By Thomas Lecaque

It was judged not amiss just to hint at these former successes, with which heaven had favoured the British arms, before we came to those later ones, which fall within the period mentioned above; and which are now to be spoken of. Only it is to be observed, that as this discourse is not designed for an history, much less for a journal, of sieges,   voyages, and campaigns; so it must not be expected, that I should be minutely circumstantial; but only speak of the great things which God has done for us, in a summary, general way; which, it is conceived, is the only one that is proper for this place and occasion.^[1]

The wars between New France and New England are part of a wider range of imperial conflicts—the first world wars like the Seven Years’ War, the War of Austrian Succession, the War of the Spanish Succession and the Nine Years’ War were conflicts between European empires fought on three or four or five continents, not just in the North American colonies. There is a popular cultural tendency in examining the long eighteenth century to adopt Enlightenment rhetoric about the wars and societies that fight them, that this is the era where modernity begins, and that modernity is rational.^[2] An era where, as Timothy Pearson wrote, in New France:

General interest in the religious mission of the colony was gradually supplanted in France by a focus on imperial rivalries, commerce, and war. Although holy performances continued in the colony, their proponents struggled to find audiences beyond the immediate community. As the fervor of the Tridentine reform passed, the urgency that had characterized colonial religiosity in earlier years also subsided.^[3]

I’ve argued that holy war rhetoric permeates New France in the eighteenth century elsewhere—but the same is true in New England, about the same events, with a deeply apocalyptic twist.^[4] The “Age of Reason” was once a popular discourse, and if the most visibly mystical aspects of the seventeenth century retreated, the eighteenth century was still filled with holy war, conspiracies, and the supernatural. The failure of the Phips’ and Walker Expeditions in 1690 and 1711 respectively provoked religious responses in New England, and both were referenced once again when Quebec fell in 1759.  And that religious anxiety—or excitement—for the apocalypse would carry on through the later eighteenth century, after the Seven Years’ War and into the Quebec Act and American Revolution. The North—New France, Quebec, Acadia, all of it—was not a separate and distinct realm that Puritans wanted to leave be. It was the realm of Gog and Magog, it was the North American Babylon, it was dominion of the Antichrist and their most anti-christian neighbors—and its conquest was their mission, their task by divine command, the final battle of their apocalypse. 

These eschatological dreams are not small things—the fall of Quebec was imagined as ushering in the millennial dream, the thousand year Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. Cotton Mather heavily promoted the 1690 expedition against Quebec, which Sir William Phips led. Mather was Phips’ pastor—Phips’ joined Mather’s church weeks before the expedition—and he wrote a book on Phips’ life as part of his opus Magnalia Christi Americana. Mather was also deeply concerned about the oppression of Reformed Christians in France, the plight of the Huguenots, and wrote about it across his work; the concern about Quebec and the French presence north of New England was tied with a broader concern about the oppressions of the French and the forces of Antichrist everywhere. On the eve of the expedition, Mather gave a lecture in Boston, entitled “The present state of New-England,” about the start of King William’s War. For Mather, both the Phips expedition and the larger war represented, not just political conflicts between empires, but also eschatological events of monumental proportion—the “Happy Chiliad,” the millennialist belief that the Second Coming of Christ would lead to a thousand year period of peace and righteousness on earth:^[5]

Tis, That if the Blessed God intend that the Divel shall keep America during the Happy Chiliad which His Church is now very quickly Entring into, (I say, very quickly, for tis now past Question with me, That the Second Wo is past; and the Third you know then Cometh quickly) then our Lord Jesus will within a few Months break up House among us, and we go for our Lodging either to Heaven or to Europe in a very little while. But if our God will wrest America out of the Hands of its old Land-Lord, Satan, and give these utmost ends of the Earth to our Lord Jesus, than our present conflicts will shortly be blown over, and something better than, A Golden Age, will arrive to this place, and this perhaps before all of our First Planters are fallen a sleep.^[6]

