86 LE FEBVRE DE LA BARRE. [1683-84. 



of carpenters, and sending up of iron, cordage, 

 sails, and many other things, at his Majesty's 

 charge, was simply in the view of carrying on 

 trade." He says, farther, that in May last, the 

 vessels, canoes, and men being nearly all absent on 

 this errand, the fort was left in so defenceless a 

 state that a party of Senecas, returning from their 

 winter hunt, took from it a quantity of goods, and 

 drank as much brandy as they wanted. " In 

 short," he concludes, " it is plain that Monsieur de 

 la Barre uses this fort only as a depot for the trade 

 of Lake Ontario." * 



In the spring of 1683, La Barre had taken a 

 step as rash as it was lawless and unjust. He sent 

 the Chevalier de Baugis, lieutenant of his guard, 

 with a considerable number of canoes and men, to 

 seize La Salle's fort of St. Louis on the river Illinois ; 

 a measure which, while gratifying the passions 

 and the greed of himself and his allies, would 

 greatly increase the clanger of rupture with the 

 Iroquois. Late in the season, he despatched seven 

 canoes and fourteen men, with goods to the value 

 of fifteen or sixteen thousand livres, to trade with 

 the tribes of the Mississippi. As he had sown, so 

 he reaped. The seven canoes passed through the 

 country of the Illinois. A large war party of 

 Senecas and Cayugas invaded it in February. 

 La Barre had told their chiefs that they were wel- 

 come to plunder the canoes of La Salle. The 

 Iroquois were not discriminating. They fell upon 



1 Meules a Seignelay, 8 July, 1684. This accords perfectly with state- 

 ments made in several memorials of La Salle and his friends. 



