80 LE EEBVRE DE LA BARRE. [1682. 



and even Frontenac had been compelled in the last 

 year of his government to leave unpunished various 

 acts of violence and plunder committed by the 

 Iroquois. La Barre painted the situation in its 

 blackest colors, declared that war was imminent, 

 and wrote to the minister, " We shall lose half our 

 trade and all our reputation, if we do not oppose 

 these haughty conquerors." ! 



A vein of gasconade appears in most of his let- 

 ters, not however accompanied with any conclusive 

 evidence of a real wish to fight. His best fighting 

 days were past, for he was sixty years old ; nor 

 had he always been a man of the sword. His early 

 life was spent in the law ; he had held a judicial 

 post, and had been intendant of several French 

 jDrovinces. Even the military and naval employ- 

 ments, in which he afterwards acquitted himself 

 with credit, were due to the part he took in form- 

 ing a joint-stock company for colonizing Cayenne. 2 

 In fact, he was but half a soldier ; and it was per- 

 haps for this reason that he insisted on being called, 

 not Monsieur le Gouvemeur, but Monsieur le 

 General. He w r as equal to Frontenac neither in 

 vigor nor in rank, but he far surpassed him in 

 avidity. Soon after his arrival, he wrote to the 

 minister that he should not follow the example of 



1 La Barre a Seignelay, 1682. 



2 He was made governor of Cayenne, and went thither with Tracy in 

 1664. Two years later, he gained several victories over the English, 

 and recaptured Cayenne, which they had taken in his absence. He 

 wrote a hook concerning this colony, called Description de la France 

 E'juinoctiale. Another volume, called Journal du Voyage da Sieur de la 

 Barre en la Terre Ferine et Isle de Cayenne, was printed at Paris in 1671. 



