Hurrying forward through the forest, they left the main body behind, and soon reached the end of the defile. The woods were still dense on their left and front; but on their right lay a great marsh, covered with alder thickets and rank gra.s.s. Suddenly the air was filled with yells, and a rapid though distant fire was opened from the thickets and the forest. Scores of painted savages, stark naked, some armed with swords and some with hatchets, leaped screeching from their ambuscade, and rushed against the van. Almost at the same moment a burst of whoops and firing sounded in the defile behind. It was the ambushed three hundred supporting the onset of their countrymen in front; but they had made a fatal mistake. Deceived by the numbers of the vanguard, they supposed it to be the whole army, never suspecting that Denonville was close behind with sixteen hundred men. It was a surprise on both sides. So dense was the forest that the advancing battalions could see neither the enemy nor each other. Appalled by the din of whoops and firing, redoubled by the echoes of the narrow valley, the whole army was seized with something like a panic. Some of the officers, it is said, threw themselves on the ground in their fright. There were a few moments of intense bewilderment. The various corps became broken and confused, and moved hither and thither without knowing why. Denonville behaved with great courage. He ran, sword in hand, to where the uproar was greatest, ordered the drums to beat the charge, turned back the militia of Berthier who were trying to escape, and commanded them and all others whom he met to fire on whatever looked like an enemy. He was bravely seconded by Callieres, La Valterie, and several other officers. The Christian Iroquois fought well from the first, leaping from tree to tree, and exchanging shots and defiance with their heathen countrymen; till the Senecas, seeing themselves confronted by numbers that seemed endless, abandoned the field, after heavy loss, carrying with them many of their dead and all of their wounded. [Footnote: For authorities, see note at the end of the chapter. The account of Charlevoix is contradicted at several points by the contemporary writers.] Denonville made no attempt to pursue. He had learned the dangers of this blind warfare of the woods; and he feared that the Senecas would waylay him again in the labyrinth of bushes that lay between him and the town. "Our troops," he says, "were all so overcome by the extreme heat and the long march that we were forced to remain where we were till morning. We had the pain of witnessing the usual cruelties of the Indians, who cut the dead bodies into quarters, like butchers' meat, to put into their kettles, and opened most of them while still warm to drink the blood. Our rascally Ottawas particularly distinguished themselves by these barbarities, as well as by cowardice; for they made off in the fight. We had five or six men killed on the spot, and about twenty wounded, among whom was Father Engelran, who was badly hurt by a gun-shot. Some prisoners who escaped from the Senecas tell us that they lost forty men killed outright, twenty-five of whom we saw butchered. One of the escaped prisoners saw the rest buried, and he saw also more than sixty very dangerously wounded." [Footnote: _Denonville au Ministre_, 25 _Aout_, 1687. In his journal, written afterwards, he says that the Senecas left twenty-seven dead on the field, and carried off twenty more, besides upwards of sixty mortally wounded.]

In the morning, the troops advanced in order of battle through a marsh covered with alders and tall gra.s.s, whence they had no sooner emerged than, says Abbe Belmont, "we began to see the famous Babylon of the Senecas, where so many crimes have been committed, so much blood spilled, and so many men burned. It was a village or town of bark, on the top of a hill. They had burned it a week before. We found nothing in it but the graveyard and the graves, full of snakes and other creatures; a great mask, with teeth and eyes of bra.s.s, and a bearskin drawn over it, with which they performed their conjurations."

[Footnote: Belmont. A few words are added from Saint-Vallier.] The fire had also spared a number of huge receptacles of bark, still filled with the last season's corn; while the fields around were covered with the growing crop, ripening in the July sun. There were hogs, too, in great number; for the Iroquois did not share the antipathy with which Indians are apt to regard that unsavory animal, and from which certain philosophers have argued their descent from the Jews.

