No. 112.] 661 



Philadelphia. The original charter of Virginia asserted the 

 claim of England to the 45th parallel of latitude, while other 

 grants extended her sovereignty to the waters of the St. Law- 

 Tence. The ultimate acquisition of the title of Holland, bv the 

 * cession of New-Netherlands fortified these pretensions, whick 

 England alleged were matured by the recognition in the treatj 

 of Utrecht, of her paramount sovereignty over the possessions 

 of the Iroquois. Bluod and treasures were profusely expended 

 in the assertion of these hostile claims, founded on these ideal 

 ■charters to a rude and howling wilderness. 



A long series of ferocious but indecisive wars prevailed between 

 the French and the Iroquois, signalized by mutual woes and 

 cruelties and by alternations of victory and defeat. To avenge 

 former sufferings as w^ell as to arrest future incursions, the gov- 

 ernment of New France in 1665 determined to attempt the de- 

 struction of the fastnesses of the Mohawks. The annals of war 

 exhibit scarcely a parallel to the daring intrepidity, the expo- 

 sure and suffering of that expedition. 



The point of contemplated attack was more than three hund- 

 red miles removed, and the season, the heart of mid-winter. 

 That distance was to be traversed by five liundred men, upon 

 isnow slioes, over the icy surface of Champlain and across an 

 untrodden wilderness. Each man, bore liis own provisions and 

 munitions. At uight they had no covering but the clouds, or the 

 buughs of the forest. At length bewildered amid pathless snows, 

 paralyzed and exhausted by cold and hunger, they were pre- 

 served from destruction and restored to their country by tlie 

 -active but ill-requited beneficence of a remote settlement of 



the Dutch. 



• 



A treaty of professed peace, succeeded this event, but it seems 

 to have formed no restraint u})()n the predatory s])irit of eitlier 

 the Moliawks or the French. Two years had not elapsed whtn a 

 second expedition, guided by the venerable De Tracy himself, Iht 

 governor general of New France, had assembled at the Isle de 

 Mottc in Lake Chaaiplaia. Far more formidable than the j le- 

 <iedifig, it embraced 1,200 combatfints, borne by a fleet of 300 bat- 



