140 DENONVILLE AND THE SENECAS. [1687. 



sight so exasperated the young officer that he 

 could scarcely refrain from thrashing the tor- 

 mentors with his walking stick. 1 



Though the prisoners were Iroquois, they were 

 not those against whom the expedition was directed ; 

 nor had they, so far as appears, ever given the 

 French any cause of complaint. They belonged 

 to two neutral villages, called Kente and Gannei- 

 ous, on the north shore of Lake Ontario, forming 

 a sort of colony, where the Siu^itians of Montreal 

 had established a mission. 2 They hunted and 

 fished for the garrison of the fort, and had been 

 on excellent terms with it. Denonville, however, 

 feared that they would report his movements to 

 their relations across the lake ; but this was not 

 his chief motive for seizing them. Like La Barre 

 before him, he had received orders from the court 

 that, as the Iroquois were robust and strong, he 

 should capture as many of them as possible, and 

 send them to France as galley slaves. 3 The order, 

 without doubt, referred to prisoners taken in war ; 

 but Denonville, aware that the hostile Iroquois were 

 not easily caught, resolved to entrap their unsus- 

 pecting relatives. 



The intenclant Champigny accordingly pro- 

 ceeded to the fort in advance of the troops, and 

 invited the neighboring Iroquois to a feast. They 



1 La Hontan, I. 03-05 (1700). 



2 Ganneious or Gane'yout was on an arm of the lake a little west of 

 the present town of Eredericksburg. Kente' or Quinte was on Quinte 

 Bay. 



3 Le Roy a La Barre, 21 Juillet, 1684 ; Le Roy a Denonville et Champigny, 

 30 Mars, 1687. 