The soldiers killed the hogs, burned the old corn, and hacked down the new with their swords. Next they advanced to an abandoned Seneca fort on a hill half a league distant, and burned it, with all that it contained. Ten days were pa.s.sed in the work of havoc. Three neighboring villages were levelled, and all their fields laid waste.

The amount of corn destroyed was prodigious. Denonville reckons it at the absurdly exaggerated amount of twelve hundred thousand bushels.

The Senecas, laden with such of their possessions as they could carry off, had fled to their confederates in the east; and Denonville did not venture to pursue them. His men, feasting without stint on green corn and fresh pork, were sickening rapidly, and his Indian allies were deserting him. "It is a miserable business," he wrote, "to command savages, who, as soon as they have knocked an enemy in the head, ask for nothing but to go home and carry with them the scalp, which they take off like a skull-cap. You cannot believe what trouble I had to keep them till the corn was cut."

On the twenty-fourth, he withdrew, with all his army, to the fortified post at Irondequoit Bay, whence he proceeded to Niagara, in order to accomplish his favorite purpose of building a fort there. The troops were set at work, and a stockade was planted on the point of land at the eastern angle between the River Niagara and Lake Ontario, the site of the ruined fort built by La Salle nine years before. [Footnote: _Proces-verbal de la Prise de Possession de Niagara_, 31 _Juillet_, 1687. There are curious errors of date in this doc.u.ment regarding the proceedings of La Salle.] Here he left a hundred men, under the Chevalier de Troyes, and, embarking with the rest of the army, descended to Montreal.

The campaign was but half a success. Joined to the capture of the English traders on the lakes, it had, indeed, prevented the defection of the western Indians, and in some slight measure restored their respect for the French, of whom, nevertheless, one of them was heard to say that they were good for nothing but to make war on hogs and corn. As for the Senecas, they were more enraged than hurt. They could rebuild their bark villages in a few weeks; and, though they had lost their harvest, their confederates would not let them starve.

[Footnote: The statement of some later writers, that many of the Senecas died during the following winter in consequence of the loss of their corn, is extremely doubtful. Captain Duplessis, in his _Plan for the Defence of Canada_, 1690, declares that not one of them perished of hunger.] A converted Iroquois had told the governor before his departure that, if he overset a wasps' nest, he must crush the wasps, or they would sting him. Denonville left the wasps alive.

DENONVILLE'S CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE SENECAS.--The chief authorities on this matter are the journal of Denonville, of which there is a translation in the _Colonial Doc.u.ments of New York_, IX.; the letters of Denonville to the Minister; the _Etat Present de l'Eglise de la Colonie Francaise_, by Bishop Saint-Vallier; the _Recueil de ce qui s'est pa.s.se en Canada au Sujet de la Guerre, tant des Anglais que des Iroquois, depuis l'annee 1682_; and the excellent account by Abbe Belmont in his chronicle called _Histoire du Canada_. To these may be added La Hontan, Tonty, Nicolas Perrot, La Potherie, and the Senecas examined before the authorities of Albany, whose statements are printed in the _Colonial Doc.u.ments_, III. These are the original sources. Charlevoix drew his account from a portion of them. It is inexact, and needs the correction of his learned annotator, Mr. Shea.

Colden, Smith, and other English writers follow La Hontan.

The researches of Mr. O. H. Marshall, of Buffalo, have left no reasonable doubt as to the scene of the battle, and the site of the neighboring town. The Seneca ambuscade was on the marsh and the hills immediately north and west of the present village of Victor; and their chief town, called Gannagaro by Denonville, was on the top of Boughton's Hill, about a mile and a quarter distant. Immense quant.i.ties of Indian remains were formerly found here, and many are found to this day. Charred corn has been turned up in abundance by the plough, showing that the place was destroyed by fire. The remains of the fort burned by the French are still plainly visible on a hill a mile and a quarter from the ancient town. A plan of it will be found in Squier's _Aboriginal Monuments of New York_. The site of the three other Seneca towns destroyed by Denonville, and called Totiakton, Gannondata, and Gannongarae, can also be identified. See Marshall, in _Collections N. Y. Hist. Soc., 2d Series_, II. Indian traditions of historical events are usually almost worthless; but the old Seneca chief Dyunehogawah, or "John Blacksmith," who was living a few years ago at the Tonawanda reservation, recounted to Mr. Marshall with remarkable accuracy the story of the battle as handed down from his ancestors who lived at Gannagaro, close to the scene of action.

