[146] In a letter to Ponchartrain, _1 October, 1710_ (new style), Subercase declares that he has not a sou left, nor any credit. "I have managed to borrow enough to maintain the garrison for the last two years, and have paid what I could by selling all my furniture." Charlevoix's account of the siege has been followed by most writers, both French and English; but it is extremely incorrect. It was answered by one De Gannes, apparently an officer under Subercase, in a paper called _Observations sur les Erreurs de la Relation du Siege du Port Royal ... faittes sur de faux memoires par le reverend Pere Charlevoix_, whom De Gannes often contradicts flatly. Thus Charlevoix puts the besieging force at thirty-four hundred men, besides officers and sailors, while De Gannes puts it at fourteen hundred; and while Charlevoix says that the garrison were famishing, his critic says that they were provisioned for three months. See the valuable notes to Shea's _Charlevoix_, v. 227-232. The journal of Nicholson was published "by authority" in the _Boston News Letter, November, 1710_, and has been reprinted, with numerous accompanying documents, including the French and English correspondence during the siege, in the _Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical Society_, i. Vaudreuil, before the siege, sent a reinforcement to Subercase, who, by a strange infatuation, refused it. _N. Y. Col. Docs._, ix. 853. CHAPTER VIII. 1710, 1711. WALKER'S EXPEDITION. Scheme of La Ronde Denys.--Boston warned against British Designs.--Boston to be ruined.--Plans of the Ministry.--Canada doomed.--British Troops at Boston.--The Colonists denounced.--The Fleet sails for Quebec.--Forebodings of the Admiral.--Storm and Wreck.--Timid Commanders.--Retreat.--Joyful News for Canada.--Pious Exultation.--Fanciful Stories.--Walker Disgraced. Military aid from Old England to New, promised in one year and actually given in the next, was a fact too novel and surprising to escape the notice either of friends or of foes.