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 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. [Footnote: In the Depot des Cartes de la Marine, there is a contemporary manuscript 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 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 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 assail 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 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. [Footnote: Denonville, Memoire du 8 Aout, 1688.] His fast friend, the bishop, warmly seconded his appeal. "The glory of God 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 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 with their escort gravely pursued their way to meet Denonville at Montreal. [Footnote: Relation des Evenements 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. [Footnote: Declaration of the Iroquois in presence of M. de Denonville, N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 384; Relation des Evenements de la Guerre, 30 Oct., 1688; Belmont, Histoire du Canada.] 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. [Footnote: Callieres a Seignelay, Jan., 1689.] A declaration of neutrality was drawn up, and Big Mouth affixed to it the figures of sundry birds and beasts as the signatures of himself and his fellow-chiefs. [Footnote: See the signatures in N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 385, 386.] He promised, too, that within a certain time deputies from the whole confederacy should come to Montreal and conclude a general peace.

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. [Footnote: Nicolas Perrot, 143.] The French had spared no pains to gain 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. [Footnote: Denonville a Seignelay, 9 Nov., 1688. La Hontan saw the party set out, and says that there were about a hundred of them.] 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.

"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 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 business." [Footnote: "Il dit, J'ai tue la paix." Belmont, Histoire du Canada. "Le Rat passa ensuite seul a 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.] 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. [1]

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 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. [Footnote: 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 Remy, Roland, and La Presentation; and they all had 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 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 Remy 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 Remy. [Footnote: Recueil de ce qui s'est passe en Canada depuis l'annee 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 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 Remy, and that of three drunken stragglers who were caught and thrown into a cellar in Fort La Presentation. 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 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. [2]

Canada lay bewildered and benumbed under the shock of this calamity; but the cup of her misery was not full. There was revolution in 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. [Footnote: Le Roy a Denonville, 31 Mai, 1689.] 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. [3] It is said that he had an 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. [Footnote: Saint-Vallier, Etat Present, 91, 92 (Quebec, 1856).] 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.

[1] La Hontan, I. 180 (1709). Most of the details of the story are drawn from this writer, whose statement I have compared with that of Denonville, in his letter dated Nov. 9, 1688; of Callieres, Jan., 1689; of the Abstract of Letters from Canada, in N.Y. Col. Docs., IX. 393; and of the writer of Relation des Evenements de la Guerre, 8 Oct., 1688. Belmont notices the affair with his usual conciseness. La Hontan's account is sustained by the others in most, though not in all of its essential points. He calls the Huron chief Adario, ou le Rat. He is elsewhere mentioned as Kondiarouk, Kondiaront, Souoias, and Souaiti. 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.

[2] The best account of the descent of the Iroquois at La Chine is that of the Recueil de ce qui s'est passe en Canada, 1682-1712. The writer was an officer under Subercase, and was on the spot. Belmont, superior of the mission of Montreal, also gives a trustworthy account in his Histoire du Canada. Compare La Hontan, I. 193 (1709), and La Potherie, II. 229. Farther particulars are given in the letters of Callieres, 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 brusle plus de trois lieues de pays, saccage toutes les maisons jusqu'aux portes de la ville, enleve plus de six vingt personnes, tant hommes, femmes, qu'enfants, apres avoir massacre plus de deux cents dont ils avoient casse la teste aux uns, brusle, rosty, et mange les autres, ouvert le ventre des femmes grosses pour en arracher les enfants, et fait des cruautez inouies et sans exemple." The details 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.

[3] "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.



CHAPTER X.

1689, 1690.

RETURN OF FRONTENAC. VERSAILLES.—FRONTENAC AND THE KING.—FRONTENAC SAILS FOR QUEBEC.—PROJECTED CONQUEST OF NEW YORK.—DESIGNS OF THE KING.—FAILURE.—ENERGY OF FRONTENAC.—FORT FRONTENAC.—PANIC.— NEGOTIATIONS.—THE IROQUOIS IN COUNCIL.—CHEVALIER D'AUX.—TAUNTS OF THE INDIAN ALLIES.—BOLDNESS OF FRONTENAC.—AN IROQUOIS DEFEAT.— CRUEL POLICY.—THE STROKE PARRIED.

The sun of Louis XIV had reached its zenith. From a morning of unexampled brilliancy it had mounted to the glare of a cloudless noon; but the hour of its decline was near. The mortal enemy of France was on the throne of England, turning against her from that new point of vantage all the energies of his unconquerable genius. An invalid built the Bourbon monarchy, and another invalid battered and defaced the imposing structure: two potent and daring spirits in two frail bodies, Richelieu and William of Orange.

Versailles gave no sign of waning glories. On three evenings of the week, it was the pleasure of the king that the whole court should assemble in the vast suite of apartments now known as the Halls of Abundance, of Venus, of Diana, of Mars, of Mercury, and of Apollo. The magnificence of their decorations, pictures of the great Italian masters, sculptures, frescoes, mosaics, tapestries, vases and statues of silver and gold; the vista of light and splendor that opened through the wide portals; the courtly throngs, feasting, dancing, gaming, promenading, conversing, formed a scene which no palace of Europe could rival or approach. Here were all the great historic names of France, princes, warriors, statesmen, and all that was highest in rank and place; the flower, in short, of that brilliant society, so dazzling, captivating, and illusory. In former years, the king was usually present, affable and gracious, mingling with his courtiers and sharing their amusements; but he had grown graver of late, and was more often in his cabinet, laboring with his ministers on the task of administration, which his extravagance and ambition made every day more burdensome. [Footnote: Saint-Simon speaks of these assemblies. The halls in question were finished in 1682; and a minute account of them, and of the particular use to which each was destined, was printed in the Mercure Francais of that year. See also Soulie, Notice du Musee imperial de Versailles, where copious extracts from the Mercure are given. The grands appartements are now entirely changed in appearance, and turned into an historic picture gallery.]

There was one corner of the world where his emblem, the sun, would not shine on him. He had done his best for Canada, and had got nothing for his pains but news of mishaps and troubles. He was growing tired of the colony which he had nursed with paternal fondness, and he was more than half angry with it because it did not prosper. Denonville's letters had grown worse and worse; and, though he had not heard as yet of the last great calamity, he was sated with ill tidings already.

Count Frontenac stood before him. Since his recall, he had lived at court, needy and no longer in favor; but he had influential friends, and an intriguing wife, always ready to serve him. The king knew his merits as well as his faults; and, in the desperate state of his Canadian affairs, he had been led to the resolution of restoring him to the command from which, for excellent reasons, he had removed him seven years before. He now told him that, in his belief, the charges brought against him were without foundation. [Footnote: Journal de Dangeau, II. 390. Frontenac, since his recall, had not been wholly without marks of royal favor. In 1685, the king gave him a "gratification" of 3,500 francs. Ibid., I. 205.] "I send you back to Canada," he is reported to have said, "where I am sure that you will serve me as well as you did before; and I ask nothing more of you." [Footnote: Goyer, Oraison Funebre du Comte de Frontenac.] The post was not a tempting one to a man in his seventieth year. Alone and unsupported,—for the king, with Europe rising against him, would give him no more troops,—he was to restore the prostrate colony to hope and courage, and fight two enemies with a force that had proved no match for one of them alone. The audacious count trusted himself, and undertook the task; received the royal instructions, and took his last leave of the master whom even he after a fashion honored and admired.

