1688.] APPEAL FOR HELP. 169 



malice of the English and the protection they have 

 given our enemies." 1 



And yet he had, one would think, a reasonable 

 force at his disposal. His thirty-two companies of 

 regulars were reduced by this time to about four- 

 teen hundred men, but he had also three or four 

 hundred Indian converts, besides the militia of the 

 colony, of whom he had stationed a large body 

 under Vaudreuil at the head of the Island of Mon- 

 treal. All told, they were several times more 

 numerous than the agile warriors who held the col- 

 ony in terror. He asked for eight hundred more 

 regulars. The king sent him three hundred. Af- 

 fairs grew worse, and he grew desperate. Rightly 

 judging that the best means of defence was to 

 take the offensive, he conceived the plan of a 

 double attack on the Iroquois, one army to assail 

 the Onondagas and Cayugas, another the Mo- 

 hawks and Oneidas. 2 Since to reach the Mohawks 

 as he proposed, by the way of Lake Champlain, he 

 must pass through territory indisputably British, 

 the attempt would be a flagrant violation of the 

 treaty of neutrality. Nevertheless, he implored 

 the king to send him four thousand soldiers to 

 accomplish it. 3 His fast friend, the bishop, warmly 

 seconded his appeal. " The glory of God is in- 

 volved," Avrote the head of the church, " for the 

 Iroquois are the only tribe who oppose the progress 

 of the gospel. The glory of the king is involved, 



i Denonville au Roy, 1688; Ibid., Memoire du 10 Aoust, 1688; Ibid., 

 Mtmoire du 9 Nov., 1688. 



2 Plan for the Termination of the Iroquois War,N. Y. Col. Docs. , IX. 375. 



3 Denonville, Memoire du 8 Aoust, 1688. 



