All the attempts of the English failed; in a fierce combat at Beauport they were repulsed. There perished the brave Le Moyne de Sainte-Helene; there, too, forty pupils of the seminary established at St. Joachim by Mgr. de Laval distinguished themselves by their bravery and contributed to the victory. Already Phipps had lost six hundred men. He decided to retreat. To cap the climax of misfortune, his fleet met in the lower part of the river with a horrible storm; several of his ships were driven by the winds as far as the Antilles, and the rest arrived only with great difficulty at Boston. Winthrop's army, disorganized by disease and discord, had already scattered. A famine which followed the siege tried the whole colony, and Laval had to suffer by it as well as the seminary, for neither had hesitated before the sacrifices necessary for the general weal. "All the furs and furniture of the Lower Town were in the seminary," wrote the prelate; "a number of families had taken refuge there, even that of the intendant. This house could not refuse in such need all the sacrifices of charity which were possible, at the expense of a great portion of the provisions which were kept there. The soldiers and others have taken and consumed at least one hundred cords of wood and more than fifteen hundred planks. In brief, in cattle and other damages the loss to the seminary will amount to a round thousand crowns. But we must on occasions of this sort be patient, and do all the good we can without regard to future need."