Cotton Mather’s apocalyptic interest was a lifelong passion, spanning 30 years and 50 publications.^[7] A year after the failure of the Phips’ expedition, in a sermon to the Artillery Company of Boston entitled “Things to be look’d for,” Mather proclaimed an imminent eschatology: “The Period of the Papacy seems to be at the Door; and our Blessed State of Peace, will then be quickly Introduced,” with the Papacy referring to the Antichrist as much as to the institution itself.^[8] When Mather wrote Phips’ biography, he blamed the winter storms and smallpox that led to Phips’ defeat on God’s design: “Thus, by an evident Hand of Heaven, sending one unavoidable Disaster after another, as well-formed an Enterprize, as perhaps was ever made by the New-Englanders, most unhappily miscarried; and General Phips underwent a very mortifying Disappointment of a Design, which his Mind was, as much as ever any, set upon.”^[9] The failure of the  Phips expedition, however, was not a permanent failure, nor did it in any way dissuade Mather and later Puritan thinkers from believing in the fundamental truth of their apocalyptic vision—if one expedition to Quebec failed, another would succeed, because Quebec was, as Eli Forbes preached in 1760, the “North-American Babylon.” ^[10]

The failure of the Walker Expedition in 1711 likewise was blamed on God’s design—that the New England forces were being tested and tried, or punished for their sin. This time, it was Increase Mather, in a 1711 text entitled “Burnings bewailed.”^[11] The sermon opened with discussing a large fire in Boston, blaming it on the sins of the people of Boston. Among others, he complained about people who profaned the Sabbath day by people working: “When I saw this, My Heart said, A Rebuke from Heaven will surely attend the Canada Expedition, because of this Transgression.”^[12] This link may seem strange—profaning the Sabbath, a fire in Boston, a military failure. But the need reform and apocalyptic warfare, tied together, have an incredibly long tradition in western Christendom.^[13] Increase’s connecting the three events puts him in a  long and venerable tradition. And indeed, Increase is very clear that the Walker Expedition failed because of God’s wrath:

And this comes upon us immediately on the Back of another Judgment; as to present Appearance Seven times greater than any that ever befel New-England: I intend the Blast   of God which has been on the Late Expedition against our Canadian Enemies. Men are imputing the Disappointment to such and such Persons. I am no Judge in those Affairs. But sure I am, that the Lord has destroy’d those Vessels & Lives which Perished on the Fatal Rocks; and if the Anger of the Lord had not been Kindled, it would not have been    as it is. How may it astonish us, to see the Holy LORD seeming to take part with His and our Enemies, who are Idolaters, and have been Murderers; and His Anger to Smoke against the Prayers of His People?^[14]

While Increase and Cotton differed in other areas, they were both certain events corresponded to an apocalyptic timeframe. Increase’s 1708 sermon “A sermon shewing that the present dispensations of providence declare that wonderful revolutions in the world are near at hand” focused on how the Papacy was Antichrist, that the earthquakes around the world were a sign that the apocalypse was here, and that Queen Anne’s War might be part of the Third Trumpet of Revelation.^[15] The failure of these two expeditions, then, is not a failure of New England arms, but of New England piety—God testing his people or punishing them, not God protecting Quebec as the French claimed. This is common language, not just among Puritans but among Christendom as a whole; what makes it more broadly important, though, is that this connection to an apocalyptic struggle around Quebec lives on despite failures to take the city. The end is ALWAYS nigh; these failures are not a sign that Quebec is not a target of apocalyptic fervor, nor that God has abandoned the Puritans, but rather that they need to do more work to be worthy of that inevitable apocalypse. 

