ad returned
and peace must be made with him if the Five Nations wished to live. A
great {138} council was then held at which the English, by invitation,
were represented, while the French interest found its spokesman in a
Christian Iroquois named Cut Nose. Any chance of success was destroyed
by the implacable enmity of the Senecas, who remembered the attempt of
the French to check their raids upon the Illinois and the invasion of
their own country by Denonville. Cannehoot, a Seneca chieftain, rose
and stated that the tribes of Michilimackinac were ready to join the
English and the Iroquois for the destruction of New France; and the
assembly decided to enter this triple alliance. Frontenac's envoys
returned to Quebec alive, but with nothing to show for their pains. A
later effort by Frontenac was even less successful. The Iroquois, it
was clear, could not be brought back to friendship by fair words.

War to the knife being inevitable, Frontenac promptly took steps to
confirm his position with the hitherto friendly savages of the Ottawa
and the Great Lakes. When Cannehoot had said that the tribes of
Michilimackinac were ready to turn against the French, he was not
drawing wholly upon his imagination. This statement was confirmed by
the report of Nicolas Perrot, who knew the {139} Indians of the West as
no one else knew them--save perhaps Du Lhut and Carheil.[1] The French
were now playing a desperate game in the vast region beyond Lake Erie,
which they had been the first of Europeans to explore. The Ottawas and
the Hurons, while alike the hereditary foes of the Iroquois, were
filled with mutual jealousy which must be composed. The successes of
the Iroquois in their raids on the French settlements must be explained
and minimized. 'The Rat' Kondiaronk, the cleverest of the western
chieftains, must be conciliated. And to compass all these ends, Perrot
found his reliance in the word that Frontenac had returned and would
lead his children against the common foe. Meanwhile, the Iroquois had
their own advocates among the more timid and suspicious members of
these western tribes. During the winter of 1689-90 the French and the
Iroquois had about an even chance of winning the {140} Indians who
centred at Michilimackinac. But the odds were against the French to
this extent--they were working against a time limit. Unless Frontenac
could quickly show evidence of strength, the tribes of the West would
range with the I