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De Frontenac set earnestly to work to pacify his old enemies of the Five Nations. A new and more dreaded enemy had to be encountered. The Puritans of Massachusetts, provoked by De Frontenac's aggressions, resolved to attack Canada, in self-defence. Sir William Phipps, afterwards the first Captain General of Massachusetts, born on the River Kennebec, a man of extraordinary firmness and great energy, who had raised himself to eminence by honesty of purpose, a strong will, and good natural ability, was appointed to the command of an expedition, consisting of seven vessels and eight hundred men. The object of the expedition was the reduction of Port Royal, or Annapolis, in Nova Scotia, which Sir William speedily and easily accomplished. A second expedition, under Sir William, was resolved upon, for the reduction of Montreal and Quebec. Two thousand men were to penetrate into Canada by Lake Champlain, to attack Montreal, at the same time that the naval armament, consisting of between thirty and forty ships, should invest Quebec. The expedition failed. The Commissariat and Pontoon Departments of the land expedition, were sadly deficient, and the naval expedition did not reach Quebec until late in October. The weather became tempestuous, and scattered the fleet, while the land force to Montreal mutinied through hunger. Sir William, on the 22nd of October, re-embarked the soldiers which he had landed, and sailed, without carrying with him his field pieces or ammunition waggons. Humiliating as the repulse was to Massachusetts, it was highly creditable to De Frontenac, who now easily succeeded in winning over the Five Nation Indians. Indeed, matters had so very much changed, that these enemies of his most Christian Majesty solicited the Governor to rebuild the fort at Cataraqui, which was accordingly done. The Indians were not, however, unanimous in their desire for peace. There was a war and a peace party. To show his power, De Frontenac conceived the idea of a great expedition against the Indians. He collected regulars, militia, and all the friendly Indians to be procured, and, marching to Cataraqui, passed into the country of the Onondagos. On entering a lake, it was ascertained by the symbol of two bundles of rushes, that 1,434 fighting men were in readiness to receive them. De Frontenac threw up an earthwork, or log fort, to fall back upon, and proceeded. De Callières, Governor of Montreal, commanded the left wing; De Vaudreuil the right; and De Frontenac, now 76 years of age, was carried, like Menschikoff at Alma, in the centre, in an elbow chair. The Indians fell back, and as they did so, pursued the Russian policy of destroying their own forts by fire. The French never came up with the Onondagos or Oneidas, but contented themselves with destroying grain, and returned to Montreal.