CHAPTER IX.

 1687-1689.   The Iroquois Invasion. Altercations ? Attitude 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 assembled 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 159 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 assent to all he said. "We will fight the French," exclaimed their orator, "as long as we have a man left." [1] [1] 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 assure you, Sir, if my Master gives leave, I will be as soon at Quebeck as 160 you shall be att Albany. What you alleage concerning my assisting 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." [2] [2] 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 161 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 God! what new, farr-fetched, and unheard-of pretence is this for a title to a country. The French King may have as good a pretence to all those Countrys that drink clarett and Brandy." [3] In spite of his sarcasms, it is clear that the claim of prior discovery and occupation was on the side of the French. [3] Dongan's Fourth Paper to the French Agents, N. Y. Col. Docs., III. 528. The dispute now assumed 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. [4] At the same time, conferences were opened at London between the French ambassador 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. [4] Warrant, authorizing Governor Dongan to protect the Five Nations, 10 Nov., 1687, N. Y. Col. Docs., III. 503. 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 assumed a warlike attitude; and, in the next spring, wrote to the Earl of Sunderland that he had been at Albany all winter, with four hundred infantry, fifty horsemen, and eight hundred Indians. This was not without cause, for a report had come from Canada that the French 162 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." [5] Denonville, meanwhile, had begun to yield, and promised to send back McGregory and the men captured with him. [6] 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 ambassador at Paris or the secretary of state in London. [7] [5] Dongan to Sunderland, Feb., 1688, N. Y. Col. Docs., III. 510. [6] Denonville à 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. [7] 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 163 tried to temporize, and asked for a truce, with a view to a final settlement by reference to the two kings. [8] 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 assured 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." [9] 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. [10] 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. [11] 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 164 Canada.[12] 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. [13] [8] The papers of this discussion will be found in N. Y. Col. Docs., III. [9] Dongan's Reply to the Five Nations, Ibid., III. 535. [10] Dongan to Denonville, 17 Feb., 1688, Ibid., III. 519. [11] "II y a une nécessité indispensable pour les intérais de la Religion et de la Colonie de restablir les missionaires Jésuites dans tous les villages Iroquois: si vous ne trouvés moyen de faire retourner ces Pères dans leurs anciennes missions, vous devés en attendre beaucoup de malheur pour cette Colonie; car je dois vous dire que jusqu'icy c'est leur habilité qui a soutenu les affaires du pays par leur s?avoir-faire à gouverner les esprits de ces barbares, qui ne sont Sauvages que de nom." Denonville, Mémoire adressé au Ministre, 9 Nov., 1688. [12] Denonville à 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. [13] Denonville à Dongan, 18 Juin, 1688; Ibid., 5 Juillet, 1688; Ibid., 20 Aug., 1688. "Je n'ai donc qu'à vous asseurer que toute la Colonie a une très-parfaite reconnoissance des bons offices que ces pauvres malheureux ont re?u 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. [14] 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 165 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. [14] Mémoire pour servir d'Instruction au Sr. Marquis de Denonville, 8 Mars, 1688; Le Roy à Denonville, même date; Seignelay à Denonville, même date. Louis XIV. had demanded Dongan's recall. How far this had influenced the action of James II. it is difficult to say. 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 passed 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. [15] 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 passionate 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." [16] [15] Andros to Denonville, 21 Aug., 1688; Ibid., 29 Sept., 1688. [16] Mémoire de l'Estat Présent des Affaires de ce Pays depuis le 10me Aoust, 1688, jusq'au dernier Octobre de la mesme année. 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 passing, the state of Canada was deplorable, and the position of its 166 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. [17] 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. [18] 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. [19] [17] Denonville, Mémoire du 10 Aoust, 1688. [18] Recueil de ce qui s'est passé en Canada depuis l'année 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). [19] Denonville à Dongan, 20 Aoust, 1688; Procès-verbal of the Condition of 167 Fort Niagara, 1688; N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 386. 