The expedition organized at Three Rivers left that place on the 28th January; but it was not till after two months' wanderings in the inhospitable wilderness that they were able to strike their first blow. The New England frontier had for a year past been in a very disturbed and precarious condition owing to a renewed outbreak of hostilities on the part of the Abenaquis Indians. A long period of previous warfare with these tribes had been closed by the Treaty of Casco in 1678, but now the frontier was again aflame. The English settlers attributed the trouble to the machinations of the French with whom the Abenaquis were in close alliance; and certain it is that the Marquis of Denonville, in a memorandum written after his return to France, takes credit to himself for the mischief done. He speaks of the progress made in christianizing the Abenaquis, and of the establishment near Quebec of two colonies of them which he thought would prove useful. He then proceeds: "To the close relations which I maintained with these savages through the Jesuits, and particularly the two brothers Bigot, may be attributed the success of the attacks which they made upon the English last summer when they captured sixteen forts besides that of Pemaquid, where there were twenty cannon, and killed two hundred men."[41] The ex-governor exaggerates the number of cannon in the fort at Pemaquid, as there were only seven or eight, and omits to mention the fact that, after that place had surrendered on the promise that the lives of all in it should be spared, a number were murdered by his Indians. That they were not also tortured, Father Thury, who was with the attacking party, attributes to the influence of his exhortations. M. Lorin, in giving an account of the occurrence, says there is no doubt that the Abenaquis were impelled by their missionary, the Abbe Thury. He quotes the statement of Charlevoix that, before setting out, their first care had been to make sure of the divine assistance, by partaking of the sacrament. "Certainly," he says, "the part taken by the missionaries in expeditions of this character, was a preponderating one." He also ventures the theory that, as the heathen Iroquois never penetrated into New England, the only enemies of the faith upon whom the missionaries could exercise the zeal of their Abenaquis converts were the English.[42]