1696.] THE ONEIDAS BEG EOR PEACE. 413 



angle, flanked by bastions at the four corners, and 

 surrounded by an outer fence of tall poles. The 

 place was not defensible against cannon and mor- 

 tars; and the four hundred warriors belonging to 

 it had been but slightly reinforced from the other 

 tribes of the confederacy, each of which feared 

 that the French attack might be directed against 

 itself. On the approach of an enemy of five times 

 their number, they had burned their town, and 

 retreated southward into distant forests. 



The troops were busied for two days in hacking 

 down the maize, digging up the caches, or hidden 

 stores of food, and destroying their contents. The 

 neighboring tribe of the Oneidas sent a messenger 

 to beg peace. Frontenac replied that he would 

 grant it, on condition that they all should migrate to 

 Canada, and settle there ; and V audreuil, with seven 

 hundred men, was sent to enforce the demand. Mean- 

 while, a few Onondaga stragglers had been found ; 

 and among them, hidden in a hollow tree, a withered 

 warrior, eighty years old, and nearly blind. Fron- 

 tenac would have spared him ; but the Indian allies, 

 Christians from the mission villages, were so eager 

 to burn him that it was thought inexpedient to 

 refuse them. They tied him to the stake, and tried 

 to shake his constancy by every torture that fire 

 could inflict ; but not a cry nor a murmur escaped 

 him. He defied them to do their worst, till, en- 

 raged at his taunts, one of them gave him a mortal 

 stab. " I thank you," said the old Stoic, with his 

 last breath ; " but you ought to have finished as 

 you began, and killed me by fire. Learn from me, 



