United States or Faroe Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
La Motte-Cadillac found that the Hurons of the Baron's band were receiving messengers and peace belts from New York and her red allies, that the English had promised to build a trading house on Lake Erie, and that the Iroquois had invited the lake tribes to a grand convention at Detroit.
One of his military circle, the sharp-witted La Motte-Cadillac, thus relates this untoward event in a letter to a friend: "The winter passed very pleasantly, especially to the officers, who lived together like comrades; and, to contribute to their honest enjoyment, the count caused two plays to be acted, 'Nicomede' and 'Mithridate." It was an amateur performance, in which the officers took part along with some of the ladies of Quebec.
Strong personal interests were active on both sides, and gave bitterness to the strife. Frontenac, who always stood by his friends, had placed Tonty, La Foret, La Motte-Cadillac, and others of their number, in charge of the forest posts, where they made good profit by trade.
La Motte-Cadillac writes bitterly on the subject, and contrasts the conduct of the French priests with that of the English ministers, who have taught many Indians to read and write, and reward them for teaching others in turn, which they do, he says, with great success. Memoire contenant une Description detaillee de l'Acadie, etc., 1693.
Quebec, Three Rivers, Sorel, and Montreal had all been ruffled by the breeze of these dissensions, and the farthest outposts of the wilderness were not too remote to feel it. La Motte-Cadillac had been sent to replace Louvigny in the command of Michillimackinac, where he had scarcely arrived, when trouble fell upon him.
Besides the persons taken in the fort, a considerable number were previously killed, or captured in the houses and fields. Those who were spared were carried to the Indian towns on the Penobscot, the seat of Thury's mission. La Motte-Cadillac, in his Memoire sur l'Acadie, 1692, says that 80 persons in all were killed; an evident exaggeration.
"Poor Monsieur de la Motte-Cadillac," says Frontenac, "would have sent you a journal to show you the persecutions he has suffered at the post where I placed him, and where he does wonders, having great influence over the Indians, who both love and fear him, but he has had no time to copy it.
La Motte-Cadillac commanded at Michillimackinac, Courtemanche was stationed at Fort Miamis, and Tonty and La Foret at the fortified rock of St. Louis on the Illinois; while Nicolas Perrot roamed among the tribes of the Mississippi, striving at the risk of his life to keep them at peace with each other, and in alliance with the French.
The French had an exact knowledge of the place. Meneval, when a prisoner there, lodged in the house of John Nelson, had carefully examined it; and so also had the Chevalier d'Aux; while La Motte-Cadillac had reconnoitred the town and harbor before the war began. An accurate map of them was made for the use of the expedition, and the plan of operations was arranged with great care.
La Motte-Cadillac wrote that matters grew worse and worse, and that the Ottawas had been made to believe that the French neither would nor could protect them, but meant to leave them, to their fate. They thought that they had no hope except in peace with the Iroquois, and had actually gone to meet them at an appointed rendezvous.
Word Of The Day