252 MASSACHUSETTS ATTACKS QUEBEC. [1600. 



Prevost to finish the fortifications, and, with the 

 intendant Champigny, went up to Montreal, the 

 chief point of clanger. Here he arrived on 

 the thirty-first ; and, a few clays after, the officer 

 commanding the fort at La Chine sent him a mes- 

 senger in hot haste with the startling news that 

 Lake St. Louis was " all covered with canoes." ! 

 Nobody doubted that the Iroquois were upon them 

 again. Cannon were fired to call in the troops 

 from the detached posts; when alarm was sud- 

 denly turned to joy by the arrival of other messen- 

 gers to announce that the new coiners were not 

 enemies, but friends. They were the Indians of 

 the upper lakes descending from Michillimackinac 

 to trade at Montreal. Nothing so auspicious had 

 happened since Frontenac's return. The messages 

 he had sent them in the spring by Louvigny and 

 Perrot, reinforced by the news of the victory on 

 the Ottawa and the capture of Schenectady, had 

 had the desired effect ; and the Iroquois prisoner 

 whom their missionary had persuaded them to tor- 

 ture had not been sacrificed in vain. Despairing 

 of an English market for their beaver skins, they 

 had come as of old to seek one from the French. 



On the next day, they all came clown the rapids, 

 and landed near the town. There were fully five 

 hundred of them, Hurons, Ottawas, Ojibwas, Potta- 

 wat amies, Crees, and Nipissings, with a hundred 

 and ten canoes laden with beaver skins to the value 

 of nearly a hundred thousand crowns. Nor was 



1 " Que le lac estoit tout couvert tie canots." Frontenac au Mmistre, 

 9 et 12 Nov., 1690. 



