His second expedition, made the same year against Quebec, no doubt smacked more of the regular business, for he undertook it as an accredited officer of the crown; but when it failed it is likely he thought more of the private moneys subscribed and lost upon it than of the defeat of the royal arms. There was here the irritation, rather than the zest, of great matters, and the colonial leaders were not becoming European statesmen of a sudden. Their local affairs were still of more concern to them than the policies of European courts. Nevertheless the war made a beginning of common undertakings. The colonies were a little drawn together, a little put in mind of matters larger than their own. [Illustration: AN EARLY VIEW OF QUEBEC]