USA > New York > The documentary history of the state of New York, Vol. I pt 1 > Part 9
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Finally, in my return of three days I accomplished what cost us thirteen in ascending, and found in the stores at Montreal and la Chine, forty-five thousand weight of flour, which, had we received it, would have enabled us to have made a longer sojourn in the upper country.
Done at Quebec the 1st day of October 1684.
LE FEBURE DE LA BARE.
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PRESENTS MADE BY THE ONNONTAGUES TO ONONTIO, AT LA FAMINE, THE 5th 7ber 1684 .* [From the same.]
The Onnontagués, whose mediation between the French and the Senecas the General accepted, having repaired to a place called La Famine about 25 leagues from their country, Sieur Hateouati, who is the Orator of that Nation, spoke by fifteen pre- sents, not only on behalf of the Senecas, but also for the other Iroquois Nations.
1st Word of the Iroquois. After having taken God to witness the sincerity .of his heart, and having assured Onontio of the truth of his words, he spoke in this wise :
I give you a Beverage devoid of bitterness, to purify whatever inconvenience you may have experienced during the voyage, and to dispel whatever bad air you may have breathed between Mon- treal and this place.
Answer of Onontio to the words of Hoteouaté :- As I have placed in your hands the mediation with the Senecas, I wish, truly, to do what you ask me. I, therefore, lay down my Hat- chet and refer to you to obtain a reasonable satisfaction.
2d Word. I remove the hatchet with which you threaten to strike the Senecas. Remember he is your child, and that you are his father.
3d Word. Mr. Lemoine, your ordinary envoy, having come last year, and speaking to us in your name, cut a deep ditch into which he told us you and we should cast all the unkind things that might occur ; I have not forgotten this word, and in obe- dience to it, I request you to throw into that ditch the Seneca robbery, and that it may disturb neither our country nor yours.
Answer. That ditch is well cut, but as your young men have no sense, and as they may make this a pretext for committing acts of hostility anew, after having cast the Seneca robbery into that ditch, as you desire ; arrest, then, your young men, as I shall restrain mine. I cover it up forever.
· Endorsed by the Minister, "These letters must be kept secret."
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' 4th Word. I set up again the tree of peace, which we planted at Montreal, in the conference we had the honor to have with you last summer.
Answer. It is not I who think of throwing it down : it is your nephews who have seriously shaken it. I strengthen it.
5th Word. I exhort you, Father, to sustain it strongly, in or- der that nothing may shake it.
6th Word. I again tie up (je rattache) the Sun which was altogether obscured : I dispel all the clouds and mists that con- cealed it from our view ..
7th Word. The robbery committed by the Senecas on your nephews, is not a sufficient motive to make war against them. Where has blood been shed? I promise you that satisfaction shall be afforded you for the loss the French have experienced by the pillage of their merchandize.
Answer of Onontio. It is good that you promise me satisfac- tion : deceive me not. The first thing that I expect of you is that you restore me the two prisoners of Etionnontate who are with the Seneca, and a third who remains at Cayuga.
8th Word. Onontio, my father, I feel uneasy and cannot pluck up courage, whatever kindnesses you have the goodness to show me. What disquiets me, is to behold Soldiers, hear drums, etc. I pray you return to Quebec, so that your children may sleep in peace.
Answer. I depart to-morrow and quit this country, to show you what deference I pay to your demands.
9th Word. The fires of peace and the halls of our Councils were at Frontenac or at Montreal. The former is a poor country where the Grasshoppers prevent me sleeping, and the second is far away for our old men. I kindle the fires of peace on this spot, which is the most agreable that we can select, where there is good fishing, hunting, &c.
Answer. I accept the selection you have made of this place for our conferences, without, however, extinguishing the fire which I keep burning at Montreal.
10th Word. Our warriors have, as well as our other chiefs, accepted the peace. I bear their words by this belt.
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Answer. You need not doubt the obedience of my soldiers ; endeavour to make yourselves obeyed by your own. To prove to you that I maintain uphold the tree of peace, I sent to Niagara to cause the army to return which was coming from that di- rection.
