All that remained now was to make the best of their melancholy way to Boston. Frontenac had sent a small force under M. Subercase to the Island of Orleans to watch the departing fleet, which might, had its commander been so minded, have committed serious depredations on the parishes along the river. Phipps sent ashore to ask Subercase if there would be any objection to his buying supplies from the inhabitants. The reply was that he might buy what he liked, and a lively trade, very profitable to the farmers, at once sprang up between them and the squadron. Negotiations for an exchange of prisoners followed. Phipps, as we have seen, had captured some on his way up; and he had with him two ecclesiastics whom he had taken in Acadia. The French on their side had Sylvanus Davis, the former commandant of Fort Loyal, two daughters of Captain Clarke who had been killed in the attack on that fort, and a little girl called Sarah Gerrish. All these had received good treatment during their detention at Quebec, and the little girls had particularly endeared themselves to the nuns to whose charge they had been confided, and who were much grieved at having to give them up. If the weather had been bad on the way to Quebec it was worse on the return. Without the aid of a pilot, Phipps had succeeded in bringing all his vessels safely to Quebec, but on the home voyage several were lost. One, Cotton Mather relates, was never heard of. A second was wrecked, but most of its crew were saved. A third was cast on the coast, and all on board, with the exception of one man, perished through drowning, starvation, or at the hands of the Indians. A fourth was stranded on the Island of Anticosti. There seemed to be no means of escape from this dreary shore; and forty-one of the crew had already died of hardship, when the captain, John Rainsford by name, and four others determined that they would try to reach Boston in an open boat, in order that, if they escaped the perils of the sea, they might send help to those still alive on the island. It was the 25th March when they put forth in their most precarious craft. "Through a thousand dangers from the sea and ice, and almost starved with hunger and cold," to use the words of Cotton Mather's recital, they arrived at Boston on the 11th May. As soon as a proper vessel could be procured, Rainsford started back to rescue the survivors. Four had died during his absence. Death was staring the remainder in the face, when the sail they had hardly dared to hope for flickered on the horizon. It was too good to be true, and yet it was true. Their heroic captain had come to their relief; and on the 28th June he landed them, seventeen in number, once more on New England soil. [Footnote 44: See "Winthrop's Journal" in _New York Colonial Documents_, vol. iv. p. 193.] [Footnote 45: The letter is given in Cotton Mather's _Magnalia_, vol. i. p. 186.] [Footnote 46: _New York Colonial Documents_, vol. ix. p. 486.]