1690.] FRONTENAC AND THE COUNCIL. 247 



Their strength was even less than was at first 

 pro]30sed ; for, after the disaster at Casco, Massachu- 

 setts and Plymouth had recalled their contingents 

 to defend their frontiers. The rest, decimated 

 by dysentery and small-pox, began their march to 

 Lake Champlain, with bands of Mohawk, Oneida, 

 and Mohegan allies. The western Iroquois were 

 to join them at the lake, and the combined force 

 was then to attack the head of the colony, while 

 Phips struck at its heart. 



Frontenac was at Quebec during most of the 

 winter and the early spring. When he had de- 

 spatched the three war-parties, whose hardy but 

 murderous exploits were to bring this double storm 

 upon him, he had an interval of leisure, of which 

 he made a characteristic use. The English and 

 the Iroquois were not his only enemies. He had 

 opponents within as well as without, and he counted 

 as among them most of the members of the 

 supreme council. Here Avas the bishop, repre- 

 senting that clerical power which had clashed so 

 often with the civil rule ; here was that ally of 

 the Jesuits, the intenclant Champigny, who, when 

 Frontenac arrived, had written mournfully to Ver- 

 sailles that he would do his best to live at peace 

 with him ; here were Villeray and Auteuil, whom 

 the governor had once banished, Damours, whom he 

 had imprisoned, and others scarcely more agreeable 

 to him. They and their clerical friends had con- 

 spired for his recall seven or eight years before ; 

 they had clung to Denonville, that faithful son of 

 the Church, in spite of all his failures ; and they had 