11th Word. You told us, last summer, to strike the enemy no more. We heard your voice. We shall not go to war again in that quarter.
Answer. Remember that the Maskoutenek is brother to the Oumeami. Therefore strike neither the one nor the other.
12th Word. He has killed some, this spring, in divers ren- counters, but as you bound my arms I allowed myself to be beaten, without defending myself.
Answer. That's good ; you need not pursue the Oumeami who struck you ; I shall send him word not to commit any more acts of hostility.
13th Word. Regarding the Illinois, I am at war with him ; we shall, both of us, die fighting.
Answer. Take heed, in firing at the Illinois, not to strike the French whom you meet on your path and in the neighbourhood of Fort St. Louis.
14th Word. Restore to us the Missionaries whom you have withdrawn from our villages.
Answer. They shall not be taken from you who are our me- diators ; and when the Senecas shall have commenced to give me satisfaction, they shall be restored to them as well as to the other nations.
15th and last Word. Prevent the Christians of the Sault and of the Mountain coming any more among us, to seduce our peo- ple to Montreal; let them cease to dismember our country as they do every year.
Answer. It is not my children of the Sault nor of the Moun- tain who dismember your country ; it is yourselves who dismember it by your drunkenness and superstitions. Besides, there is full lib- erty to come and reside among us ; no person is retained by force.
The General added two presents to the above.
By the first he said : You see the consideration which I have
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for the request you have made me. I ask you in return, if the Seneca, Cayuga or any other commit a similar insult against me, that you first give him some sense, and if he will not hear you, that you abandon him as one disaffected.
By the last belt, he exhorted them to listen not to evil sayings, and told them to conduct Tegannehout back to Seneca and to inform these of the above conclusions.
M. DE MEULLES TO THE MINISTER.
[From the same.]
My Lord-I thought you would be impatient to learn the suc- cess and result of the war the General had undertaken against the Iroquois which rendered it necessary for him to call a part of the people of this country together and make all neces- sary preparation, at his Majesty's expense, for this expedition. The troops have been as far as a place called La Famine, thirty leagues beyond Fort Frontenac. The army consisted of nine hundred French and three hundred Savages, and from the Nia- gara side there was another army of six hundred men, one third of whom were French and the remainder Ottawas and Hurons, amounting in all to eighteen hundred men.
What Indians there were evinced the best disposition to fight the Iroquois to the death. Sieur de la Durantaye who brought the last six hundred men from Missilimakinak, has informed us that he learned from a Miami Chief that more than a thousand Illinois were coming to our aid on learning that we were about to fight the Iroquois, to such a degree are they their irreconcilable enemies. Certainly, never was there remarked a better disposi- tion to fight and conquer them and purge the country of that na- tion which will be eternally our enemy. All the French breathed nothing but war, and though they saw themselves obliged to abandon their families, they consoled themselves with the hope of liberating them by one victory from a nation so odious as the Iroquois, at whose hands they constantly dreaded ambushes and destruction. But the General did not think proper to
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push matters any farther, and without any necessity sent Sieur Le Moyne to the said Iroquois to treat of peace at a time when every one was in good health, and when all necessary provision was made of food, &c. to dare every enterprize ; and finally af- ter various comings and goings on one side and the other, the Ge- neral concluded peace such as you will see by the articles which I take the liberty to send you as written by the hand of his Se- cretary.
This peace, my Lord, has astonished all the Officers who had the command in that army and all those who composed it, who have testified so deep a displeasure and so sovereign a. contempt for the General's person that they could not prevent themselves evincing it to him. I assure you, my Lord, that had I strayed ever so little from my duty and not exhibited exteriorly, since his return, the respect I owe his character, the whole world would have risen against him and would have been guilty of some ex- cess.
The said General excuses himself because of the; sick and even' says that the troops lacked food ; to which I feel obliged to an- swer, being certain that he seeks every pretext and has recourse to every expedient to exculpate himself and perhaps to put the blame on me.
