heart which caused the Indians to
give them (_Vaudreuil a Rale, 15 Juin, 1721_), and both he and the
intendant lay the blame on the English party at Norridgewock, who, "with
the consent of all the Indians of that mission, had the weakness to give
four hostages." _Reponse de Vaudreuil et Begon au Memoire du Roy du 8
Juin, 1721._

[249] _Eastern Indians' Letter to the Governour, 27 July, 1721_, in
_Mass., Hist. Coll., Second Series_, viii. 259. This is the original
French. It is signed with totems of all the Abenaki bands, and also of
the Caughnawagas, Iroquois of the Mountain, Hurons, Micmacs, Montagnais,
and several other tribes. On this interview, Penhallow; Belknap, ii. 51;
_Shute to Vaudreuil_, 21 July, 1721 (O. S.); _Ibid., 23 April, 1722_;
Rale in _Lettres Edifiantes_, xvii. 285. Rale blames Shute for not being
present at the meeting, but a letter of the governor shows that he had
never undertaken to be there. He could not have come in any case, from
the effects of a fall, which disabled him for some months even from
going to Portsmouth to meet the Legislature. _Provincial Papers of New
Hampshire_, iii. 822.

[250] Williamson, _Hist. of Maine_, ii. 119; Penhallow. Rale's account
of the affair, found among his papers at Norridgewock, is curiously
exaggerated. He says that he himself was with the Indians, and "to
pleasure the English" showed himself to them several times,--a point
which the English writers do not mention, though it is one which they
would be most likely to seize upon. He says that fifty houses were
burned, and that there were five forts, two of which were of stone, and
that in one of these six hundred armed men, besides women and children,
had sought refuge, though there was not such a number of men in the
whole region of the Kennebec.

[251] Vaudreuil, _Memoire adresse au Roy, 5 Juin, 1723_.

[252] _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 6 Septembre, 1716._

[253] _Extrait d'une Liasse de Papiers concernant le Canada_, 1720.
(Archives du Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres.)

[254] _Reponse de Vaudreuil et Begon au Memoire du Roy, 8 Juin, 1721._

[255] _Begon a Rale, 14 Juin, 1721._

[256] Some of the papers found in Rale's "strong box" are still
preserved in the Archives of Massachusetts, including a letter to him
from Vaudreuil, dated at Quebec, 25 September, 1721, in which the French
governor expresses great satisfaction at the missionary's success in
uniting the Indians against the English, and promises