90 LA BAKRE AND THE IROQUOIS. [1684. 



Dongan did liis utmost to promote their interests, 

 so far at least as was consistent with his instruc- 

 tions from the Duke of York, enjoining him to 

 give the French governor no just cause of offence. 1 



For several years past, the Iroquois had made 

 forays against the borders of Maryland and Vir- 

 ginia, plundering and killing the settlers ; and a 

 declared rupture between those colonies and the 

 savage confederates had more than once been im- 

 minent. The English believed that these hostili- 

 ties were instigated by the Jesuits in the Iroquois 

 villages. There is no proof whatever of the ac- 

 cusation ; but it is certain that it was the interest 

 of Canada* to provoke a war which might, sooner 

 or later, involve New York. In consequence of a 

 renewal of such attacks, Lord Howard of Effing- 

 ham, governor of Virginia, came to Albany in the 

 summer of 1684, to hold a council with the Iro- 

 quois. 



The Oneidas, Onondagas, and Cayugas were the 

 offending tribes. They all promised friendship for 

 the future. A hole was dug in the court-yard of 

 the council house, each of the three threw a hatchet 

 into it, and Lord Howard and the representative of 



i Sir John Werden to Dongan, 4 Dec, 1684 ; iV. Y. Col. Docs., III. 

 353. Werden was the duke's secretary. 



Dongan has been charged with instigating the Iroquois to attack the 

 French. The Jesuit Lamberville, writing from Onondaga, says, on the 

 contrary, that he hears that the " governor of New England (New York), 

 when the Mohawk chiefs asked him to continue the sale of powder to 

 them, replied that it should be continued so long as they would not make 

 war on Christians." Lamberville a La Barre, 10 Fev., 1684. 



The French ambassador at London complained that Dongan excited 

 the Iroquois to war, and Dongan denied the charge. N. Y. Col. Docs., 

 III. 506, 509. 