He repaired to Rochelle, where two ships of the royal navy were waiting his arrival, embarked in one of them, and sailed for the New World. An heroic remedy had been prepared for the sickness of Canada, and Frontenac was to be the surgeon. The cure, however, was not of his contriving. Denonville had sent Callieres, his second in command, to represent the state of the colony to the court, and beg for help. Callieres saw that there was little hope of more troops or any considerable supply of money; and he laid before the king a plan, which had at least the recommendations of boldness and cheapness. This was to conquer New York with the forces already in Canada, aided only by two ships of war. The blow, he argued, should be struck at once, and the English taken by surprise. A thousand regulars and six hundred Canadian militia should pass Lake Champlain and Lake George in canoes and bateaux, cross to the Hudson and capture Albany, where they would seize all the river craft and descend the Hudson to the town of New York, which, as Callieres stated, had then about two hundred houses and four hundred fighting men. The two ships were to cruise at the mouth of the harbor, and wait the arrival of the troops, which was to be made known to them by concerted signals, whereupon they were to enter and aid in the attack. The whole expedition, he thought, might be accomplished in a month; so that by the end of October the king would be master of all the country. The advantages were manifold. The Iroquois, deprived of English arms and ammunition, would be at the mercy of the French; the question of English rivalry in the west would be settled for ever; the king would acquire a means of access to his colony incomparably better than the St. Lawrence, and one that remained open all the year; and, finally, New England would be isolated, and prepared for a possible conquest in the future.

The king accepted the plan with modifications, which complicated and did not improve it. Extreme precautions were taken to insure secrecy; but the vast distances, the difficult navigation, and the accidents of weather appear to have been forgotten in this amended scheme of operation. There was, moreover, a long delay in fitting the two ships for sea. The wind was ahead, and they were fifty-two days in reaching Chedabucto, at the eastern end of Nova Scotia. Thence Frontenac and Callieres had orders to proceed in a merchant ship to Quebec, which might require a month more; and, on arriving, they were to prepare for the expedition, while at the same time Frontenac was to send back a letter to the naval commander at Chedabucto, revealing the plan to him, and ordering him to sail to New York to co-operate in it. It was the twelfth of September when Chedabucto was reached, and the enterprise was ruined by the delay. Frontenac's first step in his new government was a failure, though one for which he was in no way answerable. [1]

It will be well to observe what were the intentions of the king towards the colony which he proposed to conquer. They were as follows: If any Catholics were found in New York, they might be left undisturbed, provided that they took an oath of allegiance to the king. Officers, and other persons who had the means of paying ransoms, were to be thrown into prison. All lands in the colony, except those of Catholics swearing allegiance, were to be taken from their owners, and granted under a feudal tenure to the French officers and soldiers. All property, public or private, was to be seized, a portion of it given to the grantees of the land, and the rest sold on account of the king. Mechanics and other workmen might, at the discretion of the commanding officer, be kept as prisoners to work at fortifications and do other labor. The rest of the English and Dutch inhabitants, men, women, and children, were to be carried out of the colony and dispersed in New England, Pennsylvania, or other places, in such a manner that they could not combine in any attempt to recover their property and their country. And, that the conquest might be perfectly secure, the nearest settlements of New England were to be destroyed, and those more remote laid under contribution. [2]

In the next century, some of the people of Acadia were torn from their homes by order of a British commander. The act was harsh and violent, and the innocent were involved with the guilty; but many of the sufferers had provoked their fate, and deserved it.

Louis XIV. commanded that eighteen thousand unoffending persons should be stripped of all that they possessed, and cast out to the mercy of the wilderness. The atrocity of the plan is matched by its folly. The king gave explicit orders, but he gave neither ships nor men enough to accomplish them; and the Dutch farmers, goaded to desperation, would have cut his sixteen hundred soldiers to pieces. It was the scheme of a man blinded by a long course of success. Though perverted by flattery and hardened by unbridled power, he was not cruel by nature; and here, as in the burning of the Palatinate and the persecution of the Huguenots, he would have stood aghast, if his dull imagination could have pictured to him the miseries he was preparing to inflict. [Footnote: On the details of the projected attack of New York, Le Roy a Denonville, 7 Juin, 1689; Le Ministre a Denonville, meme date; Le Ministre a Frontenac, meme date; Ordre du Roy a Vaudreuil, meme date; Le Roy au Sieur de la Caffiniere, meme date; Champigny au Ministre, 16 Nov., 1689.]

With little hope left that the grand enterprise against New York could succeed, Frontenac made sail for Quebec, and, stopping by the way at Isle Percee, learned from Recollet missionaries the irruption of the Iroquois at Montreal. He hastened on; but the wind was still against him, and the autumn woods were turning brown before he reached his destination. It was evening when he landed, amid fireworks, illuminations, and the firing of cannon. All Quebec came to meet him by torchlight; the members of the council offered their respects, and the Jesuits made him an harangue of welcome. [Footnote: La Hontan, I. 199.] It was but a welcome of words. They and the councillors had done their best to have him recalled, and hoped that they were rid of him for ever; but now he was among them again, rasped by the memory of real or fancied wrongs. The count, however, had no time for quarrelling. The king had told him to bury old animosities and forget the past, and for the present he was too busy to break the royal injunction. [Footnote: Instruction pour le Sieur Comte de Frontenac, 7 Juin, 1689.] He caused boats to be made ready, and in spite of incessant rains pushed up the river to Montreal. Here he found Denonville and his frightened wife. Every thing was in confusion. The Iroquois were gone, leaving dejection and terror behind them. Frontenac reviewed the troops. There were seven or eight hundred of them in the town, the rest being in garrison at the various forts. Then he repaired to what was once La Chine, and surveyed the miserable waste of ashes and desolation that spread for miles around.

To his extreme disgust, he learned that Denonville had sent a Canadian officer by secret paths to Fort Frontenac, with orders to Valrenne, the commandant, to blow it up, and return with his garrison to Montreal. Frontenac had built the fort, had given it his own name, and had cherished it with a paternal fondness, reinforced by strong hopes of making money out of it. For its sake he had become the butt of scandal and opprobrium; but not the less had he always stood its strenuous and passionate champion. An Iroquois envoy had lately with great insolence demanded its destruction of Denonville; and this alone, in the eyes of Frontenac, was ample reason for maintaining it at any cost. [Footnote: Frontenac au Ministre, 15 Nov., 1689.] He still had hope that it might be saved, and with all the energy of youth he proceeded to collect canoes, men, provisions, and arms; battled against dejection, insubordination, and fear, and in a few days despatched a convoy of three hundred men to relieve the place, and stop the execution of Denonville's orders. His orders had been but too promptly obeyed. The convoy was scarcely gone an hour, when, to Frontenac's unutterable wrath, Valrenne appeared with his garrison. He reported that he had set fire to every thing in the fort that would burn, sunk the three vessels belonging to it, thrown the cannon into the lake, mined the walls and bastions, and left matches burning in the powder magazine; and, further, that when he and his men were five leagues on their way to Montreal a dull and distant explosion told them that the mines had sprung. It proved afterwards that the destruction was not complete; and the Iroquois took possession of the abandoned fort, with a large quantity of stores and munitions left by the garrison in their too hasty retreat. [Footnote: Frontenac au Ministre, 15 Nov., 1689; Recueil de ce qui s'est passe en Canada depuis l'annee 1682.]

