The pride of the Iroquois increased with their successes, even as the zeal of the missionaries grew with their sufferings, and the conversion of the formidable Five Nations became now the object of their desire; but this object was too vast even for their accomplishment. The Iroquois, possessed of fire-arms obtained from the Dutch, now also their partisans, resolved on the extermination of the French, and their war-parties triumphed at Three Rivers and advanced to Quebec, killing the governor at the one place, and a priest at the other. “No frightful solitude of the wilderness,” says Bancroft, “no impenetrable recess of the frozen north, was safe against the passions of the Five Nations. Their chiefs, animated not only by cruelty but by pride, were resolved that no nation should role but themselves.” In this state of terrible alarm, beset by enemies as powerful as they were remorseless, New France despatched one of her council and Father Dreuillettes, the missionary of the north-east, to ask aid from the united colonies of New England against the Mohawks; but “the story of their sufferings, and their murdered missionaries, were listened to with indifference: no aid could be obtained from that quarter.” Nothing was left for them but to suffer or to help themselves, and after they had remained for about three years in this state of constant alarm, the Iroquois consented to peace. According to Indian custom, numbers of the vanquished Hurons had been adopted into the nation and families of the conquerors; and many of these carried thus with them into the bosom of the Five Nations, affection for the French, and some knowledge of Christianity; and when Father Le Moyne was sent as envoy to ratify the treaty of peace, he was welcomed by a party of his old Huron friends. This circumstance awoke in his soul the hope that those mighty nations might be converted to Christianity, and the whole west become subject to France. A vaster field was now open for missionary labour than before. Le Moyne established himself on Mohawk River, and two others, Dablon and Chaumonot, an Italian priest and an old missionary among the Hurons, took up their quarters at Onondaga, the village of that nation, where they were warmly welcomed. They were welcomed also by the Oneidas. A grand assembly of the nations gathered, “under the open sky and among the primeval forests,” to receive the emissaries of Christ. Chaumonot addressed them with all the fervour and impassioned eloquence of an Italian orator, and his Indian audience were transported out of themselves. “Happy land!” sang the excited chiefs, “happy land, in which the French are to dwell! Glad tidings! glad tidings! It is well that we have spoken together; it is well that we have a heavenly message!”