Gannagaro was the Canagorah of Wentworth Greenalgh's Journal. The old Seneca, on being shown a map of the locality, placed his finger on the spot where the fight took place, and which Avas long known to the Senecas by the name of DyaG.o.diyu, or "The Place of a Battle." It answers in the most perfect manner to the French contemporary descriptions.

[1] The authorities for the above are Denonville, Champigny, Abbe Belmont, Bishop Saint-Vallier, and the author of _Recueil de ce qui s'est pa.s.se en Canada au Sujet de la Guerre, etc., depuis l'annee_ 1682.

Belmont, who accompanied the expedition, speaks of the affair with indignation, which was shared by many French officers. The bishop, on the other hand, mentions the success of the stratagem as a reward accorded by Heaven to the piety of Denonville. _Etat Present de l'Eglise_, 91, 92 (reprint, 1856).

Denonville's account, which is sufficiently explicit, is contained in the long journal of the expedition which he sent to the court, and in several letters to the minister. Both Belmont and the author of the _Recueil_ speak of the prisoners as having been "pris par l'appat d'un festin."

Mr. Shea, usually so exact, has been led into some error by confounding the different acts of this affair. By Denonville's official journal, it appears that, on the 19th June, Perre, by his order, captured several Indians on the St. Lawrence; that, on the 25th June, the governor, then at Rapide Plat on his way up the river, received a letter from Champigny, informing him that he had seized all the Iroquois near Fort Frontenac; and that, on the 3d July, Perre, whom Denonville had sent several days before to attack Ganneious, arrived with his prisoners.

[2] I have ventured to give this story on the sole authority of Charlevoix, for the contemporary writers are silent concerning it. Mr.

Shea thinks that it involves a contradiction of date; but this is entirely due to confounding the capture of prisoners by Perre at Ganneious on July 3d with the capture by Champigny at Fort Frontenac about June 20th. Lamberville reached Denonville's camp, one day's journey from the fort, on the evening of the 29th. (_Journal of Denonville_.) This would give four and a half days for news of the treachery to reach Onondaga, and four and a half days for the Jesuit to rejoin his countrymen.

Charlevoix, with his usual carelessness, says that the Jesuit Milet had also been used to lure the Iroquois into the snare, and that he was soon after captured by the Oneidas, and delivered by an Indian matron. Milet's captivity did not take place till 1689-90.

CHAPTER IX.

1687-1689.

THE IROQUOIS INVASION.

ALTERCATIONS.--ATt.i.tUDE OF DONGAN.--MARTIAL PREPARATION.--PERPLEXITY OF DENONVILLE.--ANGRY CORRESPONDENCE.--RECALL OF DONGAN.--SIR EDMUND ANDROS.--HUMILIATION OF DENONVILLE.--DISTRESS OF CANADA.--APPEALS FOR HELP.--IROQUOIS DIPLOMACY.--A HURON MACCHIAVEL.--THE CATASTROPHE.-- FEROCITY OF THE VICTORS.--WAR WITH ENGLAND.--RECALL OF DENONVILLE.