There was one ray of light through the clouds. The unwonted news of a victory came to Montreal. It was small, but decisive, and might be an earnest of greater things to come. Before Frontenac's arrival, Denonville had sent a reconnoitring party up the Ottawa. They had gone no farther than the Lake of Two Mountains, when they met twenty-two Iroquois in two large canoes, who immediately bore down upon them, yelling furiously. The French party consisted of twenty-eight coureurs de bois under Du Lhut and Mantet, excellent partisan chiefs, who manoeuvred so well that the rising sun blazed full in the eyes of the advancing enemy, and spoiled their aim. The French received their fire, which wounded one man; then, closing with them while their guns were empty, gave them a volley, which killed and wounded eighteen of their number. One swam ashore. The remaining three were captured, and given to the Indian allies to be burned. [Footnote: Frontenac au Ministre, 15 Nov., 1689; Champigny au Ministre, 16 Nov., 1689. Compare Belmont, whose account is a little different; also N.Y. Col. Docs., IX. 435.]

This gleam of sunshine passed, and all grew black again. On a snowy November day, a troop of Iroquois fell on the settlement of La Chesnaye, burned the houses, and vanished with a troop of prisoners, leaving twenty mangled corpses on the snow. [Footnote: Belmont, Histoire du Canada; Frontenac a—, 17 Nov., 1689; Champigny au Ministre, 16 Nov., 1689. This letter is not the one just cited. Champigny wrote twice on the same day.] "The terror," wrote the bishop, "is indescribable." The appearance of a few savages would put a whole neighborhood to flight. [Footnote: N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 435.] So desperate, wrote Frontenac, were the needs of the colony, and so great the contempt with which the Iroquois regarded it, that it almost needed a miracle either to carry on war or make peace. What he most earnestly wished was to keep the Iroquois quiet, and so leave his hands free to deal with the English. This was not easy, to such a pitch of audacity had late events raised them. Neither his temper nor his convictions would allow him to beg peace of them, like his predecessor; but he had inordinate trust in the influence of his name, and he now took a course which he hoped might answer his purpose without increasing their insolence. The perfidious folly of Denonville in seizing their countrymen at Fort Frontenac had been a prime cause of their hostility; and, at the request of the late governor, the surviving captives, thirteen in all, had been taken from the galleys, gorgeously clad in French attire, and sent back to Canada in the ship which carried Frontenac. Among them was a famous Cayuga war-chief called Ourehaoue, whose loss had infuriated the Iroquois. [Footnote: Ourehaoue was not one of the neutrals entrapped at Fort Frontenac, but was seized about the same time by the troops on their way up the St. Lawrence.] Frontenac gained his good-will on the voyage; and, when they reached Quebec, he lodged him in the chateau, and treated him with such kindness that the chief became his devoted admirer and friend. As his influence was great among his people, Frontenac hoped that he might use him with success to bring about an accommodation. He placed three of the captives at the disposal of the Cayuga, who forthwith sent them to Onondaga with a message which the governor had dictated, and which was to the following effect: "The great Onontio, whom you all know, has come back again. He does not blame you for what you have done; for he looks upon you as foolish children, and blames only the English, who are the cause of your folly, and have made you forget your obedience to a father who has always loved and never deceived you. He will permit me, Ourehaoue, to return to you as soon as you will come to ask for me, not as you have spoken of late, but like children speaking to a father." [Footnote: Frontenac au Ministre, 30 Avril, 1690.] Frontenac hoped that they would send an embassy to reclaim their chief, and thus give him an opportunity to use his personal influence over them. With the three released captives, he sent an Iroquois convert named Cut Nose with a wampum belt to announce his return.

When the deputation arrived at Onondaga and made known their errand, the Iroquois magnates, with their usual deliberation, deferred answering till a general council of the confederacy should have time to assemble; and, meanwhile, they sent messengers to ask the mayor of Albany, and others of their Dutch and English friends, to come to the meeting. They did not comply, merely sending the government interpreter, with a few Mohawk Indians, to represent their interests. On the other hand, the Jesuit Milet, who had been captured a few months before, adopted, and made an Oneida chief, used every effort to second the designs of Frontenac. The authorities of Albany tried in vain to induce the Iroquois to place him in their hands. They understood their interests too well, and held fast to the Jesuit. [Footnote: Milet was taken in 1689, not, as has been supposed, in 1690. Lettre du Pere Milet, 1691, printed by Shea.]

The grand council took place at Onondaga on the twenty-second of January. Eighty chiefs and sachems, seated gravely on mats around the council fire, smoked their pipes in silence for a while; till at length an Onondaga orator rose, and announced that Frontenac, the old Onontio, had returned with Ourehaoue and twelve more of their captive friends, that he meant to rekindle the council fire at Fort Frontenac, and that he invited them to meet him there. [Footnote: Frontenac declares that he sent no such message, and intimates that Cut Nose had been tampered with by persons over-anxious to conciliate the Iroquois, and who had even gone so far as to send them messages on their own account. These persons were Lamberville, Francois Hertel, and one of the Le Moynes. Frontenac was very angry at this interference, to which he ascribes the most mischievous consequences. Cut Nose, or Nez Coupe, is called Adarahta by Colden, and Gagniegaton, or Red Bird, by some French writers.]

"Ho, ho, ho," returned the eighty senators, from the bottom of their throats. It was the unfailing Iroquois response to a speech. Then Cut Nose, the governor's messenger, addressed the council: "I advise you to meet Onontio as he desires. Do so, if you wish to live." He presented a wampum belt to confirm his words, and the conclave again returned the same guttural ejaculation.

"Ourehaoue sends you this," continued Cut Nose, presenting another belt of wampum: "by it he advises you to listen to Onontio, if you wish to live."

When the messenger from Canada had ceased, the messenger from Albany, a Mohawk Indian, rose and repeated word for word a speech confided to him by the mayor of that town, urging the Iroquois to close their ears against the invitations of Onontio.

Next rose one Cannehoot, a sachem of the Senecas, charged with matters of grave import; for they involved no less than the revival of that scheme, so perilous to the French, of the union of the tribes of the Great Lakes in a triple alliance with the Iroquois and the English. These lake tribes, disgusted with the French, who, under Denonville, had left them to the mercy of the Iroquois, had been impelled, both by their fears and their interests to make new advances to the confederacy, and had first addressed themselves to the Senecas, whom they had most cause to dread. They had given up some of the Iroquois prisoners in their hands, and promised soon to give up the rest. A treaty had been made; and it was this event which the Seneca sachem now announced to the council. Having told the story to his assembled colleagues, he exhibited and explained the wampum belts and other tokens brought by the envoys from the lakes, who represented nine distinct tribes or bands from the region of Michillimackinac. By these tokens, the nine tribes declared that they came to learn wisdom of the Iroquois and the English; to wash off the war-paint, throw down the tomahawk, smoke the pipe of peace, and unite with them as one body. "Onontio is drunk," such was the interpretation of the fourth wampum belt; "but we, the tribes of Michillimackinac, wash our hands of all his actions. Neither we nor you must defile ourselves by listening to him." When the Seneca sachem had ended, and when the ejaculations that echoed his words had ceased, the belts were hung up before all the assembly, then taken down again, and distributed among the sachems of the five Iroquois tribes, excepting one, which was given to the messengers from Albany. Thus was concluded the triple alliance, which to Canada meant no less than ruin.

"Brethren," said an Onondaga sachem, "we must hold fast to our brother Quider (Peter Schuyler, mayor of Albany) and look on Onontio as our enemy, for he is a cheat."