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 Desbergères 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." [20] [20] Denonville, Mémoire de 10 Aoust, 1688. What had brought the marquis to this pass? Famine, destitution, 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. [21] 168 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. [21] In the Dépot des Cartes de la Marine, there is a contemporary manuscript map, on which all these forts are laid down. "We should succumb," wrote the distressed governor, "if our cause were not the cause of God. 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 nobody 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 169 malice of the English and the protection they have given our enemies." [22] [22] Denonville au Roy, 1688; Ibid., Mémoire du 10 Aoust, 1688; Ibid., Mémoire 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 assail the Onondagas and Cayugas, another the Mohawks and Oneidas. [23] Since to reach the Mohawks as he proposed, by the way of Lake Champlain, he must pass 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. [24] His fast friend, the bishop, warmly seconded his appeal. "The glory of God is involved," 170 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." [25] 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." [26] [23] Plan for the Termination of the Iroquois War, N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 375. [24] Denonville, Mémoire du 8 Ao?t, 1688. [25] Saint-Vallier, Mémoire sur les Affaires du Canada pour Monseigneur le Marquis de Seignelay. [26] Mémoire du Ministre adressé à Denonville, 1 Mai, 1689. 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 171 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 attitude 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 ambassadors 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 ambassadors 172 with their escort gravely pursued their way to meet Denonville at Montreal. [27] [27] Relation des évenements de la Guerre, 30 Oct., 1688. Big Mouth spoke haughtily, like a man who knew his power. He told the governor that he and his people were subjects neither of the French nor of the English; that they wished to be friends of both; that they held their country of the Great Spirit; and that they had never been conquered in war. He declared that the Iroquois knew the weakness of the French, and could easily exterminate them; that they had formed a plan of burning all the houses and barns of Canada, killing the cattle, setting fire to the ripe grain, and then, when the people were starving, attacking the forts; but that he, Big Mouth, had prevented its execution. He concluded by saying that he was allowed but four days to bring back the governor's reply; and that, if he were kept waiting longer, he would not answer for what might happen. [28] Though it appeared by some expressions in his speech that he was ready to make peace only with the French, leaving the Iroquois free to attack the Indian allies of the colony, and though, while the ambassadors were at Montreal, their warriors on the river above actually killed several of the Indian converts, Denonville felt himself compelled to pretend ignorance of the outrage. [29] A declaration of neutrality was drawn up, and Big Mouth 173 affixed to it the figures of sundry birds and beasts as the signatures of himself and his fellow-chiefs. [30] He promised, too, that within a certain time deputies from the whole confederacy should come to Montreal and conclude a general peace. [28] Declaration of the Iroquois in presence of M. de Denonville, N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 384; Relation des événements de la Guerre, 30 Oct., 1688; Belmont, Histoire du Canada. [29] Callières à Seignelay, Jan., 1689. [30] See the signatures in N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 385, 386. The time arrived, and they did not appear. It became known, however, that a number of chiefs were coming from Onondaga to explain the delay, and to promise that the deputies should soon follow. The chiefs in fact were on their way. They reached La Famine, the scene of La Barre's meeting with Big Mouth; but here an unexpected incident arrested them, and completely changed the aspect of affairs. Among the Hurons of Michillimackinac there was a chief of high renown named Kondiaronk, or the Rat. He was in the prime of life, a redoubted warrior, and a sage counsellor. The French seem to have admired him greatly. "He is a gallant man," says La Hontan, "if ever there was one;" while Charlevoix declares that he was the ablest Indian the French ever knew in America, and that he had nothing of the savage but the name and the dress. In spite of the father's eulogy, the moral condition of the Rat savored strongly of the wigwam. He had given Denonville great trouble by his constant intrigues with the Iroquois, with whom he had once made a plot for the massacre of his neighbors, the Ottawas, under cover of a pretended treaty. [31] The French had spared no pains to gain 174 him; and he had at length been induced to declare for them, under a pledge from the governor that the war should never cease till the Iroquois were destroyed. During the summer, he raised a party of forty warriors, and came down the lakes in quest of Iroquois scalps. [32] On the way, he stopped at Fort Frontenac to hear the news, when, to his amazement, the commandant told him that deputies from Onondaga were coming in a few days to conclude peace, and that he had better go home at once. [31] Nicolas Perrot, 143. [32] Denonville à Seignelay, 9 Nov., 1688. La Hontan saw the party set out, and says that there were about a hundred of them. "It is well," replied the Rat. He knew that for the Hurons it was not well. He