When Dongan heard that the French had invaded the Senecas, seized English traders on the lakes, and built a fort at Niagara, his wrath was kindled anew. He sent to the Iroquois, and summoned them to meet him at Albany; told the a.s.sembled chiefs that the late calamity had fallen upon them because they had held councils with the French without asking his leave; forbade them to do so again, and informed them that, as subjects of King James, they must make no treaty, except by the consent of his representative, the governor of New York. He declared that the Ottawas and other remote tribes were also British subjects; that the Iroquois should unite with them, to expel the French from the west; and that all alike should bring down their beaver skins to the English at Albany. Moreover, he enjoined them to receive no more French Jesuits into their towns, and to call home their countrymen whom these fathers had converted and enticed to Canada. "Obey my commands," added the governor, "for that is the only way to eat well and sleep well, without fear or disturbance." The Iroquois, who wanted his help, seemed to a.s.sent to all he said. "We will fight the French," exclaimed their orator, "as long as we have a man left." [Footnote: _Dongan's Propositions to the Five Nations; Answer of the Five Nations, N. Y. Col. Docs_., III. 438, 441.]

At the same time, Dongan wrote to Denonville demanding the immediate surrender of the Dutch and English captured on the lakes. Denonville angrily replied that he would keep the prisoners, since Dongan had broken the treaty of neutrality by "giving aid and comfort to the savages." The English governor, in return, upbraided his correspondent for invading British territory. "I will endevour to protect his Majesty's subjects here from your unjust invasions, till I hear from the King, my Master, who is the greatest and most glorious Monarch that ever set on a Throne, and would do as much to propagate the Christian faith as any prince that lives. He did not send me here to suffer you to give laws to his subjects. I hope, notwithstanding all your trained souldiers and greate Officers come from Europe, that our masters at home will suffer us to do ourselves justice on you for the injuries and spoyle you have committed on us; and I a.s.sure you, Sir, if my Master gives leave, I will be as soon at Quebeck as you shall be att Albany. What you alleage concerning my a.s.sisting the Sinnakees (_Senecas_) with arms and ammunition to warr against you was never given by mee untill the sixt of August last, when understanding of your unjust proceedings in invading the King my Master's territorys in a hostill manner, I then gave them powder, lead, and armes, and united the five nations together to defend that part of our King's dominions from your jnjurious invasion. And as for offering them men, in that you doe me wrong, our men being all buisy then at their harvest, and I leave itt to your judgment whether there was any occasion when only foure hundred of them engaged with your whole army. I advise you to send home all the Christian and Indian prisoners the King of England's subjects you unjustly do deteine. This is what I have thought fitt to answer to your reflecting and provoking letter." [Footnote: _Dongan to Denonville, 9 Sept._, 1687, in _N. Y. Col. Docs.,_ III. 472.]

As for the French claims to the Iroquois country and the upper lakes, he turned them to ridicule. They were founded, in part, on the missions established there by the Jesuits. "The King of China,"

observes Dongan, "never goes anywhere without two Jessuits with him. I wonder you make not the like pretence to that Kingdome." He speaks with equal irony of the claim based on discovery: "Pardon me if I say itt is a mistake, except you will affirme that a few loose fellowes rambling amongst Indians to keep themselves from starving gives the French a right to the Countrey." And of the claim based on geographical divisions: "Your reason is that some rivers or rivoletts of this country run out into the great river of Canada. O just G.o.d!

what new, farr-fetched, and unheard-of pretence is this for a t.i.tle to a country. The French King may have as good a pretence to all those Countrys that drink clarett and Brandy." _Dongan's Fourth Paper to the French Agents, N. Y. Col. Docs_., III. 528. In spite of his sarcasms, it is clear that the claim of prior discovery and occupation was on the side of the French.

The dispute now a.s.sumed a new phase. James II. at length consented to own the Iroquois as his subjects, ordering Dongan to protect them, and repel the French by force of arms, should they attack them again.

[Footnote: _Warrant, authorizing Governor Dongan to protect the Five Nations_, 10 _Nov_., 1687, _N. Y. Col. Docs_., III. 503.] At the same time, conferences were opened at London between the French amba.s.sador and the English commissioners appointed to settle the questions at issue. Both disputants claimed the Iroquois as subjects, and the contest wore an aspect more serious than before.

