13 G DENONVILLE AND DONG AN. [1687. 



meantime, he had sent him troops, money, and 

 munitions in abundance, and ordered him to attack 

 the Iroquois towns. Whether such a step was con- 

 sistent with the recent treaty of neutrality may 

 well be doubted ; for, though James II. had not yet 

 formally claimed the Iroquois as British subjects, 

 his representative had done so for years with his 

 tacit approval, and out of this claim had risen the 

 principal differences which it was the object of the 

 treaty to settle. 



Eight hundred regulars were already in the 

 colony, and eight hundred more were sent in the 

 spring, with a hundred and sixty-eight thousand 

 livres in money and supplies. 1 Denonville was 

 prepared to strike. He had pushed his prepara- 

 tions actively, yet with extreme secrecy ; for he 

 meant to fall on the Senecas unawares, and shatter 

 at a blow the mainspring of English intrigue. 

 Harmony reigned among the chiefs of the colony, 

 military, civil, and religious. The intendant Meules 

 had been recalled on the complaints of the governor, 

 who had quarrelled with him ; and a new intendant, 

 Champigny, had been sent in his place. He was 

 as pious as Denonville himself, and, like him, was 

 in perfect accord with the bishop and the Jesuits. 

 All wrought together to promote the new crusade. 



It was not yet time to preach it, or at least 

 Denonville thought so. He dissembled his pur- 

 pose to the last moment, even with his best friends. 

 Of all the Jesuits among the Iroquois, the two 



1 Abstract of Letters, in N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 314. This answers ex- 

 actly to the statement of the Memoire adresst au Regent, which places the 

 nnmber of troops in Canada at this time at thirty-two companies of fifty 

 men each. 



