1690-97.] FATHER THURY. 377 



from learning the French tongue. He wore a 

 crucifix, hung wampum on the shrine of the Virgin, 

 told his beads, prayed three times a day, knelt for 

 hours before the Host, invoked the saints, and con- 

 fessed to the priest ; but, with rare exceptions, he 

 murdered, scalped, and tortured like his heathen 

 countrymen. 1 



The picture has another side, which must not 

 pass unnoticed. Early in the war, the French of 

 Canada began the merciful practice of buying Eng- 

 lish prisoners, and especially children, from their 

 Indian allies. After the first fury of attack, many 



1 The famous Ourehaoue, who had been for years under the influence 

 of the priests, and who, as Charlevoix says, died " un vrai Chretien," 

 being told on his death-bed how Christ was crucified by the Jews, ex- 

 claimed with fervor : " Ah ! why was not I there 1 I would have revenged 

 him : I would have had their scalps." La Potherie, IV. 91. Charlevoix, 

 after his fashion on such occasions, suppresses the revenge and the scalp- 

 ing, and instead makes the dying Christian say, " I would have prevented 

 them from so treating my God." 



The savage custom of forcing prisoners to run the gauntlet, and 

 sometimes beating them to death as they did so, was continued at two, 

 if not all, of the mission villages down to the end of the French domina- 

 tion. General Stark of the Revolution, when a young man, was 

 subjected to this kind of torture at St. Francis, but saved himself by 

 snatching a club from one of the savages, and knocking the rest to the 

 right and left as he ran. The practice was common, and must have had 

 the consent of the priests of the mission. 



At the Sulpitian mission of the Mountain of Montreal, unlike the 

 rest, the converts were taught to speak French and practise mechanical 

 arts. The absence of such teaching in other missions was the subject of 

 frequent complaint, not only from Frontenac, but from other officers. 

 La Motte-Cadillac writes bitterly on the subject, and contrasts the con- 

 duct of the French priests with that of the English ministers, who have 

 taught many Indians to read and write, and reward them for teaching 

 others in turn, which they do, he says, with great success. Me'moire con- 

 tenant une Description de'taille'e de V 'Accidie, etc., 1693. In fact, Eliot and his 

 co-workers took great pains in this respect. There were at this time thirty 

 Indian churches in New England, according to the Diary of President 

 Stiles, cited by Holmes. 