The royal declaration was a great relief to Dongan. Thus far he had acted at his own risk; now he was sustained by the orders of his king.

He instantly a.s.sumed a warlike att.i.tude; and, in the next spring, wrote to the Earl of Sunderland that he had been at Albany all winter, with four hundred infantry, fifty hors.e.m.e.n, and eight hundred Indians.

This was not without cause, for a report had come from Canada that the French were about to march on Albany to destroy it. "And now, my Lord," continues Dongan, "we must build forts in ye countrey upon ye great Lakes, as ye French doe, otherwise we lose ye Countrey, ye Bever trade, and our Indians." [Footnote: _Dongan to Sunderland, Feb.,_ 1688, _N.Y. Col. Docs.,_ III. 510.] Denonville, meanwhile, had begun to yield, and promised to send back McGregory and the men captured with him. [Footnote: _Denonville a Dongan_, 2 _Oct._, 1687. McGregory soon arrived, and Dongan sent him back to Canada as an emissary with a civil message to Denonville. _Dongan to Denonville,_ 10 _Nov._, 1687.]

Dongan, not satisfied, insisted on payment for all the captured merchandise, and on the immediate demolition of Fort Niagara. He added another demand, which must have been singularly galling to his rival.

It was to the effect that the Iroquois prisoners seized at Fort Frontenac, and sent to the galleys in France, should be surrendered as British subjects to the English amba.s.sador at Paris or the secretary of state in London. [Footnote: _Dongan to Denonville,_ 31 _Oct._, 1687; _Dongan's First Demand of the French Agents, N. Y. Col. Docs.,_ III. 515, 520.]

Denonville was sorely perplexed. He was hard pressed, and eager for peace with the Iroquois at any price; but Dongan was using every means to prevent their treating of peace with the French governor until he had complied with all the English demands. In this extremity, Denonville sent Father Vaillant to Albany, in the hope of bringing his intractable rival to conditions less humiliating. The Jesuit played his part with ability, and proved more than a match for his adversary in dialectics; but Dongan held fast to all his demands. Vaillant tried to temporize, and asked for a truce, with a view to a final settlement by reference to the two kings. [Footnote: The papers of this discussion will be found in _N. Y. Col. Docs_., III.] Dongan referred the question to a meeting of Iroquois chiefs, who declared in reply that they would make neither peace nor truce till Fort Niagara was demolished and all the prisoners restored. Dongan, well pleased, commended their spirit, and a.s.sured them that King James, "who is the greatest man the sunn shines uppon, and never told a ly in his life, has given you his Royall word to protect you." [Footnote: _Dongan's Reply to the Five Nations, Ibid_., III. 535.] Vaillant returned from his bootless errand; and a stormy correspondence followed between the two governors. Dongan renewed his demands, then protested his wish for peace, extolled King James for his pious zeal, and declared that he was sending over missionaries of his own to convert the Iroquois.

[Footnote: _Dongan to Denonville_, 17 _Feb_., 1688, _Ibid_., III.

519.] What Denonville wanted was not their conversion by Englishmen, but their conversion by Frenchmen, and the presence in their towns of those most useful political agents, the Jesuits. [Footnote: "II y a une necessite indispensable pour les interais de la Religion et de la Colonie de restablir les missionaires Jesuites dans tous les villages Iroquois: si vous ne trouves moyen de faire retourner ces Peres dans leurs anciennes missions, vous deves en attendre beaucoup de malheur pour cette Colonie; car je dois vous dire que jusqu'icy c'est leur habilite qui a soutenu les affaires du pays par leur scavoir-faire a gouverner les esprits de ces barbares, qui ne sont Sauvages que de nom." _Denonville, Memoire adresse au Ministre_, 9 _Nov_., 1688.] He replied angrily, charging Dongan with preventing the conversion of the Iroquois by driving off the French missionaries, and accusing him, farther, of instigating the tribes of New York to attack Canada.

