404 FRENCH AND ENGLISH RIVALRY. [1694-96. 



savages of a lower grade, tossed continually be- 

 tween hatred of the Iroquois, distrust of the French, 

 and love of English goods and English rum. 1 



La Motte-Caclillac found that the Hurons of the 

 Baron's band were receiving messengers and peace 

 belts from New York and her reel allies, that the 

 English had promised to build a trading house on 

 Lake Erie, and that the Iroquois had invited the 

 lake tribes to a grand convention at Detroit. These 

 belts and messages were sent, in the Indian ex- 

 pression, " underground," that is, secretly ; and 

 the envoys who brought them came in the dis- 

 guise of prisoners taken by the Hurons. On one 

 occasion, seven Iroquois were brought in ; and some 

 of the French, suspecting them to be agents of the 

 negotiation, stabbed two of them as they landed. 

 There was a great tumult. The Hurons took arms 

 to defend the remaining five ; but at length suf- 

 fered themselves to be appeased, and even gave 

 one of the Iroquois, a chief, into the hands of the 

 French, who, says La Potherie, determined to 

 "make an example of him." They invited the 

 ■Ottawas to " drink the broth of an Iroquois." The 

 wretch was made fast to a stake, and a Frenchman 

 began the torture by burning him with a red-hot 

 gun-barrel. The mob of savages was soon wrought 



1 "Si les Outaouacs (Ottawas) et Hurons concluent la paix avec 

 l'Iroquois sans nostre participation, et donnent chez eux l'entree a l'An- 

 glois pour le commerce, la Colonie est entierement ruinee, puisque e'est 

 le seul (moi/en) par lequel ce pays-cy puisse subsister, et Ton peut as- 

 seurer que si les sauvages goustent une fois du commerce de l'Anglois, 

 ils rompront pour toujours avec les Francois, parcequ'ils ne peuvent 

 donner les marchandises qu'a un prix beaucoup plus hault." Frontenac 

 au Ministre, 25 Oct.. 1696. 



