More soldiers came out from France, and the Iroquois began to lose heart. Many of their warriors had fallen, and not a few, converted by the Jesuits, had settled in Canada, being known to their heathen countrymen as the 'praying Indians.'[12] From the English colonies little or no help had come, beyond supplies of arms and ammunition. The councils at Albany produced on the English side pretentious speeches, criticism, encouragement, and promises which were never fulfilled; but the words of the Indians were more to the point, 'the whole burden of the war lies on us alone ... we alone cannot continue the war against the French by reason of the recruits they daily receive from the other side the Great Lake.'[13] They had been faithful to the English alliance, more faithful than the English deserved, and more faithful than any civilized nation would have been under like circumstances; but they tired of fighting singlehanded, and the chain of the covenant began to rust. [Footnote 12: The converted Iroquois were settled at Caughnawaga, which was on the south bank of the St. Lawrence, at the Sault St. Louis, and directly opposite Lachine. They were often called Caughnawagas.] [Footnote 13: Colden, vol. i, chap. x, p. 176.] [Sidenote: _Their policy towards the French._] [Sidenote: _Barbarity of Frontenac._] In default of active aid from the English, there were two policies open to them--to make terms with the French, and to detach from the French cause the Indian tribes of the lakes. They pursued both policies at once: they invited Frontenac to meet them and the English at Albany; he refused. He refused also to come to a meeting at Onondaga. {117} They then sent a deputation to Quebec in 1694; and Frontenac offered a peace which should include the Indian allies of the French and exclude the English. Two nations of the confederacy were ready to accept these terms; the other three rejected them, and there was no peace. In the meantime the Iroquois intrigued with the Lake Indians, and, attracted by the prospect of English goods, the latter came near exchanging the French alliance for combination with the Five Nations and the English. To prevent this result, Frontenac and his officers had resort to infamous methods. Not only at the forest post of Michillimackinac, but at Montreal itself, the French compelled the wavering Indians to burn Iroquois prisoners to death, in order to make peace impossible, and joined themselves in the torture and butchery. Few worse instances of barbarous policy are recorded in history. [Sidenote: _Fort Frontenac reoccupied._]