In order to have any success in building a fort and a ship on the waters of the Niagara River, it was necessary to have the good will of the red men who lived in the surrounding country. The Senecas here had their hunting grounds, and they were a powerful tribe, excellent in the hunting field, bloodthirsty on the field of war. So La Motte had orders from La Salle to go on an embassy to this nation, to hold a council with the chiefs, explain his object, and gain their consent. With some well-armed men, La Motte consequently traveled about thirty miles through the woods, and came, at length, to the great village of these redskins. Before a roaring council fire, around which the Indians gathered with their usual grave and serious countenances, both white men and red delivered many speeches. The French promised to establish a blacksmith at Niagara, who should repair the guns of the red men, and, as a result of this guarantee, the Senecas gave them permission to establish a trading place and fort in the wilderness. Well satisfied with the mission, La Motte and his companions went back to Niagara. La Salle soon arrived, sailing thither from Fort Frontenac in one of his small vessels, laden with provisions, with merchandise, and materials for rigging the new ship: the first to glide over the waves of these great western lakes. In person he visited the Seneca Indians, and, by soft speech and flattering words, secured their friendship and good-will. Yet he had enemies, too, for the monopoly which he had gained from the government and the large scale upon which he conducted his affairs, raised, against him, a host of traducers among the traders and merchants of Canada. In order to thwart his designs, they told the Indians that his plans of building forts and ships on the border was in order to curb their power. Agents were sent among the redskins in order to sow the seeds of hostility to this ambitious Frenchman. These moves against him were well known to La Salle, yet it did not put an end to his plans. About two miles above the Falls of Niagara, he selected a place for a dock-yard at the outlet of a creek, on the western side of the Niagara River. Here the keel of the new vessel was laid, and, in a very short time, her form began to appear. An Indian woman brought word that a plot had been hatched to burn the vessel, while it was on the stocks, yet the redskins did not molest it, and soon she proudly glided into the water. She was called the _Griffin_, in honor of the Count de Frontenac, who had two griffins upon his coat of arms.