houses, butchered two hundred men, women and children, and probably
carried off at least one hundred and twenty prisoners before they left
the island of Montreal, where the authorities and people seemed
paralysed for the moment. The whole history of Canada has no more
mournful story to tell than this massacre of this unhappy settlement by
the side of the beautiful lake of St. Louis. The Iroquois had never
forgiven the treachery of the governor during the winter of 1687, at
Fort Frontenac, where he had seized a large number of friendly Indians
of the Five Nations who had settled in the neutral villages of Kente
(now Quinte) and Ganneious (now Gananoque), not many miles from the
fort. Some of the men were distributed among the missions of Quebec,
and others actually sent to labour in the royal galleys of France,
where they remained until the survivors were brought back by Frontenac,
when he and other Frenchmen recognised the enormity of the crime that
had been committed by Denonville, who is immediately responsible for
the massacre of La Chine. The Iroquois never forgot or forgave.
The French authorities soon recognised the fact {197} that Denonville
was entirely unequal to the critical condition of things in Canada, and
decided in 1689 to send Frontenac back. During his second term, which
lasted for nearly ten years, there was now and then some friction
between himself and the intendant, on matters of internal government,
and between himself and the bishop and the Jesuits with respect to
amusements which the clergy always discountenanced; but he displayed on
the whole more tact and judgment in his administration of public
affairs. Undoubtedly the responsibilities now resting upon him tasked
the energies of a man of seventy-two years of age to the utmost. In
Acadia, whose interests were now immediately connected with those of
Canada, he had to guard against the aggressive movements of New
England. The English of New York and the adjacent colonies were
intriguing with the Iroquois and the Foxes, always jealous of French
encroachments in the northwest, and encouraging them to harass the
French settlers. The efforts of the English to establish themselves in
Hudson's Bay and Newfoundland, had to be met by vigorous action on the
part of Canadians. In fact, we see on all sides the increasing
difficulties of France in America, on account of the rapid growth of
the English colonies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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