One of the three ships carried back the news of the victory, which was hailed with joy at Versailles; and a medal was struck to commemorate it. The ship carried also a despatch from Frontenac. "Now that the king has triumphed by land and sea," wrote the old soldier, "will he think that a few squadrons of his navy would be ill employed in punishing the insolence of these genuine old parliamentarians of Boston, and crushing them in their den and the English of New York as well? By mastering these two towns, we shall secure the whole sea-coast, besides the fisheries of the Grand Bank, which is no slight matter: and this would be the true, and perhaps the only, way of bringing the wars of Canada to an end; for, when the English are conquered, we can easily reduce the Iroquois to complete submission." [23] [23] Frontenac au Ministre, 9 et 12 Nov., 1690. Phips returned crestfallen to Boston late in November; and one by one the rest of the fleet came straggling after him, battered and weather-beaten. Some did not appear till February, and three or four never came at all. The autumn and early winter were unusually stormy. Captain Rainsford, with sixty men, was wrecked on the Island of Anticosti, where more than half their number died of cold and misery. [24] In the other vessels, some were drowned, some frost-bitten, and above two hundred killed by small-pox and fever. [24] Mather, Magnalia, I. 192. At Boston, all was dismay and gloom. The Puritan bowed before "this awful frown of God," and searched his conscience for the sin that had brought upon him so stern a chastisement. [25] Massachusetts, already impoverished, found herself in extremity. The war, instead of paying for itself, had burdened her with an additional debt of fifty thousand pounds. [26] The sailors and soldiers were clamorous for their pay; and, to satisfy them, the colony was forced for the first time in its history to issue a paper currency. It was made receivable at a premium for all public debts, and was also fortified by a provision for its early redemption by taxation; a provision which was carried into effect in spite of poverty and distress. [27]