252 BRESSANI. [1644. 



necessaries for their use as he was able to carry. 

 With him were six young Hurons, lately converted, 

 and a French boy in his service. The party were 

 in three small canoes. Before setting out they all 

 confessed and prepared for death. 



They left Three Rivers on the twenty-seventh of 

 April, and found ice still floating in the river, and 

 patches of snow lying in the naked forests. On 

 the first day, one of the canoes overset, nearly 

 drowning Bressani, who could not swim. On the 

 third day, a snow-storm began, and greatly retarded 

 theu' progress. The young Indians foolishly fired 

 their guns at the wild-fowl on the river, and the 

 sound reached the ears of a war-party of Iroquois, 

 one of ten that had already set forth for the St. 

 Lawrence, the Ottawa, and the Huron towns.^ 

 Hence it befell, that, as they crossed the mouth of 

 a small stream entering the St. Lawrence, twenty- 

 seven Iroquois suddenly issued from behind a point, 

 and attacked them in canoes. One of the Hurons 

 was 'killed, and all the rest of the party captured 

 without resistance. 



On the fifteenth of July following, Bressani 

 wrote from the Iroquois country to the General of 

 the Jesuits at Rome : — "I do not know if your 

 Paternity will recognize the handwriting of one 

 whom you once knew very well. The letter is 

 soiled and ill- written ; because the writer has only 

 one finger of his right hand left enthe, and cannot 

 prevent the blood from his wounds, which are 

 still open, from staining the paper. His ink is 



1 Vimont, Relation, 1644, 41. 