Then they invited the interpreter from Albany to address the council, which he did, advising them not to listen to the envoys from Canada. When he had ended, they spent some time in consultation among themselves, and at length agreed on the following message, addressed to Corlaer, or New York, and to Kinshon, the Fish, by which they meant New England, the authorities of which had sent them the image of a fish as a token of alliance: [Footnote: The wooden image of a codfish still hangs in the State House at Boston, the emblem of a colony which lived chiefly by the fisheries.]—

"Brethren, our council fire burns at Albany. We will not go to meet Onontio at Fort Frontenac. We will hold fast to the old chain of peace with Corlaer, and we will fight with Onontio. Brethren, we are glad to hear from you that you are preparing to make war on Canada, but tell us no lies.

"Brother Kinshon, we hear that you mean to send soldiers against the Indians to the eastward; but we advise you, now that we are all united against the French, to fall upon them at once. Strike at the root: when the trunk is cut down, all the branches fall with it.

"Courage, Corlaer! courage, Kinshon! Go to Quebec in the spring; take it, and you will have your feet on the necks of the French and all their friends."

Then they consulted together again, and agreed on the following answer to Ourehaoue and Frontenac:—

"Ourehaoue, the whole council is glad to hear that you have come back.

"Onontio, you have told us that you have come back again, and brought with you thirteen of our people who were carried prisoners to France. We are glad of it. You wish to speak with us at Cataraqui (Fort Frontenac). Don't you know that your council fire there is put out? It is quenched in blood. You must first send home the prisoners. When our brother Ourehaoue is returned to us, then we will talk with you of peace. You must send him and the others home this very winter. We now let you know that we have made peace with the tribes of Michillimackinac. You are not to think, because we return you an answer, that we have laid down the tomahawk. Our warriors will continue the war till you send our countrymen back to us." [3]

The messengers from Canada returned with this reply. Unsatisfactory as it was, such a quantity of wampum was sent with it as showed plainly the importance attached by the Iroquois to the matters in question. Encouraged by a recent success against the English, and still possessed with an overweening confidence in his own influence over the confederates, Frontenac resolved that Ourehaoue should send them another message. The chief, whose devotion to the count never wavered, accordingly despatched four envoys, with a load of wampum belts, expressing his astonishment that his countrymen had not seen fit to send a deputation of chiefs to receive him from the hands of Onontio, and calling upon them to do so without delay, lest he should think that they had forgotten him. Along with the messengers, Frontenac ventured to send the Chevalier d'Aux, a half-pay officer, with orders to observe the disposition of the Iroquois, and impress them in private talk with a sense of the count's power, of his good-will to them, and of the wisdom of coming to terms with him, lest, like an angry father, he should be forced at last to use the rod. The chevalier's reception was a warm one. They burned two of his attendants, forced him to run the gauntlet, and, after a vigorous thrashing, sent him prisoner to Albany. The last failure was worse than the first. The count's name was great among the Iroquois, but he had trusted its power too far. [Footnote: Message of Ourehaoue, in N. Y. Col. Docs., III. 735; Instructions to Chevalier d'Eau, Ibid., 733; Chevalier d'Aux au Ministre, 15 Mai, 1693. The chevalier's name is also written d'O, He himself wrote it as in the text.]

The worst of news had come from Michillimackinac. La Durantaye, the commander of the post, and Carheil, the Jesuit, had sent a messenger to Montreal in the depth of winter to say that the tribes around them were on the point of revolt. Carheil wrote that they threatened openly to throw themselves into the arms of the Iroquois and the English; that they declared that the protection of Onontio was an illusion and a snare; that they once mistook the French for warriors, but saw now that they were no match for the Iroquois, whom they had tamely allowed to butcher them at Montreal, without even daring to defend themselves; that when the French invaded the Senecas they did nothing but cut down corn and break canoes, and since that time they had done nothing but beg peace for themselves, forgetful of their allies, whom they expected to bear the brunt of the war, and then left to their fate; that they had surrendered through cowardice the prisoners they had caught by treachery, and this, too, at a time when the Iroquois were burning French captives in all their towns; and, finally, that, as the French would not or could not make peace for them, they would make peace for themselves. "These," pursued Carheil, "are the reasons they give us to prove the necessity of their late embassy to the Senecas; and by this one can see that our Indians are a great deal more clear-sighted than they are thought to be, and that it is hard to conceal from their penetration any thing that can help or harm their interests. What is certain is that, if the Iroquois are not stopped, they will not fail to come and make themselves masters here." [Footnote: Carheil a Frontenac, 1690. Frontenac did not receive this letter till September, and acted on the information previously sent him. Charlevoix's version of the letter does not conform with the original.]

Charlevoix thinks that Frontenac was not displeased at this bitter arraignment of his predecessor's administration. At the same time, his position was very embarrassing. He had no men to spare; but such was the necessity of saving Michillimackinac, and breaking off the treaty with the Senecas, that when spring opened he sent Captain Louvigny with a hundred and forty-three Canadians and six Indians to reinforce the post and replace its commander, La Durantaye. Two other officers with an additional force were ordered to accompany him through the most dangerous part of the journey. With them went Nicolas Perrot, bearing a message from the count to his rebellious children of Michillimackinac. The following was the pith of this characteristic document:—

"I am astonished to learn that you have forgotten the protection that I always gave you. Do you think that I am no longer alive; or that I have a mind to stand idle, like those who have been here in my place? Or do you think that, if eight or ten hairs have been torn from my children's heads when I was absent, I cannot put ten handfuls of hair in the place of every one that was pulled out? You know that before I protected you the ravenous Iroquois dog was biting everybody. I tamed him and tied him up; but, when he no longer saw me, he behaved worse than ever. If he persists, he shall feel my power. The English have tried to win him by flatteries, but I will kill all who encourage him. The English have deceived and devoured their children, but I am a good father who loves you. I loved the Iroquois once, because they obeyed me. When I knew that they had been treacherously captured and carried to France, I set them free; and, when I restore them to their country, it will not be through fear, but through pity, for I hate treachery. I am strong enough to kill the English, destroy the Iroquois, and whip you, if you fail in your duty to me. The Iroquois have killed and captured you in time of peace. Do to them as they have done to you, do to the English as they would like to do to you, but hold fast to your true father, who will never abandon you. Will you let the English brandy that has killed you in your wigwams lure you into the kettles of the Iroquois? Is not mine better, which has never killed you, but always made you strong?" [Footnote: Parole (de M. de Frontenac) qui doit etre dite a l'Outaouais pour le dissuader de l'Alliance qu'il vent faire avec l'Iroquois et l'Anglois. The message is long. Only the principal points are given above.]

Charged with this haughty missive, Perrot set out for Michillimackinac along with Louvigny and his men. On their way up the Ottawa, they met a large band of Iroquois hunters, whom they routed with heavy loss. Nothing could have been more auspicious for Perrot's errand. When towards midsummer they reached their destination, they ranged their canoes in a triumphal procession, placed in the foremost an Iroquois captured in the fight, forced him to dance and sing, hung out the fleur-de-lis, shouted Vive le Roi, whooped, yelled, and fired their guns. As they neared the village of the Ottawas, all the naked population ran down to the shore, leaping, yelping, and firing, in return. Louvigny and his men passed on, and landed at the neighboring village of the French settlers, who, drawn up in battle array on the shore, added more yells and firing to the general uproar; though, amid this joyous fusillade of harmless gunpowder, they all kept their bullets ready for instant use, for they distrusted the savage multitude. The story of the late victory, however, confirmed as it was by an imposing display of scalps, produced an effect which averted the danger of an immediate outbreak.

