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I am glad you asured me that the neighbourghing Indians to Albany have no share in that warr, but I am sorry the troops are in soe great forwardness, that if my former advice had bin taken, there had been no absolute necessity to attaque the Indians or loose the campaigne.

That it is very true, I ought to have a good correspondence with the Sieur de la Barr, and it is not nor ever shall be my fault if I have not, and I againe must tell you that I have no thought or inclination to protect any villany whatsoever.

EXTRACT OF A LETTER ADDRESSED BY LOUIS XIV. TO MONSIEUR DE LA BARRE, THE 21st JULY, 1684.

Monsieur De la barre

[Paris Doc. II.]

I have seen by your letters of the 5th June last, the resolution you have taken to attack the Iroquois, and the reasons which moved you to it, and though it is a grave misfortune for the Colony of New France which will interrupt the trade of my subjects and divert them from the cultivation of the land and expose them to frequent insults on the part of the Iroquois Savages, who can frequently surprize them in distant settlements, without your being even in a state to succor them; I do not hesitate to approve your adoption of that resolution since, by the insult they offered the fifteen Frenchmen whom they pillaged, and the attack on Fort St. Louis, you have had reason to believe that they seriously intended declaring war, and as I wish to place you in a position to sustain it, and bring it to a speedy termination, I have given orders for equipping the Ship L'Emerillon, on board which I have caused to be embarked three hundred soldiers quartered in the ports of Brest and Rochefort with the number of Officers and Marines contained in the lists which you will find annexed, and this reinforcement with that sent to you by the last vessels from Rochelle, and which you have learned from my preceding letters, will furnish you means to fight advantageously, and to destroy utterly those people, or at least to place them in a state, after

having punished them for their insolence, to receive peace on the conditions which you will impose on them.

You must observe as regards this war that even though you prosecute it with advantage, if you do not find means to wage it promptly, it will not the less cause the ruin of the colony, the people of which cannot subsist in the continual disquietude of being attacked by the Savages, and in the impossibility in which they find themselves of applying themselves to trade and the cultivation of their farms. Therefore whatever advantage you may derive for the glory of my arms and the entire destruction of the Savages by the continuation of this war, you ought to prefer peace which restoring quietness to my subjects will place you in a condition to increase the Colony by the means pointed out to you in my preceding letters.

I write to my ambassador in England to procure orders from the Duke of York to prevent him who commands at Baston assisting the Savages with troops, arms or ammunition, and I have reason to believe that orders will be despatched as soon as representations on my part will have been made.

I am very glad to tell you that from every thing I learn of what has occurred in Canada, the fault which you committed in not punctually executing my orders relative to the number of twentyfive licenses to be granted to my subjects, and the great number you have sent on all sides, in order to favor persons belonging to yourself, appears to me to have been the principal cause of what has happened on the part of the Iroquois. I hope you will repair this fault by giving a prompt and glorious termination to this war.

It appears to me also that one of the principal causes of the war arises from one Du Lhut having caused two Iroquois to be killed who had assassinated two Frenchmen in Lake Superior, and you sufficiently see how much this man's voyage, which cannot produce any advantage to the Colony, and which was permitted only in the interest of some private persons, has contributed to disturb the repose of the Colony.

As it concerns the good of my service to diminish as much as

possible the number of the Iroquois, and as these Savages who are stout and robust, will, moreover, serve with advantage in my galleys, I wish you to do every thing in your power to make a great number of them prisoners of war, and that you have them shipped by every opportunity which will offer for their removal to France.

I desire likewise that you leave Fort Frontenac in the possession of Sieur de la Salle or those who are there for him, and that you do nothing in opposition to the interest of that man whom I take under my special protection.

MEMOIR OF M. DE LA BARRE

AS TO WHAT HAD OCCURRED AND HAD BEEN DONE REGARDING THE WAR AGAINST THE SENECAS.

[Paris Doc. II.]

