s into ploughshares, and their guns into reaping hooks, resolved
upon punishing the free-trading children of the woods. He obtained two
hundred additional soldiers from France, and proceeded up the St.
Lawrence on his labor of love. The Indians only laughed at him. They
thought he was in a dream when he pompously required them not to war
upon each other, or permit the English to come among them. His troops
were sick and starving, and were at the mercy rather of the Indians
than the Indians at their mercy. M. De La Barre was compelled to
withdraw his troops. The blustering, pompous, mischief-loving De La
Barre was recalled by his government, for incompetency, and in 1685 was
succeeded by Denonville.

The Marquis Denonville was only more cunning than his predecessor, and
perhaps more decided. No sooner had he set foot in the colony, than,
with the assistance of the missionaries, he persuaded the Iroquois
chiefs to meet him on the banks of Lake Ontario. Denonville and the
Indians did meet, and no sooner had they met, than Denonville
treacherously caused a number of them to be seized and put in irons, to
be sent as prisoners to the King of France, for service in his gallies.
Denonville erected a fort at Niagara, became more violent and
overbearing to the Indians, treated the remonstrances of the English of
New York, concerning the erection of Fort Niagara, with contempt, and
at last brought upon himself, as the arrogant generally do, defeat and
disgrace. This fort, to which the North West Fur Company of Quebec had
offered to contribute 30,000 livres annually, in consideration of a
monopoly of the fur trade, was destroyed by the Iroquois, who followed
the now retreating French to Cataraqui, made themselves masters of the
whole country west of Montreal, and, to crown all, appeared before that
city with proposals of peace. 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. They attacked the
deputies, and insinuated to their prisoners that the French Governor
had instigated them to do so. The prisoners were allowed to depart; a
large party of the Five Nations heard their tale, descended upon
Montreal, carried off two hundred of the inhabitants, and retired
unmolested. The fort at Catara