The fate of the Iroquois prisoner now became the point at issue. The French hoped that the Indians in their excitement could be induced to put him to death, and thus break their late treaty with his countrymen. Besides the Ottawas, there was at Michillimackinac a village of Hurons under their crafty chief, the Rat. They had pretended to stand fast for the French, who nevertheless believed them to be at the bottom of all the mischief. They now begged for the prisoner, promising to burn him. On the faith of this pledge, he was given to them; but they broke their word, and kept him alive, in order to curry favor with the Iroquois. The Ottawas, intensely jealous of the preference shown to the Hurons, declared in their anger that the prisoner ought to be killed and eaten. This was precisely what the interests of the French demanded; but the Hurons still persisted in protecting him. Their Jesuit missionary now interposed, and told them that, unless they "put the Iroquois into the kettle," the French would take him from them. After much discussion, this argument prevailed. They planted a stake, tied him to it, and began to torture him; but, as he did not show the usual fortitude of his country men, they declared him unworthy to die the death of a warrior, and accordingly shot him. [4]

Here was a point gained for the French, but the danger was not passed. The Ottawas could disavow the killing of the Iroquois; and, in fact, though there was a great division of opinion among them, they were preparing at this very time to send a secret embassy to the Seneca country to ratify the fatal treaty. The French commanders called a council of all the tribes. It met at the house of the Jesuits. Presents in abundance were distributed. The message of Frontenac was reinforced by persuasion and threats; and the assembly was told that the five tribes of the Iroquois were like five nests of muskrats in a marsh, which the French would drain dry, and then burn with all its inhabitants. Perrot took the disaffected chiefs aside, and with his usual bold adroitness diverted them for the moment from their purpose. The projected embassy was stopped, but any day might revive it. There was no safety for the French, and the ground of Michillimackinac was hollow under their feet. Every thing depended on the success of their arms. A few victories would confirm their wavering allies; but the breath of another defeat would blow the fickle crew over to the enemy like a drift of dry leaves.

[1] Projet du Chevalier de Callieres de former une Expedition pour aller attaquer Orange, Manatte, etc.; Resume du Ministre sur la Proposition de M. de Callieres; Autre Memoire de M. de Callieres sur son Projet d'attaquer la Nouvelle York; Memoire des Armes, Munitions, et Ustensiles necessaires pour l'Entreprise proposee par M. de Callieres; Observations du Ministre sur le Projet et le Memoire ci-dessus; Observations du Ministre sur le Projet d'Attaque de la Nouvelle York; Autre Memoire de M. de Callieres au Sujet de l'Entreprise proposee; Autre Memoire de M. de Callieres sur le meme Sujet.

[2] Memoire pour servir d'Instruction a Monsieur le Comte de Frontenac sur l'Entreprise de la Nouvelle York, 7 Juin, 1689. "Si parmy les habitans de la Nouvelle York il se trouve des Catholiques de la fidelite desquels il croye se pouvoir asseurer, il pourra les laisser dans leurs habitations apres leur avoir fait prester serment de fidelite a sa Majeste.... Il pourra aussi garder, s'il le juge a propos, des artisans et autres gens de service necessaires pour la culture des terres ou pour travailler aux fortifications en qualite de prisonniers.... II faut retenir en prison les officiers et les principaux habitans desquels on pourra retirer des rancons. A l'esgard de tous les autres estrangers (ceux qui ne sont pas Francais) hommes, femmes, et enfans, sa Majeste trouve a propos qu'ils soient mis hors de la Colonie et envoyez a la Nouvelle Angleterre, a la Pennsylvanie, ou en d'autres endroits qu'il jugera a propos, par mer ou par terre, ensemble ou separement, le tout suivant qu'il trouvera plus seur pour les dissiper et empescher qu'en se reunissant ils ne puissent donner occasion a des entreprises de la part des ennemis contre cette Colonie. Il envoyera en France les Francais fugitifs qu'il y pourra trouver, et particulierement ceux de la Religion Pretendue-Reformee (Huguenots)." A translation of the entire document will be found in N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 422.

[3] The account of this council is given, with condensation and the omission of parts not essential, from Colden (105-112, ed. 1747). It will serve as an example of the Iroquois method of conducting political business, the habitual regularity and decorum of which has drawn from several contemporary French writers the remark that in such matters the five tribes were savages only in name. The reply to Frontenac is also given by Monseignat (N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 465), and, after him, by La Potherie. Compare Le Clercq, Etablissement de la Foy, II. 403. Ourehaoue is the Tawerahet of Colden.

[4] "Le Pere Missionnaire des Hurons, prevoyant que cette affaire auroit peut-etre une suite qui pourrait etre prejudiciable aux soins qu'il prenoit de leur instruction, demanda qu'il lui fut permis d'aller a leur village pour les obliger de trouver quelque moyen qui fut capable d'appaiser le ressentiment des Francois. Il leur dit que ceux ci vouloient absolument que l'on mit l'Iroquois a la chaudiere, et que si on ne le faisoit, on devoit venir le leur enlever." La Potherie, II. 237 (1722). By the "result prejudicial to his cares for their instruction" he seems to mean their possible transfer from French to English influences. The expression mettre a la chaudiere, though derived from cannibal practices, is often used figuratively for torturing and killing. The missionary in question was either Carheil or another Jesuit, who must have acted with his sanction.



CHAPTER XI.

1690.

THE THREE WAR-PARTIES.

MEASURES OF FRONTENAC.—EXPEDITION AGAINST SCHENECTADY.—THE MARCH.—THE DUTCH VILLAGE.—THE SURPRISE.—THE MASSACRE.—PRISONERS SPARED.—RETREAT.—THE ENGLISH AND THEIR IROQUOIS FRIENDS.—THE ABENAKI WAR.—REVOLUTION AT BOSTON.—CAPTURE OF PEMAQUID.—CAPTURE OF SALMON FALLS.—CAPTURE OF FORT LOYAL.—FRONTENAC AND HIS PRISONER.—THE CANADIANS ENCOURAGED.

While striving to reclaim his allies, Frontenac had not forgotten his enemies. It was of the last necessity to revive the dashed spirits of the Canadians and the troops; and action, prompt and bold, was the only means of doing so. He resolved, therefore, to take the offensive, not against the Iroquois, who seemed invulnerable as ghosts, but against the English; and by striking a few sharp and rapid blows to teach both friends and foes that Onontio was still alive. The effect of his return had already begun to appear, and the energy and fire of the undaunted veteran had shot new life into the dejected population. He formed three war-parties of picked men, one at Montreal, one at Three Rivers, and one at Quebec; the first to strike at Albany, the second at the border settlements of New Hampshire, and the third at those of Maine. That of Montreal was ready first. It consisted of two hundred and ten men, of whom ninety-six were Indian converts, chiefly from the two mission villages of Saut St. Louis and the Mountain of Montreal. They were Christian Iroquois whom the priests had persuaded to leave their homes and settle in Canada, to the great indignation of their heathen countrymen, and the great annoyance of the English colonists, to whom they were a constant menace. When Denonville attacked the Senecas, they had joined him; but of late they had shown reluctance to fight their heathen kinsmen, with whom the French even suspected them of collusion. Against the English, however, they willingly took up the hatchet. The French of the party were for the most part coureurs de bois. As the sea is the sailor's element, so the forest was theirs. Their merits were hardihood and skill in woodcraft; their chief faults were insubordination and lawlessness. They had shared the general demoralization that followed the inroad of the Iroquois, and under Denonville had proved mutinous and unmanageable. In the best times, it was a hard task to command them, and one that needed, not bravery alone, but tact, address, and experience. Under a chief of such a stamp, they were admirable bushfighters, and such were those now chosen to lead them. D'Aillebout de Mantet and Le Moyne de Sainte-Helene, the brave son of Charles Le Moyne, had the chief command, supported by the brothers Le Moyne d'Iberville and Le Moyne de Bienville, with Repentigny de Montesson, Le Ber du Chesne, and others of the sturdy Canadian noblesse, nerved by adventure and trained in Indian warfare. [Footnote: Relation de Monseignat, 1689-90. There is a translation of this valuable paper in N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 462. The party, according to three of their number, consisted at first of 160 French and 140 Christian Indians, but was reduced by sickness and desertion to 250 in all. Examination of three French prisoners taken by the Maquas (Mohawks), and brought to Skinnectady, who were examined by Peter Schuyler, Mayor of Albany, Domine Godevridus Dellius, and some of the Gentlemen that went from Albany a purpose.]