and his tribe stood fully committed to the war, and for them peace between the French and the Iroquois would be a signal of destruction, since Denonville could not or would not protect his allies. The Rat paddled off with his warriors. He had secretly learned the route of the expected deputies; and he shaped his course, not, as he had pretended, for Michillimackinac, but for La Famine, where he knew that they would land. Having reached his destination, he watched and waited four or five days, till canoes at length appeared, approaching from the direction of Onondaga. On this, the Rat and his friends hid themselves in the bushes. The new comers were the messengers sent as precursors of the embassy. At their head was a famous personage named Decanisora, or Tegannisorens, with whom were three other chiefs, and, it seems, a number of warriors. They had scarcely 175 landed when the ambushed Hurons gave them a volley of bullets, killed one of the chiefs, wounded all the rest, and then, rushing upon them, seized the whole party except a warrior who escaped with a broken arm. Having secured his prisoners, the Rat told them that he had acted on the suggestion of Denonville, who had informed him that an Iroquois war-party was to pass that way. The astonished captives protested that they were envoys of peace. The Rat put on a look of amazement, then of horror and fury, and presently burst into invectives against Denonville for having made him the instrument of such atrocious perfidy. "Go, my brothers," he exclaimed, "go home to your people. Though there is war between us, I give you your liberty. Onontio has made me do so black a deed that I shall never be happy again till your five tribes take a just vengeance upon him." After giving them guns, powder, and ball, he sent them on their way, well pleased with him and filled with rage against the governor. In accordance with Indian usage, he, however, kept one of them to be adopted, as he declared, in place of one of his followers whom he had lost in the skirmish; then, recrossing the lake, he went alone to Fort Frontenac, and, as he left the gate to rejoin his party, he said coolly, "I have killed the peace: we shall see how the governor will get out of this 176 business." [33] Then, without loss of time, he repaired to Michillimackinac, and gave his Iroquois prisoner to the officer in command. No news of the intended peace had yet reached that distant outpost; and, though the unfortunate Iroquois told the story of his mission and his capture, the Rat declared that it was a crazy invention inspired by the fear of death, and the prisoner was immediately shot by a file of soldiers. The Rat now sent for an old Iroquois who had long been a prisoner at the Huron village, telling him with a mournful air that he was free to return to his people, and recount the cruelty of the French, who, had put their countryman to death. The liberated Iroquois faithfully acquitted himself of his mission. [34] [33] "Il dit, J'ai tué la paix." Belmont, Histoire du Canada. "Le Rat passa ensuite seul à Catarakouy (Fort Frontenac) sans vouloir dire le tour qu'il avoit fait, dit seulement estant hors de la porte, en s'en allant, Nous verrons comme le gouverneur se tirera d'affaire." Denonville. [34] La Hontan, I. 189. (1709) Most of the details of the story are drawn from the writer, whose statement I have compared with that of Denonville, in his letter dated Nov. 9, 1688; of Callières, Jan., 1689; of the Abstract of Letters from Canada, in N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 393; and of the writer of Relation des événements de la Guerre, 30 Oct., 1688. Belmont notices the affair with his usual conciseness. La Hontan's account is sustained by the others in most, though not all of its essential points. He calls the Huron chief Adario, ou le Rat. He is elsewhere mentioned as Kondiaronk, Kondiaront, Soüo?as, and Soüa?ti. La Hontan says that the scene of the treachery was one of the rapids of the St. Lawrence, but more authentic accounts place it at La Famine. One incident seemed for a moment likely to rob the intriguer of the fruits of his ingenuity. The Iroquois who had escaped in the skirmish contrived to reach Fort Frontenac some time after the last visit of the Rat. He told what had happened; and, after being treated with the utmost attention, he was sent to Onondaga, charged with explanations and regrets. The Iroquois dignitaries seemed satisfied, and Denonville wrote to the minister that 177 there was still good hope of peace. He little knew his enemy. They could dissemble and wait; but they neither believed the governor nor forgave him. His supposed treachery at La Famine, and his real treachery at Fort Frontenac, filled them with a patient but unextinguishable rage. They sent him word that they were ready to renew the negotiation; then they sent again, to say that Andros forbade them. Without doubt they used his prohibition as a pretext. Months passed, and Denonville remained in suspense. He did not trust his Indian allies, nor did they trust him. Like the Rat and his Hurons, they dreaded the conclusion of peace, and wished the war to continue, that the French might bear the brunt of it, and stand between them and the wrath of the Iroquois. [35] [35] Denonville au Ministre, 9 Nov., 1688. In the direction of the Iroquois, there was a long and ominous silence. It was broken at last by the crash of a thunderbolt. On the night between the fourth and fifth of August, a violent hail-storm burst over Lake St. Louis, an