"Tis certain that there was a great number of sick among the Militia which he took with him to Fort Frontenac, who were in perfect good health on arriving there, but having encamped them for a fortnight in prairies between the woods and a pond, it is not surprizing that some fell sick. Again he made them camp at: La Famine in places that were never inhabited, entirely surrounded by swamps, which contributed still considerably to the sickness in his army ; and had he remained there longer he would not have saved a man. This has caused every one to say that he did not care, that he had not the least desire to make war ; that he made no use of his long sojourns except employing them in his negociations. Had he seriously wished to make war on the said Iroquois he would not have remained ten to twelve days at Montreal, fourteen or fifteen at Fort Frontenac and as many at La Famin' but would have remained merely a day or two, and
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would have used the greatest despatch to fight the Iroquois, and not uselessly consumed all his provisions ; he would have, indu- bitably surprised the said Iroquois who did not expect this war, especially as the greater number of their young men had been at war in the beginning of the spring.
He says he lacked provisions ; though that were true, he would be the cause and could not but accuse himself of imprudence, having supplied him, generally, with whatever he required of me, of which the whole country is a witness, and with a little pre- caution or rather good faith he would have had every thing in abundance. He had determined not to leave until the 15th of August ; he departed on the 15th July. That did not prevent me furnishing all that he required of me, such as batteaux, ca- noes, arms, ammunition, and all the provision he desired. This is so true that there yet remained at the end of the island of Mon- treal, at a place called La Chine thirty-five thousand weight of flour and five of biscuit which he found on his return, and which he had requested me to retain for him at Montreal. Had he not halted and had he been disposed to push into the Iroquois Coun- try, the first convoy of provisions which accompanied him had sufficed, the greater number of the militia, unwilling to wait for the King's supplies having laid in their own private stock, the greater part of which they brought back with them, which all the Captains in command will certify. This convoy consisted of eighteen canoes full of biscuit, pork, brandy and apparently other things which I do not precisely know having been loaded at Mont- real whilst I was at Quebec where I issued orders for the provi- sions that the General had demanded of me and for attending to the harvest of those who had gone to the war.
If it had been the General's design to make war, he should not have caused the cargoes of the eighteen canoes I have men- tioned to be put into barks thirty leagues from Montreal above the Rapids, instead of letting the voyage be continued by the canoemen who were paid to go to Fort Frontenac and who had already accomplished the roughest half of the road, and who, without a doubt, would have arrived in three days at the Fort, which was represented to him by all the officers who stated to
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him that the barks required wind which being contrary would keep them more than three weeks from arriving. This turned out to be true. Notwithstanding all these reasons he absolutely in- sisted that all the said provisions should be put in the barks. Some have assured me that the canoes of said convoy were partly laden with merchandize, and not being very desirous to let the circumstance be known, he had caused the said barks to precede the canoes to put the goods secretly into them and keep the knowledge of it from every body. By these means he made use of these canoes to convey these merchandizes to the Fort at the King's expense, which he has always practised for two years, ever pretending certain necessity to transport munitions of war, and to make use, by this means, of the conveyances for which the King is made to pay, under pretext to keep the Fort in good or- der. It is impossible to conceive the quantity of Brandy that he has caused to be conveyed thither during eighteen months, of which I have had most positive information, and of which I had the honour to advise you in my last. Others supposed that he had the said provisions put on board those barks in order to ob- tain time and by this address, to negotiate a peace with the Iro- quois, as he had sent Sieur Le Moyne to them who is a very brave man and who despaired of all these negotiations, stating openly that they ought to be whipt. All the delays at Montreal, the Fort, and at La Famine caused the useless consumption of a portion of the supplies which, however, did not fail ; other convoys having been received from time to time, but these were always wasted without any thing having been done.
After the said General had determined in his own mind on this war, he sent the man named Bourbon, an inhabitant of this coun- try to Colonel Dongan to advise him that he was obliged to wage war against the Iroquois, requesting him not to afford them any aid; which he confided to me eight days after the departure of the said Bourbon. This obliged me to tell him that I was asto- nished that he should have thus proceeded ; that the Iroquois having insulted us and intending to fight with and destroy them, I should not have deemed it proper to inform neighbours who have an interest in our destruction ; and that he afforded thereby an op-
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portunity to Col. Dongan, who is an Englishman, and consequent- ly our born enemy, to give underhand information of our designs to the Iroquois, and convey secretly to them all that may be ne- cessary for their defence against us. I asked him if he did not perceive that the English would never desire our advantage, and that they would contribute all in their power to destroy us, though at peace as regards France ; that they would always be jealous of the Fur trade prosecuted by us in this Country, which would make them protect the Iroquois always against us.