It was the depth of winter when they began their march, striding on snow-shoes over the vast white field of the frozen St. Lawrence, each with the hood of his blanket coat drawn over his head, a gun in his mittened hand, a knife, a hatchet, a tobacco pouch, and a bullet pouch at his belt, a pack on his shoulders, and his inseparable pipe hung at his neck in a leather case. They dragged their blankets and provisions over the snow on Indian sledges. Crossing the forest to Chambly, they advanced four or five days up the frozen Richelieu and the frozen Lake Champlain, and then stopped to hold a council. Frontenac had left the precise point of attack at the discretion of the leaders, and thus far the men had been ignorant of their destination. The Indians demanded to know it. Mantet and Sainte-Helene replied that they were going to Albany. The Indians demurred. "How long is it," asked one of them, "since the French grew so bold?" The commanders answered that, to regain the honor of which their late misfortunes had robbed them, the French would take Albany or die in the attempt. The Indians listened sullenly; the decision was postponed, and the party moved forward again. When after eight days they reached the Hudson, and found the place where two paths diverged, the one for Albany and the other for Schenectady, they all without farther words took the latter. Indeed, to attempt Albany would have been an act of desperation. The march was horrible. There was a partial thaw, and they waded knee-deep through the half melted snow, and the mingled ice, mud, and water of the gloomy swamps. So painful and so slow was their progress, that it was nine days more before they reached a point two leagues from Schenectady. The weather had changed again, and a cold, gusty snow-storm pelted them. It was one of those days when the trees stand white as spectres in the sheltered hollows of the forest, and bare and gray on the wind-swept ridges. The men were half dead with cold, fatigue, and hunger. It was four in the afternoon of the eighth of February. The scouts found an Indian hut, and in it were four Iroquois squaws, whom they captured. There was a fire in the wigwam; and the shivering Canadians crowded about it, stamping their chilled feet and warming their benumbed hands over the blaze. The Christian chief of the Saut St. Louis, known as Le Grand Agnie, or the Great Mohawk, by the French, and by the Dutch called Kryn, harangued his followers, and exhorted them to wash out their wrongs in blood. Then they all advanced again, and about dark reached the river Mohawk, a little above the village. A Canadian named Gignieres, who had gone with nine Indians to reconnoitre, now returned to say that he had been within sight of Schenectady, and had seen nobody. Their purpose had been to postpone the attack till two o'clock in the morning; but the situation was intolerable, and the limit of human endurance was reached. They could not make fires, and they must move on or perish. Guided by the frightened squaws, they crossed the Mohawk on the ice, toiling through the drifts amid the whirling snow that swept down the valley of the darkened stream, till about eleven o'clock they descried through the storm the snow-beplastered palisades of the devoted village. Such was their plight that some of them afterwards declared that they would all have surrendered if an enemy had appeared to summon them. [Footnote: Colden, 114 (ed. 1747).]

Schenectady was the farthest outpost of the colony of New York. Westward lay the Mohawk forests; and Orange, or Albany, was fifteen miles or more towards the south-east. The village was oblong in form, and enclosed by a palisade which had two gates, one towards Albany and the other towards the Mohawks. There was a blockhouse near the eastern gate, occupied by eight or nine Connecticut militia men under Lieutenant Talmage. There were also about thirty friendly Mohawks in the place, on a visit. The inhabitants, who were all Dutch, were in a state of discord and confusion. The revolution in England had produced a revolution in New York. The demagogue Jacob Leisler had got possession of Fort William, and was endeavoring to master the whole colony. Albany was in the hands of the anti-Leisler or conservative party, represented by a convention of which Peter Schuyler was the chief. The Dutch of Schenectady for the most part favored Leisler, whose emissaries had been busily at work among them; but their chief magistrate, John Sander Glen, a man of courage and worth, stood fast for the Albany convention, and in consequence the villagers had threatened to kill him. Talmage and his Connecticut militia were under orders from Albany; and therefore, like Glen, they were under the popular ban. In vain the magistrate and the officer entreated the people to stand on their guard. They turned the advice to ridicule, laughed at the idea of danger, left both their gates wide open, and placed there, it is said, two snow images as mock sentinels. A French account declares that the village contained eighty houses, which is certainly an exaggeration. There had been some festivity during the evening, but it was now over; and the primitive villagers, fathers, mothers, children, and infants, lay buried in unconscious sleep. They were simple peasants and rude woodsmen, but with human affections and capable of human woe.

The French and Indians stood before the open gate, with its blind and dumb warder, the mock sentinel of snow. Iberville went with a detachment to find the Albany gate, and bar it against the escape of fugitives; but he missed it in the gloom, and hastened back. The assailants were now formed into two bands, Sainte-Helene leading the one and Mantet the other. They passed through the gate together in dead silence: one turned to the right and the other to the left, and they filed around the village between the palisades and the houses till the two leaders met at the farther end. Thus the place was completely surrounded. The signal was then given: they all screeched the war-whoop together, burst in the doors with hatchets, and fell to their work. Roused by the infernal din, the villagers leaped from their beds. For some it was but a momentary nightmare of fright and horror, ended by the blow of the tomahawk. Others were less fortunate. Neither women nor children were spared. "No pen can write, and no tongue express," wrote Schuyler, "the cruelties that were committed." [Footnote: "The women bigg with Childe rip'd up, and the Children alive throwne into the flames, and their heads dashed to pieces against the Doors and windows." Schuyler to the Council of Connecticut, 15 Feb., 1690. Similar statements are made by Leisler. See Doc. Hist. N. Y., I. 307, 310.] There was little resistance, except at the block-house, where Talmage and his men made a stubborn fight; but the doors were at length forced open, the defenders killed or taken, and the building set on fire. Adam Vrooman, one of the villagers, saw his wife shot and his child brained against the door-post; but he fought so desperately that the assailants promised him his life. Orders had been given to spare Peter Tassemaker, the domine or minister, from whom it was thought that valuable information might be obtained; but he was hacked to pieces, and his house burned. Some, more agile or more fortunate than the rest, escaped at the eastern gate, and fled through the storm to seek shelter at Albany or at houses along the way. Sixty persons were killed outright, of whom thirty-eight were men and boys, ten were women, and twelve were children. [Footnote: List of ye. People kild and destroyed by ye. French of Canida and there Indians at Skinnechtady, in Doc. Hist. N. Y., I. 304.] The number captured appears to have been between eighty and ninety. The thirty Mohawks in the town were treated with studied kindness by the victors, who declared that they had no quarrel with them, but only with the Dutch and English.

