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In Canada the return of the revered Mgr. de Laval was impatiently expected, and the governor, M. de Denonville, himself wrote that "in the present state of public affairs it was necessary that the former bishop should return, in order to influence men's minds, over which he had a great ascendency by reason of his character and his reputation for sanctity."
Dongan was a thorn in his side from the first, although their correspondence opened, on both sides, with the language of compliment. A few months later its tone changed, particularly after Dongan heard that Denonville intended to build a fort at Niagara. Against a project so unfriendly Dongan protested with emphasis.
He was hard pressed, and eager for peace with the Iroquois at any price; but Dongan was using every means to prevent their treating of peace with the French governor until he had complied with all the English demands. In this extremity, Denonville sent Father Vaillant to Albany, in the hope of bringing his intractable rival to conditions less humiliating.
The Chevalier de Callieres, with whom the idea originated, after having suggested to Denonville a plan for making a conquest of the province of New York, set out for France, to bring it under the consideration of the home government, believing that it was the only means left to save Canada to the mother-country.
Denonville was required to restore the chiefs who had been sent to France, and he was either in a position not to resist, or wished to gain time. He consented to negotiate. The Hurons, his allies, were not now so peaceably disposed. For the first time, they seem to have evinced a warlike spirit.
But a power greater than sachems and governors presently intervened. The provisions left at Niagara, though abundant, were atrociously bad. Scurvy and other malignant diseases soon broke out among the soldiers. The writer was an officer of the detachment, and describes what he saw. Denonville feared that he should be forced to abandon them both.
"You proposed, Monsieur," writes Denonville, "to submit every thing to the decision of our masters. Nevertheless, your emissary to the Onondagas told all the Five Nations in your name to pillage and make war on us." Next, he berates his rival for furnishing the Indians with rum.
Having killed one and captured almost all the rest, he announced to his Iroquois prisoners that he had received orders from Denonville to destroy them. When they explained that they were ambassadors, he feigned surprise and said he could no longer be an accomplice to the wickedness of the French.
Any chance of success was destroyed by the implacable enmity of the Senecas, who remembered the attempt of the French to check their raids upon the Illinois and the invasion of their own country by Denonville.
But worse evils were in store for the latter days of the Denonville administration; a period which, take it altogether, was one of the most calamitous which our forefathers passed through.
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