114 LA BARRE AND THE IROQUOIS. [1684. 



ville, who stood fast in the position which he had 

 held from the beginning. He wrote to La Barre : 

 " You deserve the title of saviour of the country 

 for making peace at so critical a time. In the 

 condition in which your army was, you could not 

 have advanced into the Seneca country without 

 utter defeat. The Senecas had double palisades, 

 which could not have been forced without great 

 loss. Their plan was to keep three hundred men 

 inside, and to perpetually harass you with twelve 

 hundred others. All the Iroquois were to collect 

 together, and fire only at the legs of your people, 

 so as to master them, and burn them at their 

 leisure, and then, after having thinned their num- 

 bers by a hundred ambuscades in the woods and 

 grass, to pursue you in your retreat even to Mon- 

 treal, and spread desolation around it." ] 



La Barre was greatly pleased with this letter, 

 and made use of it to justify himself to the 

 king. His colleague, Meules, on the other hand, 

 declared that Lamberville, anxious to make favor 

 with the governor, had written only what La 

 Barre wished to hear. The intendant also informs 

 the minister that La Barre's excuses are a mere 

 pretence ; that everybody is astonished and dis- 

 gusted with him ; that the sickness of the troops 

 was his own fault, because he kept them encamped 

 on wet ground for an unconscionable length of 

 time; that Big Mouth shamefully befooled and 

 bullied him ; that, after the council at La Famine, 

 he lost his wits, and went off in a fright; that, 



i Lamberville to La Barre, 9 Oct., 1684, in N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 260. 



