In tracing out the main features of the early wars upon our northern frontier, it must be borne in mind that nearly the same portion of country which is now possessed by the English, was then occupied by the French, and that the English possessions in North America included the present Middle and Northern States. At the period of the American revolution the French and English had completely changed ground, the armies of the former operating in the "States," while the English were in possession of Canada. The first expedition to be noticed against that portion of the country, was conducted by Samuel Argall, who sailed from Virginia in 1613, with a fleet of eleven vessels, attacked the French on the Penobscot, and afterwards the St. Croix. In 1654, Sedgwick, at the head of a small New England army, attacked the French on the Penobscot, and overrun all Arcadia. In 1666, during the contest between Charles II. and Louis XIV., it was proposed to march the New England troops across the country by the Kennebec or Penobscot, and attack Quebec; but the terrors and difficulties of crossing "over rocky mountains and howling deserts" were such as to deter them from undertaking the campaign. In 1689, Count Frontenac, governor of Canada, made a descent into New York to assist the French fleet in reducing that province. His line of march was by the river Sorrel and Lake Champlain. An attack upon Montreal by the Iroquois soon forced him to return; but in the following January a party of French and Indians left Montreal in the depth of a Canadian winter, and after wading for two and twenty days, with provisions on their backs, through snows and swamps and across a wide wilderness, reached the unguarded village of Schenectady. Here a midnight war-whoop was raised, and the inhabitants either massacred or driven half-clad through the snow to seek protection in the neighboring towns. In 1690, a congress of the colonies, called to provide means for the general defence, assembled at New York, and resolved to carry war into Canada: an army was to attack Montreal by way of Lake Champlain, and a fleet to attempt Quebec by the St. Lawrence. The former advanced as far as the lake, when the quarrels of the commanding officers defeated the objects of the expedition. The Massachusetts fleet of thirty-four vessels, (the largest carrying forty-four guns each,) and two thousand men, failed to reduce Quebec, though the defences of that place were then of the slightest character, and armed with only twenty-three guns. In 1704, and again in 1707, Port Royal was attacked by costly expeditions fitted out by the eastern colonies; and again, in 1709, a land force of fifteen hundred men advanced against Montreal by Lake Champlain; but nothing of importance was effected by either expedition.