184 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Hurons, traveling in 12 canoes. The French might have escaped, 

 but Jogiies would not leave his Huron friends, nor would his 

 French comrades desert him. In hastening to his aid William 

 Couture killed a great Indian chief. They were carried 

 to the Mohawk towns, suffering greatly there and on the 

 way. 



The same year 11 Huron canoes were coming down to Three 

 Rivers with furs, when they were attacked by the Iroquois on 

 the Ottawa river, 150 miles above Montreal. While building 

 their new fort on the River of the Iroquois, the French were sud- 

 denly assailed by 300 of that people, and were in great danger of 

 being cut to pieces. Recovering from their surprise, they 

 repulsed the attack, but the enemy retreated in good order. 



WHiile the Mohawks held the St Lawrence and waylaid parties 

 on the Ottawa, other bands were active in the Huron country 

 all the time, but with some reverses. The bold Huron chief, 

 Ahatsisteari, not only overcame a party larger than his own, but 

 afterward attacked and destroyed a fleet of great Iroquois canoes 

 by his own skill and daring. Some he overturned, killing or 

 capturing their crews in the water. 



That year Van Curler again visited some of the Mohawk towns, 

 where he saw Jogues and his two companions. His account of 

 their fears differs from that of the Relations. He wrote also as 

 though there were then no treaty between the Iroquois and 

 Dutch, though good friends. He said, '' I brought presents 

 there and asked that we should live as good neighbors, and that 

 they should do no harm to either the colonists or their 

 cattle." 



Rene Goupil was killed soon after among the ^Mohawks and 

 the other captives sufifered much. Jogues escaped in 1643 by 

 the aid of the Dutch, and went to Europe for a Avhile. That 

 spring the Mohawks went to collect tribute toward the seashore 

 and took him along to show him to some of these people. This 

 may help to explain a statement in early Dutch writers, regarding 

 a visit to New Amsterdam or vicinity that year, of 80 ^lahicans 

 from near Fort Orange, armed with .c:uns, who came to levy 



