230 ISAAC JOGUES. L1643. 



made beer, and oats, with which they fed their 

 numerous horses. They traded, too, with the 

 Indians, who profited greatly by the competition 

 among them, receiving guns, knives, axes, kettles, 

 cloth, and beads, at moderate rates, in exchange for 

 their furs.^ The Dutch were on excellent terms 

 with their red neighbors, met them in the forest 

 without the least fear, and sometimes intermarried 

 with them. They had known of Jogues's cap- 

 tivity, and, to their great honor, had made efforts 

 for his release, off'ering for that purpose goods 

 to a considerable value, but without effect.^ 



At Fort Orange Jogues heard startling news. 

 The Indians of the village where he lived were, he 

 was told, enraged against him, and determined to 

 burn him. About the fii'st of July, a war-party 

 had set out for Canada, and one of the warriors 

 had offered to Jogues to be the bearer of a letter 

 from him to the French commander at Three 

 Rivers, thinking probably to gain some advantage 

 under cover of a parley. Jogues knew that the 

 French would be on their guard; and he felt 

 it his duty to lose no opportunity of informing 

 them as to the state of affairs among the Iroquois. 



1 Jogues, Novum Belgium; Barnes, Settlement of Albany, 50-55; O'Cal- 

 laghan, New Nttherland, Chap. VI. 



On the relations of the Mohawks and Dutch, see Megapolensis, Short 

 Sketch of the Mohawk Indians, and portions of the letter of Jogues to Ms 

 Superior, dated Rensselaerswyck, Aug. 30, 1643. 



- See a long letter of Arendt Van Curler (Corlaer) to Van Rensselaer, 

 June 16, 1643, in O'Callaghan's New Netherland, Appendix L. " We per- 

 suaded them so far," writes Van Curler, " that they promised not to kill 

 them. . . . The French captives ran screaming after us, and besought 

 us to do all in our power to release them out of the hands of the bar- 

 barians " 



