442 CONCLUSION. [1700. 



them in their resolve to meet Onontio at Montreal. 

 They seemed willing enough to give up their 

 French prisoners, but an unexpected difficulty 

 arose from the prisoners themselves. They had 

 been adopted into Iroquois families ; and, having 

 become attached to the Indian life, they would not 

 leave it. Some of them hid in the woods to escape 

 their deliverers, who, with their best efforts, could 

 collect but thirteen, all women, children, and boys. 

 With these, they returned to Montreal, accompanied 

 by a peace embassy of nineteen Iroquois. 



Peace, then, was made. " I bury the hatchet,'* 

 said Callieres, " in a deep hole, and over the hole 

 I place a great rock, and over the rock I turn a 

 river, that the hatchet may never be dug up again. " 

 The famous Huron, Kondiaronk, or the Rat, was 

 present, as were also a few Ottawas, Abenakis, and 

 converts of the Saut and the Mountain. Sharp 

 words passed between them and the ambassadors ; 

 but at last they all laid down their hatchets at the 

 feet of Onontio, and signed the treaty together. 

 It was but a truce, and a doubtful one. More was 

 needed to confirm it, and the following August 

 was named for a solemn act of ratification. 1 



Father Engelran was sent to Michillimackinac, 

 while Courtemanche spent the winter and spring 

 in toilsome journeyings among the tribes of the 



1 On these negotiations, La Potherie, IV. lettrexi.; N. Y. Col. Docs., 

 IX. 708,711,715; Colden, 200; Callieres au Ministre, 16 Oct., 1700; 

 Champigny au Ministre, 22 Juillet, 1700; La Potherie au Mhiistre, 11 

 Aout, 1700; Ibid., 16 Oct., 1700; Callieres et Champigny au Ministre, 18 

 Oct., 1700. See also N. Y. Col. Docs., IV., for a great number of Eng- 

 lish documents bearing on the subject. 



