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DENONVILLE’s EXPEDITION TO THE GENESEE COUNTRY AND NIAGARA.

worthy as you should not grant protection to all the rogues, vagabonds and thieves who desert andseek refuge with you, and who, to acquire some merit with you believe they cannot do better than totell you[many impertinencies of us, which will have no end so long as you will listen to them.

The letter which the Rev. Father de Lamberville has been so kind as to be the bearer of from meon the 6 th June last ought to suffice, Sir, to put you perfectly in possession of my intentions. Itwould be unnecessary that I should make any other reply to your last of the 22 d of May, were it notthat I was very glad hereby to prove to you again that I shall always feel a great pleasure in seizingevery opportunity to shew that I am

Sir,

Your very humble &

very obedient Servant.

COL. DONGAN TO M. DE DENONVILLE.

[ Lond. Doc. V.; Par. Doc. III. ]

New York, 27th July. 1686.

.i--

Sir—I had the honour to receave two letters from you one dated the 6 th and the other the 20 th ofJune last and in them I have found very much satisfaction by the hopes of a good correspondencewith a person of so great merit worth and repute spread abroad in the army in which I served. Be-lieve it it is much joy to have soe good a neighbour of soe excellent qualifications and temper and ofa humour altogether differing from Monsieur de la Barre your predecessor who was so furious andhasty very much addicted to great words as if I had bin to have bin frighted by them. The Indiansperadventure might justly offend him for they as you well remarke are not people of the greatestcredit and reputation, but certainly I did not amiss in offering sincerely to compose the differenceand I went expressly to Albany to do it and yet no suitable returns were made by him for it. Idoubt not but your Masters inclinations are very strongly bent to propagate the Christian Religionand I do assure you that my master had no less a share in so pious intentions; for my part I shalltake all imaginable care that the Fathers who preach the Holy Gospell to those Indians over whomI have power bee not in the least ill treated and upon that very accompt have sent for one of eachnation to come to me and then those beastly crimes you reproove shall be checked severely and allmy endeavours used to suppress their filthy drunkennesse disorders, debauches, warring and quarrelsand whatsoever doth obstruct the growth and enlargement of the Christian faith amongst thosepeople.

I have heard that before ever the King your Master pretended to Cannida, the Indians so farr asthe South Sea were under the English Dominion and always traded with Albany Maryland and Vir-ginia, but that according to your desire with very good reason is wholly referred to our Masters,and I heartily pray that neither you nor myselfe give occasion of any of the least misunderstandingbetween them but that a prosperous correspondence stricht amity and union may perpettually beecontinued between those monarchs, The stricktest care shall be taken concerning runawayes fromyou and those who are here if you please to send for them shall bee all conveyed to you—but ifthere bee any soldiers who have deserted, I desire you to give me the assurance that they shall notloose their lives, And now, Sir. I beg your pardon for giveing you the trouble of my particularaffairs which is thus: when my Prince called me out of the French service twenty five thousand