The troops were busied for two days in hacking down the maize, digging up the caches, or hidden stores of food, and destroying their contents. The neighboring tribe of the Oneidas sent a messenger to beg peace. Frontenac replied that he would grant it, on condition that they all should migrate to Canada, and settle there; and Vaudreuil, with seven hundred men, was sent to enforce the demand. Meanwhile, a few Onondaga stragglers had been found; and among them, hidden in a hollow tree, a withered warrior, eighty years old, and nearly blind. Frontenac would have spared him; but the Indian allies, Christians from the mission villages, were so eager to burn him that it was thought inexpedient to refuse them. They tied him to the stake, and tried to shake his constancy by every torture that fire could inflict; but not a cry nor a murmur escaped him. He defied them to do their worst, till, enraged at his taunts, one of them gave him a mortal stab. "I thank you," said the old Stoic, with his last breath; "but you ought to have finished as you began, and killed me by fire. Learn from me, you dogs of Frenchmen, how to endure pain; and you, dogs of dogs, their Indian allies, think what you will do when you are burned like me." [1] [1] Relation de ce qui s'est passé, etc., 1695, 1696; La Potherie, III. 279. Callières and the author of the Relation of 1682-1712 also speak of the extraordinary fortitude of the victim. The Jesuits say that it was not the Christian Indians who insisted on burning him, but the French themselves, "qui voulurent absolument qu'il fût brulé à petit feu, ce qu'ils executèrent eux-mêmes. Un Jesuite le confessa et l'assista à la mort, l'encourageant à souffrir courageusement et chrétiennement les tourmens." Relation de 1696 (Shea), 10. This writer adds that, when Frontenac heard of it, he ordered him to be spared; but it was too late. Charlevoix misquotes the old Stoic's last words, which were, according to the official Relation of 1695-6: "Je te remercie mais tu aurais bien dû achever de me faire mourir par le feu. Apprenez, chiens de François, à souffrir, et vous sauvages leurs allies, qui êtes les chiens des chiens, souvenez vous de ce que vous devez faire quand vous serez en pareil état que moi." Vaudreuil and his detachment returned within three days, after destroying Oneida, with all the growing corn, and seizing a number of chiefs as hostages for the fulfilment of the demands of Frontenac. There was some thought of marching on Cayuga, but the governor judged it to be inexpedient; and, as it would be useless to chase the fugitive Onondagas, nothing remained but to return home. [2]