Presently a boat was put out
from the sloop, and two men and a boy came rowing towards me.
Standing off a little distance from the shore, they asked what
was wanted.
"The King's errand," was my reply in French, and I must be
carried down the river by them, for which I would pay generously.
Then, with idle gesture, I said that if they wished some drink,
there was a bottle of rum near my fire, above me, to which they
were welcome; also some game, which they might take as a gift to
their captain and his crew.
This drew them like a magnet, and, as I lit my pipe, their boat
scraped the sand, and, getting out, they hauled her up and came
towards me. I met them, and, pointing towards my fire, as it might
appear, led them up behind the rocks, when, at a sign, my men
sprang up, the fellows were seized, and were forbidden to cry out
on peril of their lives. I compelled them to tell what hands and
what arms were left on board. The sloop from which they came, and
the schooner, its consort, were bound for Gaspe, to bring provisions
for several hundred Indians assembled at Miramichi and Aristiguish,
who were to go by these same vessels to re-enforce the garrison of
Quebec.
The sloop, they said, had six guns and a crew of twenty men; but
the schooner, which was much larger, had no arms save muskets,
and a crew and guard of thirty men.
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