[Footnote: _Denonville a Dongan_, 24 _Avril_, 1688; _Ibid._, 12 _Mai_, 1688. Whether the charge is true is questionable. Dongan had just written that, if the Iroquois did harm to the French, he was ordered to offer satisfaction, and had already done so.] Suddenly there was a change in the temper of his letters. He wrote to his rival in terms of studied civility; declared that he wished he could meet him, and consult with him on the best means of advancing the cause of true religion; begged that he would not refuse him his friendship; and thanked him in warm terms for befriending some French prisoners whom he had saved from the Iroquois, and treated with great kindness.

[Footnote: _Denonville a Dongan,_ 18 _Juin_, 1688; _Ibid._, 5 _Juillet_, 1688; _Ibid._, 20 _Aug._, 1088. "Je n'ai donc qu'a vous a.s.seurer que toute la Colonie a une tres-parfaite reconnoissance des bons offices que ces pauvres malheureux ont recu de vous et de vos peuples."]

This change was due to despatches from Versailles, in which Denonville was informed that the matters in dispute would soon be amicably settled by the commissioners; that he was to keep on good terms with the English commanders, and, what pleased him still more, that the king of England was about to recall Dongan. [Footnote: _Memoire pour servir d'Instruction au Sr. Marquis de Denonville_, 8 _Mars_, 1688; _Le Roy a Denonville, meme date_; _Seignelay a Denonville, meme date._ Louis XIV. had demanded Dongan's recall. How far this had influenced the action of James II. it is difficult to say.] In fact, James II.

had resolved on remodelling his American colonies. New York, New Jersey, and New England had been formed into one government under Sir Edmund Andros; and Dongan was summoned home, where a regiment was given him, with the rank of major-general of artillery. Denonville says that, in his efforts to extend English trade to the Great Lakes and the Mississippi, his late rival had been influenced by motives of personal gain. Be this as it may, he was a bold and vigorous defender of the claims of the British crown.

Sir Edmund Andros now reigned over New York; and, by the terms of his commission, his rule stretched westward to the Pacific. The usual official courtesies pa.s.sed between him and Denonville; but Andros renewed all the demands of his predecessor, claimed the Iroquois as subjects, and forbade the French to attack them. [Footnote: _Andros to Denonville_, 21 _Aug._, 1688; _Ibid._, 29 _Sept._, 1688.] The new governor was worse than the old. Denonville wrote to the minister: "I send you copies of his letters, by which you will see that the spirit of Dongan has entered into the heart of his successor, who may be less pa.s.sionate and less interested, but who is, to say the least, quite as much opposed to us, and perhaps more dangerous by his suppleness and smoothness than the other was by his violence. What he has just done among the Iroquois, whom he pretends to be under his government, and whom he prevents from coming to meet me, is a certain proof that neither he nor the other English governors, nor their people, will refrain from doing this colony all the harm they can." [Footnote: _Memoire de l'Estat Present des Affaires de ce Pays depuis le 10me Aoust, 1688, jusq'au dernier Octobre de la mesme annee_. He declares that the English are always "itching for the western trade," that their favorite plan is to establish a post on the Ohio, and that they have made the attempt three times already.]

While these things were pa.s.sing, the state of Canada was deplorable, and the position of its governor as mortifying as it was painful. He thought with good reason that the maintenance of the new fort at Niagara was of great importance to the colony, and he had repeatedly refused the demands of Dongan and the Iroquois for its demolition. But a power greater than sachems and governors presently intervened. The provisions left at Niagara, though abundant, were atrociously bad.

Scurvy and other malignant diseases soon broke out among the soldiers.

