76

DE LA BARRE’s EXPEDITION TO HUNGRY BAY.

On the 25 tl > the canoes which I had detached from La Galette to Montreal , arrived, but in far lessnumber than I had looked for, and brought me but eight or nine thousand weight of flour, instead oftwenty thousand which I expected, having left them ready for loading when I departed. I causedbread and biscuit to be immediately made of it for the support of our troops^who were at theplace called La Famine.

On the 27 th at four o’clock in the afternoon, a canoe of M. Lemoine’s men arrived from Onnon-tague with Tegancourt who reported to me, that the Onnontaguds had received orders from Col.Dongan which he sent by the person named Arnaud, forbidding them to enter into any treaty withme without his express permission, considering them the Duke of York’s subjects, and that he hadcaused the Arms of the said Duke to be planted three days before, in their village; that the Councilhad been convened at the said place of Onontague and Sieur Lemoine invited to repair thither, inwhich the matter having been debated, these savages got into a furious rage, with some danger to theEnglish delegate, saying they were free, and that God , who had created the Earth , had granted themtheirs without subjecting them to any person, and they requested the elder Father Lamberville towrite to Colonel Dongan the annexed letter, and the said Sieur Lemoine having well sustained theFrench interests, they unanimously resolved to start in two days, to conclude with me at La Famine.On the receipt of this news I immediately called out my canoes in order to depart and was accom-panied by a dozen of others, having caused six of the largest to be loaded with bread and biscuit forthe army.

After having been beaten by bad weather and high wind, we arrived in two days at La Famine.

I found there tertian and double tertian fever which broke out among our people so that more thanone hundred and fifty men were attacked by it; I had also left some of them at the fort, which causedme to despatch, on arriving, a Christian savage to Onontague to M. Lemoine, to request him to causethe instant departure of those who were to come to meet me, which he did with so much diligence,though he and his children were sick, that he arrived as early as the third of September with four-teen Deputies; nine from Onontague, three from Oneida and two Cayugas, who paid me their respectsand whom I entertained the best manner I was able, postponing until the morrow morning the talkabout business, at which matters were fully discussed and peace concluded after six hours delibera-tion, three in the morning and as many after dinner, Father Brias speaking for us and Hotrehonatiand Garagonkier for the Iroquois ; Tegancout, a Seneca present, the other Senecas not daring to comein order not to displease Col. Dongan, who sent to promise them a reinforcement of four hundredhorse and four hundred foot, if we attacked them. The treaty was concluded in the evening on theconditions annexed, and I promised to decamp the next day and withdraw my troops from theirvicinity; which I was, indeed, obliged to do by the number of sick which had augmented to such adegree that it was with difficulty I found enough of persons in health to remove the sick to thecanoes, besides the scarcity of provisions having no more than the trifle of bread which I broughtthem.

I allowed the Onontagues to light the Council fire at this post without extinguishing that atMontreal , in order to be entitled to take possession of it by their consent when the King shoulddesire it and thereby exclude the English and Col. Dongan from their pretensions.

On leaving the Fort I had ordered one of the barks to go to Niagara to notify the army of theSouth to return by Lake Erie towards Missilimakinack. She had a favorable passage; found itarrived only six hours previously to the number of seven hundred men, viz: one hundred and fiftyFrench and the remainder Indians.

I departed on the sixth, having had all the sick of my troops embarked before day (so as not to beseen by the Indians) to the number of one hundred and fifty canoes and twelve flat batteaux andarrived in the evening of the same day at Fort Frontenac, where I found one hundred and ten men