Governor la Barre, as you have heard, was an altogether different sort of man from Count Frontenac. The Iroquois tribes, especially the Senecas, who had now become the strongest nation, noticed the difference at once when they resumed negotiations. Instead of the dignity of command, La Barre wheedled their deputies, sending them away from {123} Montreal loaded with presents. Soon afterwards, when he despatched a trading expedition to the Illinois region, the Senecas stopped it in its course, overhauled the canoes, and confiscated all the valuable goods with which La Barre (with an eye to great private profits) had packed them. Such a high-handed proceeding touched the Governor in a very sore place--his pocket. He became very wroth with the rascally Senecas, and swore to punish them for their knavery and presumption. A force of 900 men being raised, La Barre himself led them to the land of the Senecas on the south side of Lake Ontario. But so badly laid and badly carried out were his plans that, having got as far as the spot, since called the Bay of Famine, Governor la Barre called a halt and there encamped. Each day saw some of the soldiers stricken down by death and disease. The prospect was so gloomy that finally La Barre thought it best to come to terms with the enemy, and he therefore patched up an inglorious peace. The name of the Seneca deputy at the peace conference was La Grande Gueule, or Big Jaw, so called from his gift of sustained eloquence. Big Jaw openly boasted that the Iroquois had not the slightest intention of sparing the Illinois tribe, whether the French liked it or not. Frontenac would have smitten the fellow down where he stood, but La Barre was obliged to pocket this affront, and the next day the remnant of his troops, full of anger and indignation, marched away. Such a peace could not, of course, long endure. {124} The Iroquois torch had been kindled, an evil wind was blowing, and it would take more than La Barre's feeble efforts to extinguish it. Tardy in war and too eager for peace had the Governor shown himself, and when he returned to Quebec found, to his mortification, that the King, his master, had superseded him. His instant return to France was ordered, the Marquis de Denonville being appointed in his stead. Little pains did His Majesty take to conceal his dissatisfaction with the treaty, or his anger at the abandonment of the Illinois.