The Senecas prowled about the place, and no man dared venture out for hunting, fishing, or firewood. [Footnote: Denonville, _Memoire du_ 10 _Aoust_, 1688.] The fort was first a prison, then a hospital, then a charnel-house, till before spring the garrison of a hundred men was reduced to ten or twelve. In this condition, they were found towards the end of April by a large war-party of friendly Miamis, who entered the place and held it till a French detachment at length arrived for its relief. [Footnote: _Recueil de ce qui s'est pa.s.se en Canada depuis l'annee_ 1682. The writer was an officer of the detachment, and describes what he saw. Compare La Potherie, II. 210; and La Hontan, I.

131 (1709).] The garrison of Fort Frontenac had suffered from the same causes, though not to the same degree. Denonville feared that he should be forced to abandon them both. The way was so long and so dangerous, and the governor had grown of late so cautious, that he dreaded the risk of maintaining such remote communications. On second thought, he resolved to keep Frontenac and sacrifice Niagara. He promised Dongan that he would demolish it, and he kept his word.

[Footnote: _Denonville a Dongan_, 20 _Aoust_, 1688; _Proces-verbal of the Condition of Fort Niagara_, 1688; _N. Y. Col. Docs._, IX. 380. The palisades were torn down by Denonville's order on the 15th of September. The rude dwellings and storehouses which they enclosed, together with a large wooden cross, were left standing. The commandant De Troyes had died, and, Captain Desbergeres had been sent to succeed him.]

He was forced to another and a deeper humiliation. At the imperious demand of Dongan and the Iroquois, he begged the king to send back the prisoners entrapped at Fort Frontenac, and he wrote to the minister: "Be pleased, Monseigneur, to remember that I had the honor to tell you that, in order to attain the peace necessary to the country, I was obliged to promise that I would beg you to send back to us the prisoners I sent you last year. I know you gave orders that they should be well treated, but I am informed that, though they were well enough treated at first, your orders were not afterwards executed with the same fidelity. If ill treatment has caused them all to die,--for they are people who easily fall into dejection, and who die of it,--and if none of them come back, I do not know at all whether we can persuade these barbarians not to attack us again." [Footnote: Denonville, _Memoire de_ 10 _Aoust_, 1688.]

What had brought the marquis to this pa.s.s? Famine, dest.i.tution, disease, and the Iroquois were making Canada their prey. The fur trade had been stopped for two years; and the people, bereft of their only means of subsistence, could contribute nothing to their own defence.

Above Three Rivers, the whole population was imprisoned in stockade forts hastily built in every seigniory. [Footnote: In the Depot des Cartes de la Marine, there is a contemporary ma.n.u.script map, on which all these forts are laid down.] Here they were safe, provided that they never ventured out; but their fields were left untilled, and the governor was already compelled to feed many of them at the expense of the king. The Iroquois roamed among the deserted settlements or prowled like lynxes about the forts, waylaying convoys and killing or capturing stragglers. Their war-parties were usually small; but their movements were so mysterious and their attacks so sudden, that they spread a universal panic through the upper half of the colony. They were the wasps which Denonville had failed to kill. "We should succ.u.mb," wrote the distressed governor, "if our cause were not the cause of G.o.d. Your Majesty's zeal for religion, and the great things you have done for the destruction of heresy, encourage me to hope that you will be the bulwark of the Faith in the new world as you are in the old. I cannot give you a truer idea of the war we have to wage with the Iroquois than by comparing them to a great number of wolves or other ferocious beasts, issuing out of a vast forest to ravage the neighboring settlements. The people gather to hunt them down; but n.o.body can find their lair, for they are always in motion. An abler man than I would be greatly at a loss to manage the affairs of this country. It is for the interest of the colony to have peace at any cost whatever. For the glory of the king and the good of religion, we should be glad to have it an advantageous one; and so it would have been, but for the malice of the English and the protection they have given our enemies." [Footnote: _Denonville au Roy_, 1688; _Ibid._, _Memoire du_ 10 _Aoust_, 1688; _Ibid._, _Memoire du_ 9 _Nov._, 1688.]

And yet he had, one would think, a reasonable force at his disposal.