When Quebec finally fell to English forces, pastors returned to this theme and the failed expeditions. The apocalyptic themes are common throughout. Nathaniel Appleton’s 1760 sermon, for example, uses Revelation 15:3-4 as his verse introduction, the song of Moses by those who have victoriously defeated the Beast and his signs and supporters. The victory is God’s, using a “Protestant Prince” as an instrument of punishment upon the Catholic powers:

And as Canada was the only Province of Roman Catholicks in these Northern Parts of America, so God has now made himself known by the awful Judgments which he has executed upon Them: And since God has now delivered it up into the Hands of a Protestant Prince; may it be preserved in such hands, until the Romish corrupt Principles be utterly extirpated so as never to have Root again in this New World!^[16]

Not only is the victory one of God’s deliverance, but it is connected to the multiple waves of attacks against Quebec in the past. The previous attacks failed because it was not yet time—God was choosing them in this moment for the final battle. As Appleton says,

These are glorious Times; which our Fathers desired to see, but could not see them. They were sorely afflicted with the Canadians of their Day; and they once and again attempted the taking of that Country: First, in the Year 1690, only with the Forces we could raise among ourselves: Afterwards, in the Year 1711, assisted by a powerful Fleet, and well-disciplined Troops from Home. But in both these Expeditions they were defeated, and came off with great Loss and Damage: And this glorious Conquest has been reserved for our Day. Praises have been waiting for God upon this Account to this Day: Now let the Vow be performed.—Now, if ever, we may sing the Song of Moses, to the Honour of God, and of the Lamb.^[17]

This apocalyptic discourse—connected to the defeat of the Beast, connecting the past expeditions to the present victory, and the Papacy to Antichrist—is relatively common in sermons about the reduction of Canada. Eli Forbes in 1761 sermon wrote, “But God has done greater things than these, and given us to sing this Day, the Downfall of New France, the North-American Babylon, New-England’s Rival.”^[18] He would later discuss both the failure of the Walker Expedition and the failure of Catholic prayers to the Virgin Mary to save Fort Ticonderoga.^[19] Jonathan Mayhew pointed out the failure of the Walker Expedition in 1711, compared to God’s favor on the British fleet and army in 1760. He wrote that the Catholic faith of the French defenders betrayed them:

Or, perhaps, thou thinkest thy relicks, thy crosses, and thy saints, either St. Peter, or thy great Lady, whom thou profanely stilest “The mother God,” will now befriend, and make thee victorious. But remember, that little host now in array against thee, worship the God that made the heavens, earth, and seas, with all that they contain; the Lord of hosts is his name! His is the glory and the victory; and know, that the event of this battle shall be accordingly! Cross thyself speedily, if thou thinkest it will be of any advantage to thee!^[20]

The language of religious violence does not come just from one side—if New France was convinced the Virgin Mary was defending Quebec against the “heretick British,” New England Puritans were convinced that their defeats—and their inevitable victory—were in the hands of God, using them as a tool to defeat Antichrist and his armies in the New World. This had always been the project—Edward Johnson’s 1654 The Wonder-Working Providence of Sions Saviour in New-England, for example, introduced the work of settling Massachusetts Bay Colony by saying that the Puritan colonists should:

Know you are called to be faithful Soulders of Christ, not onely to assist in building up his Churches, but also in pulling downe the Kingdome of Anti-Christ, then sure you are not set up for tolerating times, nor shall any of you be content with this that you are set at liberty, but take up your Armes, and march manfully on till all opposers of Christs Kingly power be abolished: and as for you who are called to sound forth his silver Trumpets, blow loud and shrill, to this chiefest treble tune; for the Armies of the great Jehovah are at hand.^[21]

When Johnson was writing in the mid-seventeenth century, his focus was on the Pequot War. After King Philip’s War, however, horizons expanded beyond New England. If we are used to looking at this solely in the context of New England, Puritan authors from the late seventeenth century on were clear that it expanded north. The capture of Quebec was a victory beyond the political and territorial seizure of the realm; it was an eschatological one, divinely ordained, in its proper time, to end one world and bring about the new.

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Thomas Lecaque is an Associate Professor of History at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa, located on Baxoje, Meskwaki and Sauk lands. His primary research area is on the crusades and apocalypticism in the High Middle Ages, but he teaches broadly in medieval world, vast early America, and video games and history courses. He can also be found @tlecaque.

