de Denonville, who had
been by no means forward in the strife, with savage ferocity mangled and
devoured the bodies of the slain. The Hurons, and the Iroquois
Christians following the French standard, fought with determined
bravery.

The army encamped in one of the four great villages of the
Tsonnonthouans, about eight leagues from the fort at the River Des
Sables: they found it totally deserted by the inhabitants, and left it
in ashes. For ten days they marched through the dense forest with great
hardship and difficulty, and met with no traces of the enemy, but they
marked their progress with ruin: they burned about 400,000 bushels of
corn, and destroyed a vast number of hogs. The general, fearing that his
savage allies would desert him if he continued longer in the field, was
then constrained to limit his enterprise. He, however, took this
opportunity of erecting a fort at Niagara, and left the Chevalier de la
Troye with 100 men in garrison. Unfortunately, a deadly malady soon
after nearly destroyed the detachment, and the post was abandoned and
dismantled. The constant and harassing enmity of the savages combined
with the bad state of the provisions left in the fort, to render the
disease which had broken out so fatal in its results.

The French had erected a fort called Chambly,[403] in a strong position
on the left bank of the important River Richelieu.[404] This little
stronghold effectually commanded the navigation of the stream, and
through it, the communication between Lake Champlain and the southern
districts with the waters of the St. Lawrence. On the 13th of November,
1687, a formidable party of the Iroquois suddenly attacked the fort; the
little garrison made a stout defense, and the assailants abandoned the
field with the morning light; the settlement which had grown up in the
neighborhood was, however, ravaged by the fierce Indians, and several of
the inhabitants carried away into captivity. The French attributed this
unexpected invasion to the instigation of their English neighbors, and
it would appear with reason, for, on the failure of the assault, the
governor of New York put his nearest town into a state of defense, as if
in expectation of reprisals.

In this same year there fell upon Canada an evil more severe than Indian
aggression or English hostility. Toward the end of the summer a deadly
malady visited the colony, and carried mourning into almost every
household. So great was the mortality, t