His thirty-two companies of regulars were reduced by this time to about fourteen hundred men, but he had also three or four hundred Indian converts, besides the militia of the colony, of whom he had stationed a large body under Vaudreuil at the head of the Island of Montreal. All told, they were several times more numerous than the agile warriors who held the colony in terror. He asked for eight hundred more regulars. The king sent him three hundred. Affairs grew worse, and he grew desperate. Rightly judging that the best means of defence was to take the offensive, he conceived the plan of a double attack on the Iroquois, one army to a.s.sail the Onondagas and Cayugas, another the Mohawks and Oneidas. [Footnote: _Plan for the Termination of the Iroquois War_, _N. Y. Col. Docs._, IX. 375.] Since to reach the Mohawks as he proposed, by the way of Lake Champlain, he must pa.s.s through territory indisputably British, the attempt would be a flagrant violation of the treaty of neutrality. Nevertheless, he implored the king to send him four thousand soldiers to accomplish it.

[Footnote: Denonville, _Memoire du_ 8 _Aout_, 1688.] His fast friend, the bishop, warmly seconded his appeal. "The glory of G.o.d is involved," wrote the head of the church, "for the Iroquois are the only tribe who oppose the progress of the gospel. The glory of the king is involved, for they are the only tribe who refuse to recognize his grandeur and his might. They hold the French in the deepest contempt; and, unless they are completely humbled within two years, his Majesty will have no colony left in Canada." [Footnote: Saint-Vallier, _Memoire sur les Affaires du Canada pour Monseigneur le Marquis de Seignelay_.] And the prelate proceeds to tell the minister how, in his opinion, the war ought to be conducted. The appeal was vain. "His Majesty agrees with you," wrote Seignelay, "that three or four thousand men would be the best means of making peace, but he cannot spare them now. If the enemy breaks out again, raise the inhabitants, and fight as well as you can till his Majesty is prepared to send you troops." [Footnote: _Memoire du Ministre adresse a Denonville_, 1 _Mai_, 1680.]

A hope had dawned on the governor. He had been more active of late in negotiating than in fighting, and his diplomacy had prospered more than his arms. It may be remembered that some of the Iroquois entrapped at Fort Frontenac had been given to their Christian relatives in the mission villages. Here they had since remained.

Denonville thought that he might use them as messengers to their heathen countrymen, and he sent one or more of them to Onondaga with gifts and overtures of peace. That shrewd old politician, Big Mouth, was still strong in influence at the Iroquois capital, and his name was great to the farthest bounds of the confederacy. He knew by personal experience the advantages of a neutral position between the rival European powers, from both of whom he received gifts and attentions; and he saw that what was good for him was good for the confederacy, since, if it gave itself to neither party, both would court its alliance. In his opinion, it had now leaned long enough towards the English; and a change of att.i.tude had become expedient.

Therefore, as Denonville promised the return of the prisoners, and was plainly ready to make other concessions, Big Mouth, setting at naught the prohibitions of Andros, consented to a conference with the French.

He set out at his leisure for Montreal, with six Onondaga, Cayuga, and Oneida chiefs; and, as no diplomatist ever understood better the advantage of negotiating at the head of an imposing force, a body of Iroquois warriors, to the number, it is said, of twelve hundred, set out before him, and silently took path to Canada.

The amba.s.sadors paddled across the lake and presented themselves before the commandant of Fort Frontenac, who received them with distinction, and ordered Lieutenant Perelle to escort them to Montreal. Scarcely had the officer conducted his august charge five leagues on their way, when, to his amazement, he found himself in the midst of six hundred Iroquois warriors, who amused themselves for a time with his terror, and then accompanied him as far as Lake St.

Francis, where he found another body of savages nearly equal in number. Here the warriors halted, and the amba.s.sadors with their escort gravely pursued their way to meet Denonville at Montreal.

[Footnote: _Relation des Evenements de la Guerre_, 30 _Oct_., 1688.]