calm au Ministre_, _1 Sept. 1758._]

To the white fighting force of the colony are to be added the red men.
The most trusty of them were the Mission Indians, living within or near
the settled limits of Canada, chiefly the Hurons of Lorette, the
Abenakis of St. Francis and Batiscan, the Iroquois of Caughnawaga and La
Presentation, and the Iroquois and Algonkins at the Two Mountains on the
Ottawa. Besides these, all the warriors of the west and north, from Lake
Superior to the Ohio, and from the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, were
now at the beck of France. As to the Iroquois or Five Nations who still
remained in their ancient seats within the present limits of New York,
their power and pride had greatly fallen; and crowded as they were
between the French and the English, they were in a state of vacillation,
some leaning to one side, some to the other, and some to each in turn.
As a whole, the best that France could expect from them was neutrality.

Montcalm at Montreal had more visits than he liked from his red allies.
"They are _vilains messieurs_," he informs his mother, "even when fresh
from their toilet, at which they pass their lives. You would not believe
it, but the men always carry to war, along with their tomahawk and gun,
a mirror to daub their faces with various colors, and arrange feathers
on their heads and rings in their ears and noses. They think it a great
beauty to cut the rim of the ear and stretch it till it reaches the
shoulder. Often they wear a laced coat, with no shirt at all. You would
take them for so many masqueraders or devils. One needs the patience of
an angel to get on with them. Ever since I have been here, I have had
nothing but visits, harangues, and deputations of these gentry. The
Iroquois ladies, who always take part in their government, came also,
and did me the honor to bring me belts of wampum, which will oblige me
to go to their village and sing the war-song. They are only a little way
off. Yesterday we had eighty-three warriors here, who have gone out to
fight. They make war with astounding cruelty, sparing neither men,
women, nor children, and take off your scalp very neatly,--an operation
which generally kills you."

"Everything is horribly dear in this country; and I shall find it hard
to make the two ends of the year meet, with the twenty-five thousand
francs the King gives me. The Chevalier de Levis did not join me till
yesterday. His health is excellent. In a few days I sh