These two good fathers finding themselves listened to 1656. with approval and kindness, Father Dablon left Onnonta gué on the second day of March of the following year 1656, to look for help at Quebec, where he arrived in the begin ning of April, and departed thence on the 17th May, i: company with three Fathers and two brothers of the Society, and a good num ber of Frenchmen, who all proceeded towards this new country, where they arrived on the 11th day of July of the same year, 1656.

In the year 1657, the harvest appearing plentiful in all 1657. the villages of the upper Iroquois, the common people

listening to the words of the gospel with simplicity and the Chiefs with a well disguised dissimulation, Father Paul Ragueneau, Father François Du Peron, some Frenchmen and several Hurons, departed from Montreal the 26th July, to aid their brethren and compatriots.

On the 3d day of the month of August of the same year 1657, the perfidy of the Iroquois began to develop itself by the massacre which they made of the poor Hurons whom they brought into their country, after thousands of protestations of kindness and thousands of oaths, in their style, that they should treat them as brothers. And had not a number of Iroquois remained among the French, near Quebec, to endeavor to bring with them the rest of the Hurons, who distrusting these traitors, would not embark with the others, the Fathers and the Frenchmen who ascended with them would have then been destroyed; and all those who remained on the banks of Lake Ganantaa, near to Onnontagué, would shortly after have shared the same fate. But the fear that the French would wreak vengeance on their countrymen, staid their design,of which our fathers had had secret intelligence immediately on their arrival in the country. Even a captain who was acquainted with the secret of the Chiefs, having taken some liking to the preachings of the Gospel, and finding himself very sick, demandcd Baptism; having received it with sufficient instruction, he discovered the evil designs of his countrymen to those who attended him, and went a short time afterwards to Heaven.

The 9th of the month of September. Our fathers at Onnonta

gué sent two canoes to Quebec with intelligence of the massacre of the poor Huron Christians, treacherously put to death by these barbarians, as we remarked above, 3 August of the year 1657.

The 7th of the month of November. Two Mohawks departed from Quebec, and took a third at Three Rivers. A number of letters from divers quarters were given to them for Father Le Moine, part of which were to be sent to our Fathers and our French of Onnontagué thro' the medium of the Mohawks, who often go to that country.

It is true that the Mohawks faithfully delivered the letters to Ondessonk, because they feared evil for their people detained by the French. But for the letters addressed to our French at Onnontagué, the Mohawk who was the bearer thereof, threw them in the river, or gave them, probably, to the chiefs of the country. But these good fellows, who wished to rid themselves of the preachers of the gospel and of those who assisted them, threw them into the fire.

The Onnontagué sent by Monsieur. de Maisonneuve did still worse: for he told the chiefs of the nation, that the French were leagued principally with the Algonquins to make war on them, and that they had killed his comrade. It was an Algon quin killed him on his way to war as we have remarked on the 3d November. Nothing more was necessary to excite these furious men, who had already concluded on the death of some and the captivity of others. They were desirous, however, to act in concert with the Mohawks, who could, no more than the others, reconcile themselves to the detention of their people, believing it very unjust.

Our poor French were, meanwhile, much astonished at re reiving no certain news either from Quebec, Three Rivers, or Montreal. These barbarians had entirely cut off all communication, so that Mons. de Dailleboust's orders were not deliv ered to Mons. Du Puis, who commanded the soldiers, nor a letter to any of the French whomsoever.

OF THE RETURN OF OUR FATHERS AND OF OUR FRENCHMEN FROM THE COUNTRY OF THE ONNONTAGUES.

[From the same.]

Though it be true that the Iroquois are subtle, adroit and great cheats, I nevertheless cannot persuade myself that they possess so much intelligence, so much tact, and that they are such great politicians as to have had recourse to the ruses and intrigues imputed to them to destroy the French, the Hurons, the Algonquins, and their allies.

They urged for many years with incredible persistence; with evidences of especial affection and even with threats of rupture and war, if their friendship were despised and their demand rejected; they insisted, I say, and solicited that a goodly number of French should accompany them into their country, the one to instruct, the others to protect them against their enemies, as a token of peace and alliance with them.