Having been obliged to leave early in June, in conformity to the resolution adopted by the Intendant, the Bishop, the heads of the country and myself, to wage war against the Senecas for having, in cold blood, pillaged seven hundred canoes belonging to Frenchmen; arrested and detained the latter to the number of fourteen, as prisoners for nine days, and finally attacked Fort St. Louis of the Illinois, where the Chevalier de Bangy gallantly defended himself, and having resolved, at the same time, to seize Teganeout, one of their chiefs and his twelve companions who had come to ratify the peace made last year, who left their country before they heard of this attack, which circumstance would oblige me not to treat them ill, but merely to secure their persons, we considered three things necessary: First, to endeavour to divide the Iroquois among themselves, and for this purpose, to send persons expressly to communicate my sentiments to the Revd Jesuit Fathers who are Missionaries there and to request them to act; the second, to send to the Outaouacs to engage our French to come to my assistance by the South, by Lake Erie and to bring as many as they could of the Savages, our allies; and thirdly, to advise Colonel Dongan, Governor of New York of what we

were obliged to do, whilst at the same time I would throw a considerable reinforcement of men into Fort Frontenac to secure it. Being arrived at Montreal the tenth of the said month, we sent for Mr. Dollier, Superior of the Seminary of said town and of the Mission to the Indians of the Mountain, and the Reverend Pere Briare, Superior of the Mission of the Sault Saint Louis, who having concurred with us, furnished seven Christian Iroquois, friendly to the French and pretty shrewd, two of whom we sent with some Belts of Wampum to the Mohawks, and two to the Oneidas, to say to them that we were resolved to observe the peace made with them-that we were very willing to live there as with friends, and that we requested them not to interfere in the war which we were about to wage against the Senecas, who had cruelty insulted us in the person of the frenchmen whom they had plundered and seized, and fort St. Louis which they had attacked, since, and in violation of the peace made last year at Montreal; we sent the three others to Onontagué to explain the same things, and finally I despatched Sieurs Guillet and Hebert to the Outaouacs to advise Sieurs Ladurantaye and Dulhut of my design and of the need I had of their assistance, and sent my orders to the Rev. Father Enjalran, Superior of said Missions, to operate there and send orders to different quarters according to his usual zeal and capacity, whilst I despatched Sieur Bourbon to Orange or Manatte to notify Colonel Dongan of the insult the French had received from the Senecas, which obliged me to march against them, of which I gave him notice, assuring him that if he wished to revenge the twenty-six Englishmen of Merilande, whom they had killed last winter, I would promise him that I would unite my forces to his, that he may obtain satisfac tion for it, or avenge them.

I next despatched Sieur Dutast, first captain of the King's troops, on the twentieth of the same month with five or six picked soldiers and six mechanics, carpenters and masons, with provisions and ammunition of war to throw themselves into Fort Frontenac and put it, in all haste, beyond insult; after which, having caused all to embark at la Chine, I proceeded from Montreal, on St. John's day, to return to Quebec where I had requested

the Intendant to make out the detachments of Militia which should follow me to the war, without inconvenience to the Country; I arrived there on the twenty-sixth, having used great diligence on the route, and found the people ordered and some canoes purchased; but as they were not sufficient for the embarcation of all, we caused fifteen flat (bottomed) pine batteaux, suitable for the conveyance, each, of fourteen or fifteen men, to be constructed in a hurry.

I divided all my small force into three divisions, I placed myself at the head of the first which I commanded to lead the van. I left the management of the second to Mr. D'Orvilliers, antient Captain of Infantry; the third being composed of troops from the Island of Montreal and the environs, was commanded by Sieur Dugué, antient Captain of Carignan. Sieur D'Orvilliers had been, since the fore part of spring, reconnoitering Lake Ontario and the Seneca Country, to see where the descent should be made, and in what direction we should march to their two principal villages, of which he had made a faithful and exact plan. I selected, as Major of the Brigade which I commanded, Sieur de Villebon-Beccancour, formerly Captain of the King's Dragoons, so that acting in my place, as I was obliged to have an eye to all, I could confide in him; he succeeded with all possible diligence and experience.

I left Quebec the ninth of July, at the head of Three hundred militiamen, accompanied by the said Sieur de Villebon, and arrived at Montreal the sixteenth, where I was joined by Sieur D' Orvilliers on the twenty-first, who brought me, in addition to two hundred and fifty militia, batteaux to embark the King's troops. Thus after having issued every possible order for the conveyance of provisions, in which I had much difficulty in consequence of the scarcity of canoes and of experienced persons to conduct them in the portages of the Rapids, I detached Sieur de Villebon to take the lead with my brigade, and the two companies of King's troops, and ordered them to pass the first and second portages, where I should join them, so that on the thirtieth I passed their encampment beyond the said second portage, and we marched next day, both brigades together, Sieur D'Orvilliers bringing up the

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