Title Image: British soldiers disembarking by moonlight on the Saint Lawrence River on the eve of the Battle of Quebec. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Further Reading:

Appleton, Nathaniel. A sermon preached October 9. Being a day of public thanksgiving, occasioned by the surrender of Montreal, and all Canada, September 8th. 1760. to His Britannic Majesty. Effected by the British and provincial troops under the command of General Amherst. By Nathaniel Appleton, A.M. Pastor of the First Church in Cambridge. [Six lines of Scripture texts]. Boston: Printed by John Draper, 1760.

Mather, Cotton. The present state of New-England considered in a discourse on the necessities and advantages of a public spirit in every man … : made at the lecture in Boston, 20 d. 1 m. 1690, upon the news of an invasion by bloody Indians and French-men begun upon us / by Cotton Mather. Boston: Printed by Samuel Green, 1690.

Mather, Increase. Burnings bewailed: in a sermon, occasioned by the lamentable fire which was in Boston, Octob. 2. 1711. In which the sins which provoke the Lord to kindle fires, are enquired into. / By Increase Mather, D.D. ; [Eight lines of Scripture texts]. Boston printed: Sold by Timothy Green, 1711.

Mayhew, Jonathan. Two discourses delivered October 25th. 1759. Being the day appointed by authority to be observed as a day of public thanksgiving, for the success of His Majesty’s arms, more particularly in the reduction of Quebec, the capital of Canada. : With an appendix, containing a brief account of two former expeditions against that city and country, which proved unsuccessful. Boston; New-England:: Printed and sold by Richard Draper, in Newbury-Street; Edes & Gill, in Queen-Street; and Thomas & John Fleet, in Cornhill., 1759. 

Penn, Nicole M. “Apocalypse Now: War and Religion in Late Colonial and Early Republic America.” MA thesis. College of William & Mary, 2016. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1057&context=etd

Rubenstein, Jay. Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream: The Crusades, Apocalyptic Prophecy, and the End of History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.

Endnotes:

^[1] Jonathan Mayhew, Two discourses delivered October 25th. 1759. Being the day appointed by authority to be observed as a day of public thanksgiving, for the success of His Majesty’s arms, more particularly in the reduction of Quebec, the capital of Canada. : With an appendix, containing a brief account of two former expeditions against that city and country, which proved unsuccessful (Boston; New-England:: Printed and sold by Richard Draper, in Newbury-Street; Edes & Gill, in Queen-Street; and Thomas & John Fleet, in Cornhill., 1759), p. 9. Boston, Congregational Library & Archive, RBR M 45.4 DI.

^[2] This is particularly connected to the American Revolution and the founding of the American Republic; see, for example, the description on the American Battlefield Trust, https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/age-enlightenment.

^[3] Timothy G. Pearson, Becoming Holy in Early Canada (Montreal & Kingston, London and Ithaca: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014), 33.

^[4] Thomas Lecaque, “Our Lady of Victories: Religious Violence and Liturgical Revolution in New France,” Age of Revolution, August 15, 2022, https://ageofrevolutions.com/2022/08/15/our-lady-of-victories-religious-violence-and-liturgical-revolution-in-new-france/

^[5] Geoffrey Plank, An Unsettled Conquest: The British Campaign against the Peoples of Acadia (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 15-16; for a basic description of millennialism, see Timothy P. Weber, “Millennisliam,” in The Oxford Handbook of Eschatology (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009), 365-383, https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/34387/chapter-abstract/291611768?redirectedFrom=fulltext.

^[6] Cotton Mather, The present state of New-England considered in a discourse on the necessities and advantages of a public spirit in every man … : made at the lecture in Boston, 20 d. 1 m. 1690, upon the news of an invasion by bloody Indians and French-men begun upon us / by Cotton Mather (Boston: Printed by Samuel Green, 1690), http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A50155.0001.001

^[7] Cotton Mather, Biblia Americana. America’s First Bible Commentary. A Synoptic Commentary on the Old and New Testament. Volume 1: Genesis, ed with introduction and annotations by Reiner Smolinski (Grand Rapids and Tübingen: Baker Academic and Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 16-7.