The Mohawks desired to thwart this scheme; they fought the one against the other even unto polluting the earth with blood and murder. Some believed that all that was mere feint, the better to mask their game; but it would seem to me not a very pleasant game when the stakes are life and blood. I strongly doubt that Iroquoy policy should extend so far as that, and that Barbarians who repose but little confidence in each other, should so long conceal their intrigues. I believe rather that the Onnontagué Iroquois demanded some Frenchmen in sincerity, but with views very different. The Chiefs finding themselves engaged in heavy wars against a number of nations whom they had provoked, asked for Hurons as reinforcements to their warriors; they wished for the French to obtain firearms from them; and to repair those which might be broken. Further, as the Mohawks treated them sometimes very ill when passing through their villages to trade with the Dutch, they were anxious to rise out of this dependence in

opening a trade with the French. This is not all, the fate of arms being fickle, they demanded that our Frenchmen should erect a vast fort in their country to serve as a retreat for them, or at least for their wives and children in case their enemies pressed too close on them. Here are the views of the Iroquois politicians. The common people did not penetrate so far ahead; curiosity to see strangers come from such a distance, the hope of deriving some little profit, created a desire to see them; but the Christian Hurons and captives among the people, and those who approved their lives and conversations which they sometimes held regarding our belief, breathed nothing in the world so much as the coming of Preachers of the Gospel who had brought them forth unto Jesus Christ.

But so soon as the Captains and Chiefs became masters of their enemies, having crushed all the Nations who had attacked them; so soon as they believed that nothing could resist their arms, the recollection of the wrongs they pretended to have formerly experienced from the Hurons; the glory of triumphing over Europeans as well as Americans, caused them to take the resolution to revenge themselves on the one and destroy the other; so that at the very moment they saw the dreaded Cat Nation subjugated by their arms and by the power of the Senecas, their allies, they would have massacred all the French at Onnontagué, were it not that they pretended to make use of them as a decoy to attract some Hurons and to massacre them as they had already done. And if the influence of some of their tribe, then resident at Quebec, had not staid them, the path to Onnontagué had become the tomb to Frenchmen as well as to Hurons, as will be seen hereafter. From that time forth our people, having discovered their conspiracy, and perceived that their death was concluded on, bethought them on their retreat, which shall be described in the following letter.

FATHER PAUL RAGUENEAU

TO THE REV. FATHER JACQUES RENAULT, PROVINCIAL OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS IN THE PROVINCE OF FRANCE.

My R. Father,

Pax Christi.

The present is to inform Y. R. of our return from the Iroquois mission, loaded with some spoils rescued from Hell. We bear in our hands more than five hundred children and a number of adults, the most part of whom died after Baptism. We have reestablished Faith and piety in the hearts of a poor captive church, the first foundations of which we had laid in the Huron Country. We have proclaimed the gospel unto all the Iroquois Nations so that they are henceforth without excuse, and God will be fully justified against them at the great day of judgment.

The Devil enraged at seeing us reap so fine a harvest and enjoy so amply the fruits of our enterprise, made use of the inconstancy of the Iroquois to drive us from the centre of his estates; for these Barbarians, without other motive than to follow their volatile humor, renewed the war against the French, the first blows of which were discharged on our worthy Christian Hurons, who went up with us to Onnontagué at the close of the last summer, and who were cruelly massacred in our arms and in our bosom by the most signal treason imaginable. They then made prisoners of their poor wives and even burned some of them with their children of three and four years, at a slow fire.

This bloody execution was followed by the murder of three Frenchmen at Montreal by the Oneidas, who scalped them and carried these as if in triumph into their villages in token of declared war. This act of hostility having obliged M. Dailleboust, then commanding in this country, to cause a dozen of Iroquois, in part Onnontagués and mostly Mohawks, to be arrested and put in irons at Montreal, Three Rivers and Quebec, where they happened to be at the time, both Iroquois Nations became irri