As regarded the companions of La Salle, some joined the Indians, and the murderers were themselves murdered. Seven alone, among whom were the other nephew of La Salle, and Joutel, the historian of the expedition, having obtained an Indian guide, finally reached Arkansea, on the Mississippi, where to their inexpressible joy they beheld a large cross on an island. Here it was that Tonti had awaited their arrival; having returned, after long and vain tarriance, to the mouth of the river. Before leaving his station at this latter point, he entrusted a letter for La Salle to the nearest Indians, “who faithfully kept it for fourteen years, and then delivered it to the first Frenchmen who made their appearance.” While La Salle was thus employed in exploring the West, difficulties had sprung up in the administration of the affairs of New France. Frontenac, the governor-general, having disagreed with the Jesuits, had even imprisoned the afterwards celebrated Abbé Fenelon, who was for two years a missionary in Canada, for having preached against him. Talon had been removed from office, and M. du Chesneau appointed intendant in his place, but only for a short time, as both he and Frontenac were recalled, and De la Barre and Meules succeeded them. De la Barre found the Iroquois again in a restless state, and war evidently at hand, to aid in which, at the solicitation of the colony, three companies of marines were sent over from France. The terrible Iroquois, during the interval of peace with the French, had occupied themselves in carrying on wars of extermination against all the tribes who had the misfortune to be settled on their borders; they had driven the tribes of the Lower Susquehanna upon the settlements of Maryland, as we have seen; and began “to come in contact with the back settlers of Virginia. The tribes west of the Blue Ridge and the Upper Ohio were exterminated or driven away. The Shawanees, whom Marquette had heard of as inhabiting the banks of the Lower Ohio, fled eastward before these formidable warriors, and crossed the mountains into Carolina. The conquest of the Five Nations, to which we shall presently find the English laying claim, embraced both banks of the Ohio, and reached to the Mississippi.”[12] Dongan, the governor of New York, jealous of the French discoveries in the West, furnished the Iroquois with fire-arms and fomented the growing ill-will between them and the French. De la Barre made an unsuccessful expedition against the Iroquois, and soon after was superseded in his office by the Marquis de Denonville, who brought over 500 or 600 regular troops, whilst M. de Champigny, who also brought additional companies of marines, was appointed intendant in the place of Meules.