expansion of the St. Lawrence a little above Montreal. Concealed by the tempest and the darkness, fifteen hundred warriors landed at La Chine, and silently posted themselves about the houses of the sleeping settlers, then screeched the war-whoop, and began the most frightful massacre in Canadian history. The houses were burned, and men, women, and children indiscriminately butchered. In the neighborhood were three stockade forts, called Rémy, Roland, and La Présentation; and they all had 178 garrisons. There was also an encampment of two hundred regulars about three miles distant, under an officer named Subercase, then absent at Montreal on a visit to Denonville, who had lately arrived with his wife and family. At four o'clock in the morning, the troops in this encampment heard a cannon-shot from one of the forts. They were at once ordered under arms. Soon after, they saw a man running towards them, just escaped from the butchery. He told his story, and passed on with the news to Montreal, six miles distant. Then several fugitives appeared, chased by a band of Iroquois, who gave over the pursuit at sight of the soldiers, but pillaged several houses before their eyes. The day was well advanced before Subercase arrived. He ordered the troops to march. About a hundred armed inhabitants had joined them, and they moved together towards La Chine. Here they found the houses still burning, and the bodies of their inmates strewn among them or hanging from the stakes where they had been tortured. They learned from a French surgeon, escaped from the enemy, that the Iroquois were all encamped a mile and a half farther on, behind a tract of forest. Subercase, whose force had been strengthened by troops from the forts, resolved to attack them; and, had he been allowed to do so, he would probably have punished them severely, for most of them were helplessly drunk with brandy taken from the houses of the traders. Sword in hand, at the head of his men, the daring officer entered the forest; but, at that moment, a voice from the rear 179 commanded a halt. It was that of the Chevalier de Vaudreuil, just come from Montreal, with positive orders from Denonville to run no risks and stand solely on the defensive. Subercase was furious. High words passed between him and Vaudreuil, but he was forced to obey. The troops were led back to Fort Roland, where about five hundred regulars and militia were now collected under command of Vaudreuil. On the next day, eighty men from Fort Rémy attempted to join them; but the Iroquois had slept off the effect of their orgies, and were again on the alert. The unfortunate detachment was set upon by a host of savages, and cut to pieces in full sight of Fort Roland. All were killed or captured, except Le Moyne de Longueuil, and a few others, who escaped within the gate of Fort Rémy. [36] [36] Recueil de ce qui s'est passé en Canada depuis l'année 1682; Observations on the State of Affairs in Canada, 1689, N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 431; Belmont, Histoire du Canada; Frontenac au Ministre, 15 Nov., 1689. This detachment was commanded by Lieutenant de la Rabeyre, and consisted of fifty French and thirty Indian converts. Montreal was wild with terror. It had been fortified with palisades since the war began; but, though there were troops in the town under the governor himself, the people were in mortal dread. No attack was made either on the town or on any of the forts, and such of the inhabitants as could reach them were safe; while the Iroquois held undisputed possession of the open country, burned all the houses and barns over an extent of nine miles, and roamed in small parties, pillaging and scalping, over more than twenty miles. There is 180 no mention of their having encountered opposition; nor do they seem to have met with any loss but that of some warriors killed in the attack on the detachment from Fort Rémy, and that of three drunken stragglers who were caught and thrown into a cellar in Fort La Présentation. When they came to their senses, they defied their captors, and fought with such ferocity that it was necessary to shoot them. Charlevoix says that the invaders remained in the neighborhood of Montreal till the middle of October, or more than two months; but this seems incredible, since troops and militia enough to drive them all into the St. Lawrence might easily have been collected in less than a week. It is certain, however, that their stay was strangely long. Troops and inhabitants seem to have been paralyzed with fear. At length, most of them took to their canoes, and recrossed Lake St. Louis in a body, giving ninety yells to show that they had ninety prisoners in their clutches. This was not all; for the whole number carried off was more than a hundred and twenty, besides about two hundred who had the good fortune to be killed on the spot. As the Iroquois passed the forts, they shouted, "Onontio, you deceived us, and now we have deceived you." Towards evening, they encamped on the farther side of the lake, and began to torture and devour their prisoners. On that miserable night, stupefied and speechless groups stood gazing from the strand of La Chine at the lights that gleamed along the distant shore of Chateaugay, where their 181 friends, wives, parents, or children agonized in the fires of the Iroquois, and scenes were enacted of indescribable and nameless horror. The greater part of the prisoners were, however, reserved to be distributed among the towns of the confederacy, and there tortured for