146 DENONVILLE AND THE SENECAS. [1687. 



membered that two bands of Dutch and English, 

 under Eooseboom and McGregory, had prepared 

 to set out together for Michillimackinac, armed 

 with commissions from Dongan. They had rashly 

 changed their plan, and parted company. Roose- 

 boom took the lead, and McGregory followed some 

 time after. Their hope was that, on reaching 

 Michillimackinac, the Indians of the place, attracted 

 by their cheap goods and their abundant supplies 

 of rum, would declare for them and drive off the 

 French ; and this would probably have happened, 

 but for the prompt action of La Durantaye. The 

 canoes of Rooseboom, bearing twenty-nine whites 

 and five Mohawks and Mohicans, were not far dis- 

 tant, when, amid a prodigious hubbub, the French 

 commander embarked to meet him with a hundred 

 and twenty coureurs de hois} Behind them fol- 

 lowed a swarm of Indian canoes, whose occupants 

 scarcely knew which side to take, but for the most 

 part inclined to the English. Rooseboom and his 

 men, however, naturally thought that they came 

 to support the French ; and, when La Durantaye 

 bore down upon them with threats of instant death 

 if they made the least resistance, they surrendered 

 at once. The captors carried them in triumph to 

 Michillimackinac, and gave their goods to the de- 

 lighted Indians. % 



"It is certain," wrote Denonville, "that, if the 

 English had not been stopped and pillaged, the 

 Hurons and Ottawas would have revolted and cut 



1 Attestation of N. Harmentse and others of Rooseboom's party 

 N. Y. Col. Docs., III. 436. La Potherie says, three hundred. 



