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On this expedition see the Journal of Major General Winthrop, in N. Y. Col. Docs., IV. 193; Publick Occurrences, 1690, in Historical Magazine, I. 228; and various documents in N. Y. Col. Docs., III. 727, 752, and in Doc. Hist. Compare La Potherie, III. 126, and N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 513. These last are French statements.
Pre-eminent among them all sat their valiant and terrible foes, the warriors of the confederacy. "Strange," exclaims La Potherie, "that four or five thousand should make a whole new world tremble. New England is but too happy to gain their good graces; New France is often wasted by their wars, and our allies dread them over an extent of more than fifteen hundred leagues."
Docs., IX. 550; Relation de ce qui s'est passe de plus remarquable en Canada, 1692, 1693; Callieres au Ministre, 1 Sept., 1693; La Potherie, III. 169; Relation de 1682-1712; Faillon, Vie de Mlle. Le Bar, 313; Belmont, Hist. du Canada; Beyard and Lodowick, Journal of the Late Actions of the French at Canada; Report of Major Peter Schuyler, in N. Y. Col. Docs., IV. 16; Colden, 142.
Meneval describes the New England men as excessively irritated at the late slaughter of settlers at Salmon Falls and elsewhere. An Account of the Silver and Effects which Mr. Phips keeps back from Mr. Meneval, in 3 Mass. Hist. Coll., I. 115. Monseignat and La Potherie describe briefly this expedition against Port Royal.
Courtemanche with his canoe fleet from the lakes was not far behind; and when their approach was announced, the chronicler, La Potherie, full of curiosity, went to meet them at the mission village of the Saut. First appeared the Iroquois, two hundred in all, firing their guns as their canoes drew near, while the mission Indians, ranged along the shore, returned the salute.
On the Newfoundland expedition, the best authority is the long diary of the chaplain Baudoin, Journal du Voyage que j'ai fait avec M. d'Iberville; also, Memoire sur l'Entreprise de Terreneuve, 1696. Compare La Potherie, I. 24-52.
They withdrew, first to the neighborhood of Lake Erie, then to that of Lake Ontario, their historic seat. Lalemant, Relation, 1647, 68. La Potherie, writing more than half a century after the time in question, represents the Iroquois as habitually in awe of the Algonquins.
Lafitau, whose book appeared in 1724, says that the nation was corrupt in his time, but that this was a degeneracy from their ancient manners. La Potherie and Charlevoix make a similar statement. Megapolensis, however, in 1644, says that they were then exceedingly debauched; and Greenhalgh, in 1677, gives ample evidence of a shameless license.
La Potherie says that he once or twice used it to good purpose when the Indians became disorderly, in breaking the heads of the most contumacious or knocking out their teeth. Not knowing at the time the secret of the unusual efficacy of his blows, they regarded him as a "medicine" of the first order.
The following are the words of the soldier historian, La Potherie, after describing the organization of the league: "C'est donc la cette politique qui les unit si bien, a peu pres comme tous les ressorts d'une horloge, qui par une liaison admirable de toutes les parties qui les composent, contribuent toutes unanimement au merveilleux effet qui en resulte."
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