The massacre and pillage continued two hours; then the prisoners were secured, sentinels posted, and the men told to rest and refresh themselves. In the morning, a small party crossed the river to the house of Glen, which stood on a rising ground half a mile distant. It was loopholed and palisaded; and Glen had mustered his servants and tenants, closed his gates, and prepared to defend himself. The French told him to fear nothing, for they had orders not to hurt a chicken of his; whereupon, after requiring them to lay down their arms, he allowed them to enter. They urged him to go with them to the village, and he complied; they on their part leaving one of their number as a hostage in the hands of his followers. Iberville appeared at the gate with the Great Mohawk, and, drawing his commission from the breast of his coat, told Glen that he was specially charged to pay a debt which the French owed him. On several occasions, he had saved the lives of French prisoners in the hands of the Mohawks; and he, with his family, and, above all, his wife, had shown them the greatest kindness. He was now led before the crowd of wretched prisoners, and told that not only were his own life and property safe, but that all his kindred should be spared. Glen stretched his privilege to the utmost, till the French Indians, disgusted at his multiplied demands for clemency, observed that everybody seemed to be his relation.

Some of the houses had already been burned. Fire was now set to the rest, excepting one, in which a French officer lay wounded, another belonging to Glen, and three or four more which he begged the victors to spare. At noon Schenectady was in ashes. Then the French and Indians withdrew, laden with booty. Thirty or forty captured horses dragged their sledges; and a troop of twenty-seven men and boys were driven prisoners into the forest. About sixty old men, women, and children were left behind, without farther injury, in order, it is said, to conciliate the Mohawks in the place, who had joined with Glen in begging that they might be spared. Of the victors, only two had been killed. [1]

At the outset of the attack, Simon Schermerhorn threw himself on a horse, and galloped through the eastern gate. The French shot at and wounded him; but he escaped, reached Albany at daybreak, and gave the alarm. The soldiers and inhabitants were called to arms, cannon were fired to rouse the country, and a party of horsemen, followed by some friendly Mohawks, set out for Schenectady. The Mohawks had promised to carry the news to their three towns on the river above; but, when they reached the ruined village, they were so frightened at the scene of havoc that they would not go farther. Two days passed before the alarm reached the Mohawk towns. Then troops of warriors came down on snow-shoes, equipped with tomahawk and gun, to chase the retiring French. Fifty young men from Albany joined them; and they followed the trail of the enemy, who, with the help of their horses, made such speed over the ice of Lake Champlain that it seemed impossible to overtake them. They thought the pursuit abandoned; and, having killed and eaten most of their horses, and being spent with fatigue, they moved more slowly as they neared home, when a band of Mohawks, who had followed stanchly on their track, fell upon a party of stragglers, and killed or captured fifteen or more, almost within sight of Montreal.

Three of these prisoners, examined by Schuyler, declared that Frontenac was preparing for a grand attack on Albany in the spring. In the political confusion of the time, the place was not in fighting condition; and Schuyler appealed for help to the authorities of Massachusetts. "Dear neighbours and friends, we must acquaint you that nevir poor People in the world was in a worse Condition than we are at Present, no Governour nor Command, no money to forward any expedition, and scarce Men enough to maintain the Citty. We have here plainly laid the case before you, and doubt not but you will so much take it to heart, and make all Readinesse in the Spring to invade Canida by water." [Footnote: Schuyler, Wessell, and Van Rensselaer to the Governor and Council of Massachusetts, 15 Feb., 1690, in Andros Tracts, III. 114.] The Mohawks were of the same mind. Their elders came down to Albany to condole with their Dutch and English friends on the late disaster. "We are come," said their orator, "with tears in our eyes, to lament the murders committed at Schenectady by the perfidious French. Onontio comes to our country to speak of peace, but war is at his heart. He has broken into our house at both ends, once among the Senecas and once here; but we hope to be revenged. Brethren, our covenant with you is a silver chain that cannot rust or break. We are of the race of the bear; and the bear does not yield, so long as there is a drop of blood in his body. Let us all be bears. We will go together with an army to ruin the country of the French. Therefore, send in all haste to New England. Let them be ready with ships and great guns to attack by water, while we attack by land." [Footnote: Propositions made by the Sachems of ye. Maquase (Mohawk) Castles to ye. Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonality of ye. Citty of Albany, ye. 25 day of february, 1690, in Doc. Hist. N. Y., II. 164-169.] Schuyler did not trust his red allies, who, however, seem on this occasion to have meant what they said. He lost no time in sending commissioners to urge the several governments of New England to a combined attack on the French.

New England needed no prompting to take up arms; for she presently learned to her cost that, though feeble and prostrate, Canada could sting. The war-party which attacked Schenectady was, as we have seen, but one of three which Frontenac had sent against the English borders. The second, aimed at New Hampshire, left Three Rivers on the twenty-eighth of January, commanded by Francois Hertel. It consisted of twenty-four Frenchmen, twenty Abenakis of the Sokoki band, and five Algonquins. After three months of excessive hardship in the vast and rugged wilderness that intervened, they approached the little settlement of Salmon Falls on the stream which separates New Hampshire from Maine; and here for a moment we leave them, to observe the state of this unhappy frontier.

It was twelve years and more since the great Indian outbreak, called King Philip's War, had carried havoc through all the borders of New England. After months of stubborn fighting, the fire was quenched in Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut; but in New Hampshire and Maine it continued to burn fiercely till the treaty of Casco, in 1678. The principal Indians of this region were the tribes known collectively as the Abenakis. The French had established relations with them through the missionaries; and now, seizing the opportunity, they persuaded many of these distressed and exasperated savages to leave the neighborhood of the English, migrate to Canada, and settle first at Sillery near Quebec and then at the falls of the Chaudiere. Here the two Jesuits, Jacques and Vincent Bigot, prime agents in their removal, took them in charge; and the missions of St. Francis became villages of Abenaki Christians, like the village of Iroquois Christians at Saut St. Louis. In both cases, the emigrants were sheltered under the wing of Canada; and they and their tomahawks were always at her service. The two Bigots spared no pains to induce more of the Abenakis to join these mission colonies. They were in good measure successful, though the great body of the tribe still clung to their ancient homes on the Saco, the Kennebec, and the Penobscot. [Footnote: The Abenaki migration to Canada began as early as the autumn of 1675 (Relation, 1676-77). On the mission of St. Francis on the Chaudiere, see Bigot, Relation, 1684; Ibid., 1685. It was afterwards removed to the river St. Francis.]

There were ten years of critical and dubious peace along the English border, and then the war broke out again. The occasion of this new uprising is not very clear, and it is hardly worth while to look for it. Between the harsh and reckless borderer on the one side, and the fierce savage on the other, a single spark might at any moment set the frontier in a blaze. The English, however, believed firmly that their French rivals had a hand in the new outbreak; and, in fact, the Abenakis told some of their English captives that Saint-Castin, a French adventurer on the Penobscot, gave every Indian who would go to the war a pound of gunpowder, two pounds of lead, and a supply of tobacco. [Footnote: Hutchinson, Hist. Mass., I. 326. Compare N. Y. Col. Docs., IV. 282, 476.] The trading house of Saint-Castin, which stood on ground claimed by England, had lately been plundered by Sir Edmund Andros, and some of the English had foretold that an Indian war would be the consequence; but none of them seem at this time to have suspected that the governor of Canada and his Jesuit friends had any part in their woes. Yet there is proof that this was the case; for Denonville himself wrote to the minister at Versailles that the successes of the Abenakis on this occasion were due to the "good understanding which he had with them," by means of the two brothers Bigot and other Jesuits. [2]

