peace speech, which, as rendered by the Jesuits, was an admirable specimen of Iroquois eloquence; but, while joining hands with him and his companions, the French still urged on their preparations to chastise the contumacious Mohawks. CHAPTER XI. 1666, 1667. THE MOHAWKS CHASTISED. _Courcelle’s March.--His Failure and Return.--Courcelle and the Jesuits.--Mohawk Treachery.--Tracy’s Expedition.--Burning of the Mohawk Towns.--French and English.--Dollier de Casson at St. Anne.--Peace.--The Jesuits and the Iroquois._ |The governor, Courcelle, says Father Le Meircier, “breathed nothing but war,” and was bent on immediate action. He was for the present subordinate to Tracy, who, however, forebore to cool his ardor, and allowed him to proceed. The result was an enterprise bold to rashness. Courcelle, with about five hundred men, prepared to march in the depth of a Canadian winter to the Mohawk towns, a distance estimated at three hundred leagues. Those who knew the country, vainly urged the risks and difficulties of the attempt. The adventurous governor held fast to his purpose, and only waited till the St. Lawrence should be well frozen. Early in January, it was a solid floor; and on the ninth the march began. Officers and men stopped at Sillery, and knelt in the little mission chapel before the shrine of Saint Michael, to ask the protection and aid of the warlike archangel; then they resumed their course, and, with their snowshoes tied at their backs, walked with difficulty and toil over the bare and slippery ice. A keen wind swept the river, and the fierce cold gnawed them to the bone. Ears, noses, fingers, hands, and knees were frozen; some fell in torpor, and were dragged on by their comrades to the shivering bivouac. When, after a march of ninety miles, they reached Three Rivers, a considerable number were disabled, and had to be left behind; but others joined them from the garrison, and they set out again. Ascending the Richelieu, and passing the new forts at Sorel and Chambly, they reached at the end of the month the third fort, called Ste. Thérèse. On the thirtieth they left it, and continued their march up the frozen stream. About two hundred of them were Canadians, and of these seventy were old Indian-fighters from Montreal, versed in woodcraft, seasoned to the climate, and trained among dangers and alarms. Courcelle quickly learned their value, and his “Blue Coats,” as he called them, were always placed in the van. * Here, wrapped in their coarse blue capotes, with blankets and provisions strapped at their backs, they strode along on snowshoes, which recent storms had made indispensable. The regulars followed as they could. They were not yet the tough and experienced woodsmen that they and their descendants afterwards became; and their snow * Doll du Montréal, a.d. 1665, 1666. shoes embarrassed them, burdened as they were with the heavy loads which all carried alike, from Courcelle to the lowest private.