This Bourbon negotiation gave Colonel Dongan occasion to use some rhodomontade as the General has informed me ; and this assuredly it was that obliged him, having this information, to send an Englishman, who is in the habit of trading among the said Indians, to plant the Duke of York's arms among the On- nontagués, which is an Iroquois village, wishing by that act to take the first possession of the Country. We have not heard talk of any other movement on the English side, and it is even certain that they will never cause us any dread from that quarter and that they could not prevent us to achieve that conquest this year, had the General been willing to fight.
You can hardly believe, my Lord, that the General has, alone, undertaken the war without having consulted any person, neither officers of the army nor gentlemen, nor the people of the country who are the most interested, nor any individual whosoever he might be, except Sier de la Chesnayne, with whom he acts in concert for the entire destruction and ruin of the country .. He has again made peace in this manner without any communication with any of the officers or others of those who were near his person. What seems a wonder in the country is that one indi- vidual, subject of his Majesty like others, should, of his own will, make war and peace without having consulted or demanded the opinion of any person. His Majesty never acted thus. He has his Council of War, and when he is about to wage it, he demands advice of those of his council, in communicating to them the reasons which he may have to do so, and even causes the publi- cation of manifests throughout the Kingdom, wishing to commu- nicate to his people the justice of his undertakings. But the
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General has treated of peace, like a sovereign, with the said Iro- quois, having employed none of those who were nigh him and who were acquainted with the Iroquois tongue, except as Inter- preters. He dare not consult the officers, being certain that they would all have concluded on war; and but little was necessary to make them select a chief from among themselves to attack the enemy.
The said General proceeds at the head of a small force to make war against the Iroquois, and far from doing that, he grants them all they ask. 'His principal design was to attack the Senecas, but instead of showing him any civility, they did not even condescend to come and meet him, and gave an insolent answer to those who proposed it to them. If people had any thing to say to them, let them take the trouble and come and meet them. There came altogether on this embassy only a certain sycophant who seeks merely a good dinner, and a real buffoon called among the French La Grande Gueule [Big Throat,] accompanied by eight or ten miserable fellows who fooled the General in a most shameful manner, which you will perceive by the articles of peace I have the honour to send you, and which I doubt not he also will send you. They will assuredly excite your pity. You will see he abandons the Illinois among whom M. de la Salle is about to es- tablish himself and who are the cause of this war, inasmuch as the Iroquois attacked them even in Fort St. Louis which the said Sieur de la Salle had erected among them, and of which the General took possession, having ousted and driven away those whom the said Sieur de la Salle had left in command there, and whither he sent Sieur de Bangy his lieutenant of the guards, who is still there.
When he concluded this peace he already had His Majesty's letter eight days in his possession, but so far from conforming to its intentions, he consents to the slaughter of the Illinois who are our allies, and where His Majesty designed to plant a new Colo- ny or some powerful establishment under M. de la Salle's direc- tion. I consider it also my duty to inform your Lordship that the General quit La Famine the moment the peace was concluded without taking the least care of the troops, abandoning them al-
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together to their own guidance, forbidding them on pain of death to leave the place until a long time after him, fearing to be sur- prised by the Iroquois, and having (so to say) lost his wits, caring little what became of the army. Certain it is that he went up to the Fort without taking information about any thing and returned in the same manner.
