A cross border attack that turned out well for all concerned took place 38 years before the birth of George Washington and 125 before that of Sir John A. Macdonald.
Neither the United States nor Canada existed in name. Facing off were their forerunners, New England on the Atlantic coast and New France, to the north and east.
Louis, Count Frontenac was a popular two time Governor of New France. An imperious and proactive man, he led assaults against the Iroquois deep inside the territory of their English allies.
In his seventies, backed by a crack French regiment, he would lead the charge himself, brandishing a tomahawk and pistols, shouting orders and emitting war whoops.
New France surrounded New England on two sides, and in time the New Englanders stuck back. William Phipps, a successful privateer who later became Governor at Boston, led an expedition to take Québec.
He recruited a force with the twin motives of plunder and a religious crusade: puritans against the papists. Setting out when intelligence reports told him Québec's forces were seriously weakened by an epidemic of smallpox, his fleet sailed up the Saint Lawrence to the French fortress, arriving on October 16, 1690.
An emissary landed under a white flag, carrying an ultimatum to surrender within an hour. He was blindfolded on the beach, and marched up the hill over hastily constructed barricades, past local peasantry marching, banging ... and barking military orders.
The messenger was ushered into the Great Hall to meet the Governor in the company of every soldier who could fit into a uniform, now upgraded to officer rank and plumes of gentry. His ultimatum in the name of monarchs William and Mary was spurned.
Asked to put his rejection in writing, Frontenac retorted: "I have no reply for your general but from the mouths of my cannons and my muskets."
The ensuing attack fizzled under a downpour of rain and the superior position of French fire power. Phipps’ force limped back to Boston, leaving a legendary "victory" for the French, Québec and Canada. But the story does not end there.
The loss of the Québec campaign cost Phipps credibility in New England. He then moved to London England, where he successfully positioned himself to become Governor of Boston once a new charter was granted the colony.
Phipps returned to Boston with his appointment just after the peak of the hysteria of the Salem witch trials. As Governor, he set up the system of courts under which accused were charged and convicted.
However, he proved less of a zealot in the affair than many of his contemporaries. He refused to sign a number of death warrants, and pardoned eight whose warrants had already been signed by his Lieutenant Governor.
Governor Phipps offered the clemency of the same monarchs in whose name privateer Phipps had issued his ultimatum at Quebec. The executions virtually ceased, and the wave of hysteria subsided.
Phipps’ losing the attack on New France for New England was a win-win situation for both sides.
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