1693.] BOLDNESS OF COURTEMANCHE. 315 



and in many instances with health irreparably 

 broken. 1 



" The expedition/' says Frontenac, " was a glo- 

 rious success." However glorious, it was dearly 

 bought ; and a few more such victories would be 

 ruin. The governor presently achieved a success 

 more solid and less costly. The wavering mood of 

 the north-western tribes, always oscillating between 

 the French and the English, had caused him inces- 

 sant anxiety ; and he had lost no time in using the 

 defeat of Phips to confirm them in alliance with 

 Canada. Courtemanche was sent up the Ottawa 

 to carry news of the French triumph, and stimulate 

 the savages of Michillimackinac to lift the hatchet. 

 It was a desperate venture ; for the river was be- 

 set, as usual, by the Iroquois. With ten followers, 

 the daring partisan ran the gauntlet of a thousand 

 dangers, and safely reached his destination ; where 

 his gifts and his harangues, joined with the tidings 

 of victory, kindled great excitement among the 

 Ottawas and Hurons. The indispensable but most 

 difficult task remained : that of opening the Ottawa 

 for the descent of the great accumulation of beaver 

 skins, which had been gathering at Michillimack- 

 inac for three years, and for the want of which 

 Canada was bankrupt. More than two hundred 



1 On this expedition, Narrative of Military Operations in Canada, in 

 N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 550 ; Relation cle ce qui s'est passe" cle plus remarquable 

 en Canada, 1692, 1693; Callieres au Ministre, 7 Sept., 1693; La Potherie, 

 III. 169; Relation de 1682-1712; Eaillon, Vie de Mile. Le Ber, 313; Bel- 

 mont, Hist, du Canada ; Beyard and Lodowick, Journal of the Late Actions 

 of the French at Canada; Report of Major Peter Schuyler, in N. Y. Col. 

 Docs., IV. 16 ; Colden, 112. 



The minister wrote to Callieres, finding great fault with the conduct 

 of the mission Indians. Ponchartrain a Callieres, 8 Mai, 1694. 