The worst of this affair is the loss of the trade which I find in- evitable, because the Outawas and other Savages who came to our aid will hereafter entertain no respect for us, and will regard us as a people without courage and without resolution. I doubt not, my lord, but the General sends you a letter which he received from Father Lamberville, Jesuit, who is a missionary in an Iroquois village at Onnontagué, whence those ambassadors came with whom peace was negotiated. The Father, who had learned the Gene- ral's intentions from Sieur Le Moyne, has been wise and sufficient- ly discreet, anticipating his design, to write to him in accordance with his views, and to ingeniously solieit that which must flatter and highly please him. But one thing, is certain that all the Je- suits at Quebec, and particularly Father Bechefer have openly stated in Quebec for six weeks, that the country was destroyed if peace were concluded ; which is so true, that having communi- cated to him the two letters I wrote to the General, he highly ap- proved of them aad advised me to send them to the fort. I shall take leave to send you copies of them, requesting you very re- spectfully, to be persuaded that I speak to you without passion, and that I state nothing to you but what is most true and reliable, and because I feel obliged to let you know the truth as regards all things, without which you will never have the least confidence in me.
I should wish, my Lord, to avoid explaining myself in this manner, fearing you might infer that we were, the General and I, greatly disunited, which is quite contrary to the manner in which we live together, since it is certain that we never had, personally, the least difference wishing in that to conform myself to your wishes and His Majesty's orders, aware that it is the most assured means that I can take to be agreeable to you, which is the sole ambition I have in the world, and to prove to you that no per-
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son can be with more profound respect and greater devotedness than I, my Lord,
Your very humble and very ob: servt.
This, my Lord, is only incidentally. I defer informing you of what has occurred in this country during this year, until the de- parture of the vessels.
Quebec, the 10th 8ber 1684.
DEMEULLES.
FATHER LAMBERVILLE, MISSIONARY AT ONONDAGA, TO M. DE LA BARRE.
[Onondaga,] July 10, 1684.
Sir,-A general Assembly of all the Iroquois will be held here at which it is intended to unite against you, and to inform the Senecas that you wish to persuade the four Iroquois Nations not to aid them in case of war. I am surprised that M. Le Moyne or some other persons have not told you that all the villages were confederated, and that one could not be attacked without becom- ing embroiled with the others.
Did affairs permit, I should have much wished to tell you my thoughts on many things. My brother will inform you of all when he will have the honor to see you. The On[non]tagués who have been spoken to, would like much to settle matters; this is the reason my brother goes to you, whilst I still keep them disposed to give you satisfaction, in order to avoid if possible an infinitude of evils which will overtake Canada, and as I know not whether you desire war without listening to proposals for peace, I wish to understand whether it is not fitter that I with- draw, if possible, rather than give occasion to the Iroquois to say that I deceived them, by propositions for peace. The Onontagués and other nations say, that it grieves them to take up arms against you who are their neighbour, and who form almost one country with them.
They acknowledge that the Senecas are proud and insolent on account of their great number of warriors, but if you are desirous
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to maintain peace by some satisfaction which they will induce the Senecas to make you, it will be very acceptable, so as not to be obliged to come to extremities which will be very disastrous. If war occurs, Sir, all those who have houses apart from fortified places must at once abandon their dwellings, for the grain and the houses will be burned, and many will otherwise be brought away prisoners to be cruelly tormented and insulted. I always think that peace ought to be most precious to you, and that all the advantages that can be held out ought to cause you to shrink from war. A delay in order to arrange every thing more at lei- sure and after having received assistance from France, would ex= tricate you from much embarrassment which will follow from all sides. Pardon me if I give free expression to my thoughts ; you will not at least disapprove of the zeal with wch I am with much respect and submission
Your very humble and Very Obedient Servant (Signed) DELAMBERVILLE.
FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.
11 July 1684.
Sir,-A troop of Senecas on their way to buy their supplies and munitions of powder, lead, and arms are two days [distance] from here. They are expected in order to talk fully of affairs and to endeavour for the preservation peace to induce them to give you satisfaction. I believe if you are really desirous to come to an arrangement in' which an effort will be made to satisfy you, and wherein will be prescribed the boundaries of war and trade, you would have leisure to provide with less trouble and embarrass- ment for the security of Canada, either by erecting forts at La Famine or towards the Senecas under the pretext of establishing a blacksmith, or at La Galette according as you think proper.
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