In this war, such were the barbarities of the French and their Indian allies, that they roused a spirit of revenge that soon brought the most cruel evils upon themselves. They laid waste the villages of the Five Nations with fire. Near Cadarakui Fort, they surprised and put to death the inhabitants of two villages who had settled there at their own invitation, and on their faith, but whom they now feared might act as spies against them. Many of these people were given up to a body of the Canadian Indians, called _Praying_ or _Christian_ Indians, to be tormented at the stake. In another village finding only two old men, they were cut to pieces, and put into the war kettle for the _Praying Indians_ to feast on.[28] To revenge these unheard of abominations, the Five Nations carried a war of retaliation into Canada. They came suddenly in July of the next year, 1688, upon Montreal, 1200 strong, while Denonville and his lady were there; burnt and laid waste all the plantations round it, and made a terrible massacre of men, women, and children. Above a thousand French are said to have been killed on this occasion, and twenty-six taken, most of whom were burnt alive. In the autumn they returned, and carried fire and tomahawk through the island; and had they known how to take fortified places would have driven the French entirely out of Canada. As it was, they reduced them to the most frightful state of distress. To such a pitch of fury did the French rise against the Five Nations through the sufferings which they received at their hands, that they now seemed to have lost the very natures of men. It is to the eternal disgrace of both French and English that they instigated and bribed the Indians to massacre and scalp their enemies—but it seems to be the peculiar infamy of the French to have imitated the Indians in their most barbarous customs, and have even prided themselves on displaying a higher refinement in cruelty than the savages themselves. The New Englanders, indeed, are distinctly stated by Douglass, to have handed over their Indian prisoners to be tormented by their Naraganset allies, but with the French this savage practice seems to have been frequent. I have just noticed a few instances of such inhuman conduct; but the old governor, Frontenac, stands pre-eminent above all his nation for such deeds. From 1691 to 1695, nothing was more common than for his Indian prisoners to be given up to his Indian allies to be tormented. One of the most horrible of these scenes on record was perpetrated under his own eye at Montreal in 1691. The intendant’s lady, the Jesuits, and many influential people used all possible intreaties to save the prisoner from such a death, but in vain. He was given up to the _Christian_ Indians of _Loretto_, and tormented in such a manner as none but a fiend could tolerate.[29] There was only one step beyond this, and that was for the French to enact the torturers themselves.