420 TREATY AT ALBANY WITH THE FIVE NATIONS. CHAP. shall be seen afar. We will shelter ourselves under it, XVII. and live in unmolested peace." 1684. Aug. 2. Aug. At the conclusion of the treaty, each of the three offending nations gave a hatchet to be buried. "We bury none for ourselves," said the Mohawks, " for we have never broken the ancient chain." The axes were buried, and the offending tribes in noisy rapture chanted the song of peace. "Brother Corlaer," said a chief for the Onondagas and Cayugas," your sachem is a great sachem; and we are a small people. When the English came first to Manhattan, to Virginia, and to Maryland, they were a small people, and we were great. Because we found you a good people, we treated you kindly, and gave you land. Now, therefore, that you are great and we small, we hope you will protect us from the French. They are angry with us because we carry beaver to our brethren." The envoys of the Senecas soon arrived, and ex5. pressed their delight, that the tomahawk was already buried, and all evil put away from the hearts of the English sachems. On the same day, a messenger from De la Barre appeared at Albany. But his complaints were unheeded. "We have not wandered from our paths," said the Senecas. "But when Onondio, the sachem of Canada, threatens us with war, shall we run away? Shall we sit still in our houses? Our beaverhunters are brave men, and the beaver-hunt must be free." The sachems returned to nail the arms of the duke of York over their castles-a protection, as they thought, against the French-an acknowledgment, as the English deemed, of British sovereignty. Meantime the rash and confident De la Barre, with six hundred French soldiers, four hundred Indian allies, XVIL four hundred carriers, and three hundred men for a CHAP garrison, advanced to the fort which stood near the outlet of the present Rideau Canal. But the unhealthy 1684 exhalations of August on the marshy borders of Ontario disabled his army; and, after crossing the lake, and disembarking his wasted troops in the land of the Onondagas, he was compelled to solicit peace from the tribes. whom he had designed to exterminate. The Mohawks, at the request of the English, refused to negotiate; but the other nations, jealous of English supremacy, desired to secure independence by balancing the French against the English. An Onondaga chief called Heaven to witness his resentment at English interference. "Onondio," he proudly exclaimed to the envoy of New York, "Onondio has for ten years been our father; Corlaer has long been our brother. But it is because we have willed it so. Neither the one nor the other is our master. He who made the world gave us the land in which we dwell. We are free. You call us subjects; we say we are brethren; we must take care of ourselves. I will go to my father, for he has come to my gate, and desires to speak with me words of reason. We will embrace peace instead of war; the axe shall be thrown into a deep water." tan. The deputies of the tribes repaired to the presence La Honof De la Barre to exult in his humiliation. "It is well for you," said the eloquent Haaskouaun, rising from the calumet, "that you have left under ground the hatchet which has so often been dyed in the blood of the French. Our children and old men had carried their bows and arrows into the heart of your camp, if our braves had not kept them back.-Our warriors have not beaver enough to pay for the arms we have taken from the French; and our old men are not afraid of 422 XVII. 1684. LOUIS XIV. A KIDNAPPER. CHAP. war. We may guide the English to our lakes. We are born free. We depend neither on Onondio nor Corlaer." Dismayed by the energy of the Seneca chief, the governor of Canada accepted a disgraceful treaty, leaving his allies at the mercy of their enemies. Meantime fresh troops arrived from France, and De la Barre was superseded by Denonville, an officer whom Charlevoix extols as possessing, in a sovereign degree, every quality of a perfectly honorable man. His example, it is said, made virtue and religion more 1685. respectable: his tried valor and active zeal were en 1686. hanced by prudence and sagacity. But blind obedience paralyzes conscience and enslaves reason; and quiet pervaded neither the Five Nations nor the English provinces. For the defence of New France, a fort was to be established at Niagara. The design, which would have May. controlled the entire fur-trade of the Upper Lakes, was resisted by Dongan; for, it was said, the country south of the lakes, the whole domain of the Iroquois, is sub ject to England. Thus began the long contest for May territory in the west. The limits between the English 22. and French never were settled; but, for the present, the Five Nations of themselves were a sufficient bulwark against encroachments from Canada, and in the summer of 1686, a party of English traders penetrated even to Michilimackinac. The gentle spirit which swayed William Penn at Shackamaxon did not find its way into the voluptuous councils of Versailles. "The welfare of my service"Charle- such were the instructions of Louis XIV. to the governor of New France-" requires that the number of the Iroquois should be diminished as much as possible. They are strong and robust, and can be made useful voix. XVII. as galley-slaves. Do what you can to take a large CHAP. number of them prisoners of war, and ship them for France." By open hostilities, no captives could be 1687. made; and Lamberville, the missionary among the Onondagas, was unconsciously employed to decoy the Iroquois chiefs into the fort on Ontario. Invited to negotiate a treaty, they assemble without distrust, are surprised, put in irons, hurried to Quebec, and thence. to Europe, and the warrior hunters of the Five Nations, who used to roam from Hudson's Bay to Carolina, were chained to the oar in the galleys of Marseilles. But the counsels of injustice are always fearfully avenged; and the sins of the fathers are jealously visited on the children unto the third and fourth generation. We shall hereafter have occasion to pursue the maritime destinies of a monarchy of which the fleets employed slaves for mariners. Meantime the old men of the Onondagas summoned Lamberville to their presence. "We have much reason," said an aged chief, "to treat thee as an enemy, but we know thee too well. Thou hast betrayed us; but treason was not in thy heart. Fly, therefore, for when our young braves shall have sung their war-song, they will listen to no voice but the swelling voice of their anger." And trusty guides conducted the missionary through by-paths into a place of security. The noble forbearance was due to the counsel of Garonkonthié. Generous barbarian! your honor shall endure, if words of mine can preserve the memory your deeds. of An incursion into the country of the Senecas followed. The savages retired into remoter forests; of the country which was overrun without resistance, possession was taken by the French, and a fort erected Char.e. voix, 511 424 THE TREACHERY OF LOUIS XIV. CHAP. at Niagara. France seemed to have gained firm posXVII. session of Western New York. But as the French 1688. voix, 529. army withdrew, the wilderness remained to its old inhabitants. The Senecas in their turn made a descent upon their still feebler enemy; and the Onondagas threatened war. "Onondio has stolen our sachems; he has broken," said they, "the covenant of peace;" and Dongan, at the solicitation of the French, offered himself as mediator, but only on condition that the kidnapped chiefs should be ransomed, the fort in the Iroquois country razed, and the spoils of the Senecas restored. The negotiations fail; and Haaskouaun advances with five hundred warriors to dictate the terms of peace. "I have always loved the French," said the proud chieftain to the foes whom he scorned. "Our warriors proposed to come and burn your forts, your houses, your granges, and your corn; to weaken you by famine, and then to overwhelm you. I am come to tell Onondio he can escape this misery, if within four days he will yield to the terms which Corlaer has proposed." Twelve hundred Iroquois were already on Lake St. Francis; in two days they could reach Montreal. The haughty condescension of the Seneca chief was Charle accepted, the ransom of the Iroquois chiefs conceded, and the whole country south of the chain of lakes rescued from the dominion of Canada. In the course of events, New York owes its present northern boundary to the valor of the Five Nations. But for them Canada would have embraced the basin of the St. Lawrence. 1686. During these events, James II. had, in a treaty with Louis XIV., made it a condition of amity between the colonies of the two states, that neither should assist the |