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It consisted of about sixty men, thirty women, and as many children of various ages about a hundred and twenty souls in all. Many of the boys were capable of using the gun and setting a beaver-trap. The men were a most motley set. There were Canadians, half-breeds, Iroquois, and Scotchmen. Most of the women had Indian blood in their veins, and a few were pure Indians.
It is reported that the Iroquois sailed from Trinidad on the 2nd November, and that there are three ships of war of the enemy at St. Thomas', one sail vessel, and two steamers; and that one of these was expected here last night. She has not yet made her appearance. It will be difficult for her to prevent our sailing.
On the eighth day, they learned that a large Iroquois war-party, on their way to Canada, were near at hand; and they soon approached their camp, on a small island near the southern end of Lake Champlain.
Lawrence, repulsed Sir William Phipps and his New England expedition when they attacked Quebec in 1690, wisely erected a fort on Lake Ontario as a fur-trading post and a bulwark against the Iroquois, encouraged the fur-trade, and stimulated exploration in the west and in the valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi.
The crisis demanded all their wisdom; for, while the continued ravages of disease threatened them with annihilation, the Iroquois scalping-parties infested the outskirts of their towns, and murdered them in their fields and forests.
During all this time, the savage Iroquois had repeated their attacks on the people of Montreal with the wildest fury. Men, women, and children fell beneath the tomahawk, and in 1651, M. de Maissonneuve was obliged to return a second time to France for military assistance.
It is a reasonable conclusion, therefore, that among all the tribes, north of New Mexico, the law of hospitality, as practiced by the Iroquois, was universally recognized; and that in all Indian villages and encampments without distinction the hungry were fed through the open hospitality of those who possessed a surplus.
They turned their eyes first towards the Illinois, the most important, as well as one of the most accessible, of the western Algonquin tribes; and among La Salle's enemies were some in whom jealousy of a hated rival could so far override all the best interests of the colony that they did not scruple to urge on the Iroquois to an invasion which they hoped would prove his ruin.
The expedition of 1687 had not been a fiasco like that of 1685, but neither was it in any real way a success. It angered the whole Iroquois confederacy without, having sufficiently impressed the Indians with the punitive power of the French. Denonville had stirred up the nest without destroying the hornets.
Although uninjured by the shot, the poor Iroquois had not escaped scathless from the paw of the bear. His scalp was torn almost off, and hung down over his eyes, while blood streamed down his face. He was conveyed by his comrades to the camp, where he lay two days in a state of insensibility, at the end of which time he revived and recovered daily.
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