^[8] Cotton Mather, Things to be look’d for. Discourses on the glorious characters, with conjectures on the speedy approaches of that state, which is reserved for the church of God in the latter dayes. : Together with an inculcation of several duties, which the undoubted characters and approaches of that state, invite us unto: delivered unto the artillery company of the Massachusetts colony: New England; at their election of officers, for the year 1691. / By Cotton Mather. ; [Two lines from Luke] (Cambridge, MA: Printed by Samuel Green, 1691), p. 27. http://name.umdl.umich.edu/N00445.0001.001

^[9] Cotton Mather, Pietas in patriam the life of His Excellency Sir William Phips, Knt. late Captain General and Governour in Chief of the province of the Massachuset-Bay, New England, containing the memorable changes undergone, and actions performed by him / written by one intimately acquainted with him (London: Printed by Sam. Bridge … for Nath. Hiller, 1697), p. 41. http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A50149.0001.001

Boston, Congregational Library & Archive, RBR M42.3 PIE

^[10] Cotton Mather, Pietas in patriam, p. 41-42; Eli Forbes, God the Strength and Salvation of his People; illustrated in a Sermon Preached October 9, 1760. Being a Day of Public Thanksgiving appointed by Authority for the Success of the British Arms in North-America, Especially in the total reduction of Canada to the Crown of Great-Britain (Boston : Printed and sold by Edes & Gill, 1761), p. 10. Boston, Congregational Library & Archive, 15.5 5832.2

^[11] Increase Mather, Burnings bewailed: in a sermon, occasioned by the lamentable fire which was in Boston, Octob. 2. 1711. In which the sins which provoke the Lord to kindle fires, are enquired into. / By Increase Mather, D.D. ; [Eight lines of Scripture texts] (Boston printed: Sold by Timothy Green, 1711). http://name.umdl.umich.edu/N01269.0001.001

Boston, Congregational Library & Archive, RBR M42.4 BU

^[12] Increase Mather, Burnings bewailed, 25.

^[13] See, among many other examples, Jay Rubenstein, Armies of Heaven: The First Crusade and the Quest for Apocalypse (New York: Basic Books, 2011), and Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream: The Crusades, Apocalyptic Prophecy, and the End of History (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2019).

^[14] Increase Mather, Burnings bewailed, 31.

^[15] Increase Mather, A sermon shewing that the present dispensations of providence declare that wonderful revolutions in the world are near at hand : with an appendix, shewing some Scripture      ground to hope, that within a few years, glorious prophecies and promises will be fulfilled.  /  by the very Reverend Mr. Increase Mather D.D. Minister of the Gospel at Boston in New-England.  (Anno Dom. 1710) (Boston:: Printed by B. Green, 1708), p. 126-130; 134. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=evans;cc=evans;rgn=div1;view=text;idno=N01147.0001.001;node=N01147.0001.001:16

Boston, Congregational Library and Archive, RBR M42.4 SER (1710 Scottish edition of the sermon)

^[16] Nathaniel Appleton, A sermon preached October 9. Being a day of public thanksgiving, occasioned by the surrender of Montreal, and all Canada, September 8th. 1760. to His Britannic Majesty. Effected by the British and provincial troops under the command of General Amherst. By Nathaniel Appleton, A.M. Pastor of the First Church in Cambridge. [Six lines of Scripture texts] (Boston: Printed by John Draper, 1760), p. 26. Boston, Congregational Library and Archives, 15.5 5832.2.

^[17] Appleton, A sermon preached, p. 31.

^[18] Eli Forbes, God the strength,p. 10..

^[19] Forbes, God the strength, 14-15; 26.

^[20] Mayhew, Two discourses, 28.

^[21] Edward Johnson, The Wonder-Working Providence of Sions Saviour in New England, London 1654, with historical intro and index by William Frederick Poole (Andover: Warren F. Draper, 1867), 7.