168 THE IROQUOIS INVASION. 



Here they were safe, provided that they never 

 ventured out ; but their fields were left untillecl, 

 and the governor was already compelled to feed 

 many of them at the expense of the king. The 

 Iroquois roamed among the deserted settlements 

 or prowled like lynxes about the forts, waylaying 

 convoys and killing or capturing stragglers. Their 

 war-parties were usually small ; but their move- 

 ments were so mysterious and their attacks so 

 sudden, that they spread a universal panic through 

 the upper half of the colony. They were the 

 wasps which Denonville had failed to kill. 



" We should succumb," wrote the distressed gov- 

 ernor, " if our cause were not the cause of Gocl. 

 Your Majesty's zeal for religion, and the great 

 things you have done for the destruction of 

 heresy, encourage me to hope that you will be 

 the bulwark of the Faith in the new world as you 

 are in the old. I cannot give you a truer idea 

 of the war we have to wage with the Iroquois than 

 by comparing them to a great number of wolves 

 or other ferocious beasts, issuing out of a vast forest 

 to ravage the neighboring settlements. The people 

 gather to hunt them clown ; but nobody can find 

 their lair, for they are always in motion. An 

 abler man than I would be greatly at a loss to 

 manage the affairs of this country. It is for the 

 interest of the colony to have peace at any cost 

 whatever. For the glory of the king and the good 

 of religion, we should be glad to have it an advan- 

 tageous one : and so it would have been, but for the 



