There were four wars between the English and the French during the colonial time. The first was called "King William's War," from William III, King of England. It lasted from 1689 to 1697. In this war the first severe blow fell on the settlements of Maine, where the American Indians in the French interest attacked the settlers in June, 1689, paying old grudges by torturing their victims. But the French did not escape. The Iroquois Indians were in alliance with the English, and had, besides, their own reasons for taking revenge on the French. In this same summer of 1689 they attacked the settlements about Montreal at daybreak, and killed, in their horrible way, two hundred people, and carried as many more into captivity.

The French replied, not by assailing the American Indians, but by carrying fire and massacre into the province of New York. In the bitter weather of January, 1690, a party of one hundred and ten French and American Indians, having traveled through frozen forests for many days, entered Schenectady [sken-ec'-ta-dy] at midnight and massacred sixty of its people. Those who escaped fled half naked through the snow to Albany sixteen miles away. Another party, from Canada, fell on the settlement at Salmon Falls, New Hampshire, and a third carried the like horrors to Casco Bay, in Maine. All the people on the frontier of the Northern colonies were now in terror.

To meet the danger, some sort of united action among the colonies was necessary. A congress of commissioners from several colonies met in New York, in 1690, and planned an invasion of Canada. In accordance with this plan. Sir William Phips took Port Royal, in Nova Scotia. Two expeditions were sent against Quebec: the one from New York and Connecticut went by Lakes George and Champlain; the other, from Boston, under Sir William Phips, was sent in a fleet of thirty-four ships. The land expedition was a failure, and never even reached Canada. The fleet reached Quebec, but failed to capture it.

But Peter Schuyler, of Albany, a man much beloved by the Iroquois, who called him "Quider," led an expedition, in 1696, into the French settlements. He did what he could to prevent cruelties. But the war was made up of barbarities and miseries without result, until peace between France and England, in 1697, brought a little welcome repose to the colonists of both nations, after eight years of war.

In 1702 began the war known as "Queen Anne's War." In this war England fought against Spain as well as France. South Carolina was involved in a war with the Spaniards and American Indians of Florida, while the Northern colonies were struggling against Canada. The Governor of South Carolina made successful inroads upon the Florida Indians, but he could not capture St. Augustine. Port Royal, in Nova Scotia, was again taken from the French in 1710, but the attempts made to take Quebec were once more a failure. The Avar was chiefly notable for the horrible onslaughts of the Canada Indians on some of the towns of the Northern frontier. Deerfield, in western Massachusetts, was destroyed in 1704, and more than a hundred of its people carried into captivity. The war lasted about eleven years. A treaty was made in 1713, and there Was a long peace between France and England. But the intrigues of both powers with the American Indians continued, and New England had many bloody engagements with the American Indians of Maine, who were under the influence of the French.

In 1740, during a war with Spain, General Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia, tried to conquer Florida, but the fortifications of St. Augustine were too strong for him. Two years later the Spaniards invaded Georgia, but Oglethorpe maneuvered his little force with so much skill as to lead the Spanish into ambuscades and defeat them at every point.

In 1744 the war between England and France, known as "King George's War," began. At that time many French privateers were sent out to plunder New England ships. These privateers came out of Louisbourg [loo-ee-boorg], a French stronghold on Cape Breton Island. Governor Shirley, of Massachusetts, sent against this place four thousand untrained New England militia. They were commanded by a merchant, and their officers did not know even the meaning of military terms. But they made up in courage and enthusiasm for their inexperience. The Americans had few cannons, but their favorite amusement had always been target-shooting, and the deadly skill with which they used their muskets made it almost impossible for the French to work their guns. The excitement over this contest put a stop to almost all kinds of business in the Eastern colonies, and when at length the powerful fortress surrendered to a little army of farmers and mechanics, there was no end of joy in New England. This was the chief victory of the war, and it gave the American troops confidence in themselves. At the close of the war, in 1748, England returned the place again to the French, in exchange for advantages elsewhere. This was a bitter disappointment to the New Englanders, who called the day of its surrender a "black day, to be forever blotted out of New England calendars."