The Marquis de Denonville was sent to Canada to retrieve a difficult and dangerous situation. He was a soldier by profession, and had had thirty years' experience of military life. His courage and honour were alike beyond question. In morals he was irreproachable. He was one of those laymen who are half churchmen; and on the voyage from France he greatly edified Saint Vallier by the gravity of his conduct and his punctilious observance of all the forms and practices of religion. "He spent," Saint Vallier himself tells us, "nearly all his time in prayer and the reading of good books. The Psalms of David were always in his hands. In all the voyage I never saw him do anything wrong; and there was nothing in his words or acts which did not show a solid virtue and a consummate prudence, as well in the duties of the Christian life as in the wisdom of this world." Three years later Saint Vallier speaks of him in terms of equal praise, adding that "there is no need to be astonished at the benedictions which God is bestowing upon his government and upon his enterprises against the Indians." Unfortunately, this interpretation of the ways of Providence preceded by just a year the greatest calamity in early Canadian history, the massacre of Lachine. The three hundred men who were sent out with Denonville were far from constituting, even had their number not been sensibly reduced by fever on the voyage, the reinforcement he required in order to assume the offensive against the Iroquois with any hope of success. He was compelled, therefore, to temporize while making the most earnest appeals for a more liberal supply of troops. To counteract English intrigues among the Five Nations, he sent numerous presents in that direction, and carefully avoided any acts which could precipitate a conflict. One of the chief perils of the situation was the disaffection produced in the minds of the Lake tribes by the dismal failure of La Barre's expedition of 1684. The only way to regain credit, he says in a despatch to the minister (Seignelay), dated 12th June 1686, is to put a sufficient number of French troops, militia and regulars, into the field to attack and defeat the Iroquois without any assistance from the western allies. He wished to begin building blockhouses for defensive purposes, but was afraid to do so, lest the enemy should consider it a preparation for war. Like La Barre, he entered into correspondence with the governor of New York, Colonel Dongan, but in a more guarded manner. He wrote first simply announcing his appointment to the governorship of Canada. Dongan replied in his usual high-flown manner with many expressions of courtesy. Denonville returned the compliment, and then took occasion to speak of the Senecas and the difficulty of keeping peace with them, inviting Dongan to assist him in protecting the missionaries who were labouring amongst those heathen at the peril of their lives. Dongan, who