Whatever were the influences that kindled and maintained the war, it spread dismay and havoc through the English settlements. Andros at first made light of it, and complained of the authorities of Boston, because in his absence they had sent troops to protect the settlers; but he soon changed his mind, and in the winter went himself to the scene of action with seven hundred men. Not an Indian did he find. They had all withdrawn into the depths of the frozen forest. Andros did what he could, and left more than five hundred men in garrison on the Kennebec and the Saco, at Casco Bay, Pemaquid, and various other exposed points. He then returned to Boston, where surprising events awaited him. Early in April, news came that the Prince of Orange had landed in England. There was great excitement. The people of the town rose against Andros, whom they detested as the agent of the despotic policy of James II. They captured his two forts with their garrisons of regulars, seized his frigate in the harbor, placed him and his chief adherents in custody, elected a council of safety, and set at its head their former governor, Bradstreet, an old man of eighty-seven. The change was disastrous to the eastern frontier. Of the garrisons left for its protection the winter before, some were partially withdrawn by the new council; while others, at the first news of the revolution, mutinied, seized their officers, and returned home. [3] These garrisons were withdrawn or reduced, partly perhaps because the hated governor had established them, partly through distrust of his officers, some of whom were taken from the regulars, and partly because the men were wanted at Boston. The order of withdrawal cannot be too strongly condemned. It was a part of the bungling inefficiency which marked the military management of the New England governments from the close of Philip's war to the peace of Utrecht.

When spring opened, the Indians turned with redoubled fury against the defenceless frontier, seized the abandoned stockades, and butchered the helpless settlers. Now occurred the memorable catastrophe at Cocheco, or Dover. Two squaws came at evening and begged lodging in the palisaded house of Major Waldron. At night, when all was still, they opened the gates and let in their savage countrymen. Waldron was eighty years old. He leaped from his bed, seized his sword, and drove back the assailants through two rooms; but, as he turned to snatch his pistols, they stunned him by the blow of a hatchet, bound him in an arm-chair, and placed him on a table, where after torturing him they killed him with his own sword. The crowning event of the war was the capture of Pemaquid, a stockade work, mounted with seven or eight cannon. Andros had placed in it a garrison of a hundred and fifty-six men, under an officer devoted to him. Most of them had been withdrawn by the council of safety; and the entire force of the defenders consisted of Lieutenant James Weems and thirty soldiers, nearly half of whom appear to have been absent at the time of the attack. [4] The Indian assailants were about a hundred in number, all Christian converts from mission villages. By a sudden rush, they got possession of a number of houses behind the fort, occupied only by women and children, the men being at their work. [Footnote: Captivity of John Gyles. Gyles was one of the inhabitants.] Some ensconced themselves in the cellars, and others behind a rock on the seashore, whence they kept up a close and galling fire. On the next day, Weems surrendered, under a promise of life, and, as the English say, of liberty to himself and all his followers. The fourteen men who had survived the fire, along with a number of women and children, issued from the gate, upon which some were butchered on the spot, and the rest, excepting Weems and a few others, were made prisoners. In other respects, the behavior of the victors is said to have been creditable. They tortured nobody, and their chiefs broke the rum barrels in the fort, to prevent disorder. Father Thury, a priest of the seminary of Quebec, was present at the attack; and the assailants were a part of his Abenaki flock. Religion was one of the impelling forces of the war. In the eyes of the Indian converts, it was a crusade against the enemies of God. They made their vows to the Virgin before the fight; and the squaws, in their distant villages on the Penobscot, told unceasing beads, and offered unceasing prayers for victory. [5]

The war now ran like wildfire through the settlements of Maine and New Hampshire. Sixteen fortified houses, with or without defenders, are said to have fallen into the hands of the enemy; and the extensive district then called the county of Cornwall was turned to desolation. Massachusetts and Plymouth sent hasty levies of raw men, ill-armed and ill-officered, to the scene of action. At Casco Bay, they met a large body of Indians, whom they routed after a desultory fight of six hours; and then, as the approaching winter seemed to promise a respite from attack, most of them were withdrawn and disbanded.

It was a false and fatal security. Through snow and ice and storm, Hertel and his band were moving on their prey. On the night of the twenty-seventh of March, they lay hidden in the forest that bordered the farms and clearings of Salmon Falls. Their scouts reconnoitred the place, and found a fortified house with two stockade forts, built as a refuge for the settlers in case of alarm. Towards daybreak, Hertel, dividing his followers into three parties, made a sudden and simultaneous attack. The settlers, unconscious of danger, were in their beds. No watch was kept even in the so-called forts; and, when the French and Indians burst in, there was no time for their few tenants to gather for defence. The surprise was complete; and, after a short struggle, the assailants were successful at every point. They next turned upon the scattered farms of the neighborhood, burned houses, barns, and cattle, and laid the entire settlement in ashes. About thirty persons of both sexes and all ages were tomahawked or shot; and fifty-four, chiefly women and children, were made prisoners. Two Indian scouts now brought word that a party of English was advancing to the scene of havoc from Piscataqua, or Portsmouth, not many miles distant. Hertel called his men together, and began his retreat. The pursuers, a hundred and forty in number, overtook him about sunset at Wooster River, where the swollen stream was crossed by a narrow bridge. Hertel and his followers made a stand on the farther bank, killed and wounded a number of the English as they attempted to cross, kept up a brisk fire on the rest, held them in check till night, and then continued their retreat. The prisoners, or some of them, were given to the Indians, who tortured one or more of the men, and killed and tormented children and infants with a cruelty not always equalled by their heathen countrymen. [6]

Hertel continued his retreat to one of the Abenaki villages on the Kennebec. Here he learned that a band of French and Indians had lately passed southward on their way to attack the English fort at Casco Bay, on the site of Portland. Leaving at the village his eldest son, who had been badly wounded at Wooster River, he set out to join them with thirty-six of his followers. The band in question was Frontenac's third war-party. It consisted of fifty French and sixty Abenakis from the mission of St. Francis; and it had left Quebec in January, under a Canadian officer named Portneuf and his lieutenant, Courtemanche. They advanced at their leisure, often stopping to hunt, till in May they were joined on the Kennebec by a large body of Indian warriors. On the twenty-fifth, Portneuf encamped in the forest near the English forts, with a force which, including Hertel's party, the Indians of the Kennebec, and another band led by Saint-Castin from the Penobscot, amounted to between four and five hundred men. [Footnote: Declaration of Sylvanus Davis; Mather, Magnalia, II. 603.] Fort Loyal was a palisade work with eight cannon, standing on rising ground by the shore of the bay, at what is now the foot of India Street in the city of Portland. Not far distant were four block-houses and a village which they were designed to protect. These with the fort were occupied by about a hundred men, chiefly settlers of the neighborhood, under Captain Sylvanus Davis, a prominent trader. Around lay rough and broken fields stretching to the skirts of the forest half a mile distant. Some of Portneuf's scouts met a straggling Scotchman, and could not resist the temptation of killing him. Their scalp-yells alarmed the garrison, and thus the advantage of surprise was lost. Davis resolved to keep his men within their defences, and to stand on his guard; but there was little or no discipline in the yeoman garrison, and thirty young volunteers under Lieutenant Thaddeus Clark sallied out to find the enemy. They were too successful; for, as they approached the top of a hill near the woods, they observed a number of cattle staring with a scared look at some object on the farther side of a fence; and, rightly judging that those they sought were hidden there, they raised a cheer, and ran to the spot. They were met by a fire so close and deadly that half their number were shot down. A crowd of Indians leaped the fence and rushed upon the survivors, who ran for the fort; but only four, all of whom were wounded, succeeded in reaching it. [Footnote: Relation de Monseignat; La Potherie, III. 79.]