90

DE LA BARRe’s EXPEDITION TO HUNGRY BAY.

the promise he made you, to cause the articles of peace to be observed. Some furs are to be collect-ed this fall. He is treating on this subject with Hannagoge and GanakontiA There is no news yetfrom the Senecas.

FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.

Onnontague, thii 9th Octob. 1684.

My Lord,—The message you sent here by three canoemen from Montreal shows you to be in realitya man of your word. Sieur Grande Gueule has been informed by express, who is gone to find himat his fishery eight leagues from here, that you have written. I shall cause him when he returns;particularly to recollect his promise to you to have satisfaction given you. I have spoken in his;absence both privately and publicly, to influential persons and obtained promises from the chiefs andwarriors that they would send two strings of wampum to the Senecas in three days to put them inmind of the word which the leader of those who pillaged the French canoes had himself broughthere, from those of his own nation, that they had accepted all you had concluded at La Famine. Itold them what you had concluded and had ordered me to acquaint them with. The report aboutthe thousand Illinois is a mere rumor without any foundation, and M. duLut told me at Katarakoui,that he did not believe the truth of this news; besides there cannot be any apprehension that theycould have dared to undertake any thing, having met neither Frenchmen nor Outaouas. All thatthey could make a demontration against have more fuzileers than they.

A party of 40 warriors will leave here in six days to attack the Illinois whom they may findamong the Chaouennons. I have presented the Captain a shirt in your name, to exhort the Senecasthrough whom he will pass, to keep their word with you. He has assured me that he will not leadhis troop towards the quarter you forbad him. I notified him as well as the others that you haddespatched a canoe to inform the Oumiamies and the Maskenses that you had included them in thepeace, and that they could remain secure at the place where they had been before they were at warwith the Iroquois . The Senecas shall be equally notified of this in a few days. You may rest as-sured, my Lord, that I shall spare no pains to have that satisfaction given you which you expectfrom the Iroquois . The frenchmen who came here told me that whilst you were at La Famine afalse alarm reached Montreal that the Iroquois were coming; that there was nothing but horror,flightand weeping at Montreal . What would so many poor people have done in their settlements if mere-ly six hundred Iroquois had made an irruption into the country in the condition in which it is. Youform a better opinion than one hundred manufacturers of rhodomontades who were not acquaintedwith the Iroquois , and who reflect not that the country, such as it is, is not in a condition to defenditself. Had I the honor to converse with you longer than your little leisure allowed me, I shouldhave convinced you that you could not have advanced to Paniaforontogouat [Irondequoit bay] with-out having been utterly defeated in the state your army was in—which was rather an hospital thana camp. To attack people within their entrenchments and fight banditti in the bush will require oimthousand men more than you have Then you can accomplish nothing without having a number ofdisciplined savages. I gave you already my thoughts, and believe I told you the truth, and thatyou deserved the title of “Liberator of the Country” by making peace at a conjuncture when youwould have beheld the ruin of the country without preventing it. The Senecas had double pallisadesstronger than the pickets of the fort and the first could not have been forced without great loss.Their plan was to keep only 300 men inside, and with 1200 others perpetually harass you. All the