the diversion of the inhabitants. While some of the invaders went home to celebrate their triumph, others roamed in small parties through all the upper parts of the colony, spreading universal terror. [37] [37] The best account of the descent of the Iroquois at La Chine is that of the Recueil de ce qui s'est passé en Canada, 1682-1712. The writer was an author under Subercase, and was on the spot. Belmont, superior of the mission at Montreal, also gives a trustworthy account in his Histoire du Canada. Compare La Honton, I. 193 (1709) and La Potherie, II. 229. Farther particulars are given in the letters of Callières, 8 Nov.; Champigny, 16 Nov.; and Frontenac, 15 Nov. Frontenac, after visiting the scene of the catastrophe a few weeks after it occurred, writes: "Ils (les Iroquois) avoient bruslé plus de trois lieues de pays, saccagé toutes les maisons jusqu'aux portes de la ville, enlevé plus de six vingt personnes, tant hommes, femmes, qu'enfants, après avoir massacré plus de deux cents dont ils avoient cassé la teste aux uns, bruslé, rosty, et mangé les autres, ouverte le ventre des femmes grosses pour en arracher les enfants, et fait des cruautez inou?es et sans exemple." The details are given by Belmont, and by the author of Histoire de l'Eau de Vie en Canada, are no less revolting. The last-mentioned writer thinks that the massacre was a judgment of God upon the sale of brandy at La Chine. Some Canadian writers have charged the English with instigating the massacre. I find nothing in contemporary documents to support the accusation. Denonville wrote to the minister, after the Rat's treachery came to light, that Andros had forbidden the Iroquois to attack the colony. Immediately after the attack at La Chine, the Iroquois sachems, in a conference with the agents of New England, declared that "we did not make war on the French at the persuasion of our brethren at Albany; for we did not so much as acquaint them of our intention till fourteen days after our army had begun their march." Report of Conference in Colden, 103. Canada lay bewildered and benumbed under the shock of this calamity; but the cup of her misery was not full. There was revolution in 182 England. James II., the friend and ally of France, had been driven from his kingdom, and William of Orange had seized his vacant throne. Soon there came news of war between the two crowns. The Iroquois alone had brought the colony to the brink of ruin; and now they would be supported by the neighboring British colonies, rich, strong, and populous, compared to impoverished and depleted Canada. A letter of recall for Denonville was already on its way. [38] His successor arrived in October, and the marquis sailed for France. He was a good soldier in a regular war, and a subordinate command; and he had some of the qualities of a good governor, while lacking others quite as essential. He had more activity than vigor, more personal bravery than firmness, and more clearness of perception than executive power. He filled his despatches with excellent recommendations, but was not the man to carry them into effect. He was sensitive, fastidious, critical, and conventional, and plumed himself on his honor, which was not always able to bear a strain; though as regards illegal trade, the besetting sin of Canadian governors, his hands were undoubtedly clean. [39] It is said that he had an 183 instinctive antipathy for Indians, such as some persons have for certain animals; and the coureurs de bois, and other lawless classes of the Canadian population, appeared to please him no better. Their license and insubordination distressed him, and he constantly complained of them to the king. For the Church and its hierarchy his devotion was unbounded; and his government was a season of unwonted sunshine for the ecclesiastics, like the balmy days of the Indian summer amid the gusts of November. They exhausted themselves in eulogies of his piety; and, in proof of its depth and solidity, Mother Juchereau tells us that he did not regard station and rank as very useful aids to salvation. While other governors complained of too many priests, Denonville begged for more. All was harmony between him and Bishop Saint-Vallier; and the prelate was constantly his friend, even to the point of justifying his worst act, the treacherous seizure of the Iroquois neutrals. [40] When he left Canada, the only mourner besides the churchmen was his colleague, the intendant Champigny; for the two chiefs of the colony, joined in a common union with the Jesuits, lived together in unexampled concord. On his arrival at court, the good offices of his clerical allies gained for him the highly honorable post of governor of the royal children, the young Dukes of Burgundy, Anjou, and Berri. [38] Le Roy à Denonville, 31 Mai, 1689. [39] "I shall only add one article, on which possibly you will find it strange that I have said nothing; namely, whether the governor carries on any trade. I shall answer, no; but my Lady the Governess (Madame la Gouvernante), who is disposed not to neglect any opportunity for making a profit, had a room, not to say a shop, full of goods, till the close of last winter, in the chateau of Quebec, and found means afterwards to make a lottery to get rid of the rubbish that remained, which produced her more than her good merchandise." Relation of the State of Affairs in Canada, 1688, in N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 388. This paper was written at Quebec. [40] Saint-Vallier, état Présent, 91, 92 (Quebec, 1856).