The fleet under his command sailed from Nantasket about the 1st May, and on the 11th reached Port Royal. Menneval, the governor, had under his command a garrison consisting of not far short of one hundred men. The fort had also been provided with twenty cannon; but these, it appears, had not been mounted. Menneval must have judged that the place was incapable of defence, because, when summoned by Phipps to surrender, he complied without making any attempt at resistance. He stipulated that private property as well as the church should be respected, and that the garrison should be returned to France. Phipps might have insisted on surrender at discretion, as he clearly saw when he entered into possession of the fort; but as he had not done so, honour required that he should observe the terms he had made. This, unfortunately for his reputation, he did not do. Availing himself of the pretext afforded by the fact that some goods belonging to the king had been carried away from the fort and secreted in the woods, he proceeded to plunder the traders of the place and desecrate the church. It is one of his own men who writes: "We cut down the cross, pulled down their high altar, and broke their images." The inhabitants in general were promised security for life, liberty, and property, on condition of swearing allegiance to the English Crown, which they did with great alacrity. The fact was they had dealt so much with the New Englanders in the way of business that they had little prejudice against them, while they had been so much neglected by the French government, both politically and ecclesiastically, not to speak of being robbed by its agents, that their national feelings had been but little cultivated. Phipps had with him such a force as they had never seen before--seven hundred men; and the probability is that they hoped for greater quiet and surer protection under English rule than, so far as they could see, they were likely to enjoy under that of France. Phipps seemed to have assumed that they would remain true to their new allegiance, for he did not leave any garrison in the country, but invited the people to govern themselves by means of a council consisting of six ordinary members and a president, whom he chose from amongst themselves. Acadia was now to rank as a colony of Massachusetts, which was thus affording the earliest example of American "imperialism," though in a liberal fashion.