The Governor [of Massachusetts, Shirley] had proclaimed a Fast Day to pray for deliverance from this present peril. Everywhere men observed it, thronging to the churches.
In Boston the Reverend Thomas Prince, from the high pulpit of the Old South Meeting-house, prayed before hundreds. The morning was clear and calm, people had walked to church through sunshine. “Deliver us from our enemy!” the minister implored. “Send Thy tempest, Lord, upon the waters to the eastward! Raise Thy right hand. Scatter the ships of our tormentors and drive them hence. Sink their proud frigates beneath the power of Thy winds!”
He had scarcely pronounced the words when the sun was gone and the morning darkened. All the church was in shadow. A wind shrieked round the walls, sudden, violent, hammering at the windows with a giant hand. No man was in the steeple — afterward the sexton swore it — yet the great bell struck twice, a wild, uneven sound. Thomas Prince paused in his prayer, both arms raised. “We hear Thy voice, O Lord!” he thundered triumphantly. “We hear it! Thy breath is upon the waters to the eastward, even upon the deep. Thy bell tolls for the death of our enemies!” He bowed his head; when he looked up, tears streamed down his face. “Thine be the glory, Lord. Amen and amen!”
Amen and amen! said Massachusetts, her hope renewed. All the Province heard of this prayer and this answering tempest. Governor Shirley sent a sloop, the Rising Sun, northward for news. The Rising Sun found the French fleet south of Chebucto
[now Halifax Harbor] and got chased for her pains. But she brought news so good it was miraculous — if one could believe it. . . . Two of the largest French frigates had sunk in a storm, they said, on the Isle of Sable. The whole fleet was nearly lost, the men very sick with scurvy or some pestilential fever. Their great admiral, the Duc d’Anville, was dead.
A week later the news was confirmed by other vessels entering Boston from the northeastward. D’Anville was indeed dead; it was said he had poisoned himself in grief and despair when he saw his men dying round him. Two thousand were already buried, four thousand were sick, and not above a thousand of the land forces remained on their feet. Vice-Admiral d’Estournelle had run himself through the heart with his sword.(1)
Yet on the 16th, the remaining forces pressed forward on their voyage with plans to lay waste to New England. Rev. French writes:
On this great emergency, and day of darkness and doubtful expectation, the 16th of October was observed as a day of Fasting and Prayer throughout the Province. And, wonderful to relate, that very night God sent upon them a more dreadful storm than either of the former, and completed their destruction. Some overset, some foundered, and a remnant only of this miserable fleet, returned to France to carry the news. Thus New England stood still, and saw the salvation of God.(2)
Bowen declares:
Pestilence, storm and sudden death — how directly and with what extraordinary vigor the Lord had answered New England prayers!
The country fell on its knees. Pharaoh’s hosts overwhelmed in the Red Sea were no greater miracle. A paper with d’Anville’s orders had been found, instructing him to take Cape Breton Island, then proceed to Boston — “lay that Town in Ashes and destroy all he could upon the Coast of North America; then proceed to the West Indies and distress the Islands.”
Storm and pestilence — why, it was like the destruction of the Spanish Armada! Governor Shirley said so, to the Massachusetts Legislature assembled. Never had there been so direct an interference of Providence. “Afflavit Deus,” said Shirley, “et dissipantur — The Lord caused the wind to blow and they were scattered.” A day of Thanksgiving and prayer was proclaimed. From every pulpit the good news rang. Hip and thigh, the Lord had smitten the Philistines. There was no end to the joyful quotation: If God be for us, who can be against us?(3)
The Thanksgiving Day was observed on November 27, 1746. Thomas Prince was one of the many pastors who preached a sermon on that day. Later printed, this sermon, entitled “The Salvations of God in 1746,” recounts the defeat of the French Fleet. Prince makes much of the remarkable coincidence that it was on the day of their fast that God
put a total end to their mischievous enterprise. . . . Thus when on our solemn Day of General Prayer we expressly cried to the Lord, “Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered, . . .” then his own Arm brought Salvation to us and his Fury upheld him. He trode down our Enemies in his Anger, he made them drunk in his Fury, and he brought down their Strength to the Earth. Terrors took hold on them as Waters: A Tempest bore them away in the Night: The East Wind carried them away, and they departed; and with a Storm he hurled them out of their Place.(4)
We have need of the same mighty God moving on our behalf today. But for this to occur, we have need of the faith and heart of these early Americans. Their example shows us, in the words of President Ronald Reagan in a National Day of Prayer Proclamation, May 6, 1982, “that it is not enough to depend on our own courage and goodness; we must also seek help from God, our Father and Preserver.”
- Catherine Drinker Bowen, John Adams and the American Revolution, Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1951, pp. 10-11.
- French in The Christian History of the American Revolution, Consider and Ponder, p. 51.
- Bowen.
- Thomas Prince, “The Salvations of God in 1746,” in Love, 305-306. See also p. 532 for complete sermon title and various printings.
