As soon could the Ethiopian change his skin as the priest-ridden king change his fatal policy of exclusion. Canada must be bound to the papacy, even if it blasted her. The contest for the west must be waged by the means which Bourbon policy ordained, and which, it must be admitted, had some great advantages of their own, when controlled by a man like Frontenac. The result hung, for the present, on the relations of the French with the Iroquois and the tribes of the lakes, the Illinois, and the valley of the Ohio, but, above all, on their relations with the Iroquois; for, could they be conquered or won over, it would be easy to deal with the rest. Frontenac was meditating a grand effort to inflict such castigation as would bring them to reason, when one of their chiefs, named Tareha, came to Quebec with overtures of peace. The Iroquois had lost many of their best warriors. The arrival of troops from France had discouraged them; the war had interrupted their hunting; and, having no furs to barter with the English, they were in want of arms, ammunition, and all the necessaries of life. Moreover, Father Milet, nominally a prisoner among them, but really an adopted chief, had used all his influence to bring about a peace; and the mission of Tareha was the result. Frontenac received him kindly. "My Iroquois children have been drunk; but I will give them an opportunity to repent. Let each of your five nations send me two deputies, and I will listen to what they have to say." They would not come, but sent him instead an invitation to meet them and their friends, the English, in a general council at Albany; a proposal which he rejected with contempt. Then they sent another deputation, partly to him and partly to their Christian countrymen of the Saut and the Mountain, inviting all alike to come and treat with them at Onondaga. Frontenac, adopting the Indian fashion, kicked away their wampum belts, rebuked them for tampering with the mission Indians, and told them that they were rebels, bribed by the English; adding that, if a suitable deputation should be sent to Quebec to treat squarely of peace, he still would listen, but that, if they came back with any more such proposals as they had just made, they should be roasted alive.