What the effect of this allocution would have been, unsupported by favouring circumstances, it is difficult to say. The Indian tribes all had a remarkable gift of perspicacity. They had no need of Dr. Johnson's advice to clear their minds of cant, for cant was something quite foreign to their mental habits; it was not a product of forest life. It happened, however, that Perrot was able to show them a number of Iroquois scalps, and hand over to them an Iroquois prisoner that his party had taken on their journey up the Ottawa. This looked like business, and lent a weight which might otherwise have been lacking to the somewhat fustian eloquence of Onontio. The affair of the capture had happened in this wise. As the expedition neared the place now known as Sand Point, on the river Ottawa, they discovered two Iroquois canoes drawn up at the end of the point. Three canoes were detached to attack the enemy, but were received with a heavy fire from an ambush on the shore, by which four Frenchmen were killed. Perrot, who thought it much more important to accomplish his mission among the Ottawas than to have even a successful fight with the Iroquois, did not at first wish to push the matter further; but his men were full of fight, and he finally allowed a general attack to be made, which resulted most successfully. More than thirty Iroquois, the narrative says, were killed, and many more were wounded. Out of thirteen canoes only four escaped. Two prisoners were taken. One of these was sent to Quebec and was used by Frontenac to help out his negotiations with their nation; the other was taken to Michilimackinac. His fate was not a pleasant one. Perrot gave him to the Hurons, and by so doing made the Ottawas a little jealous. Both Ottawas and Hurons were at the time meditating an alliance with the Iroquois, and the Hurons thought they could make good use of their prisoner as a peace-offering. The French, however, were not going to have any nonsense of that kind. The commanders conferred with the missionaries, and finally a hint was dropped to the Hurons that, if they did not put their prisoner "into the kettle," he would be taken from them and given to the Ottawas. That settled the question; the unhappy prisoner was put to death with the customary tortures, and all chance of peace between Hurons and Iroquois was thus destroyed. What the Ottawas might do still remained uncertain. Frontenac's message had by no means wholly won them over to the French alliance. They had heard of the warfare Onontio was waging against the English, and thought they would await developments.