While in this extreme tribulation, an Indian chief, of a tribe some eight days journey from Quebec, paid Champlain a visit for the purpose of soliciting his aid against the old foe, the Iroquois. Considering it an excellent opportunity for relieving the settlement of many surplus mouths, he agreed to help them as well as he could in that year if the vessels should not arrive, and, at any rate, in the next year he would join them with as many men as possible; at least he and his people would be fed, and if the English took possession of the settlement, his alliance with the Indians would enable him in due time to drive them out. With this promise the Indian chief departed highly pleased, and Champlain sent a confidential man to reconnoitre the enemy's country, giving his Indian friends instructions how to attack the Iroquois villages or forts till he could join them. He then sent a small boat to Gaspey to try and get some grain, and applied to "Father Joseph De la Roche," (he does not say of which mission, Jesuit or Recollet,) to know if he might hope for some supplies from their stock if the ships should not arrive; the worthy Father Joseph replied that, if it depended upon him, he would gladly consent, but that "Father Joseph Caron, the guardian, must be first applied to." Whether the said supplies were forthcoming does not appear; from the continuance, and even increase of suffering, it should seem not. On the 20th of May, twenty Indian warriors, coming from Tadoussac, on their way to make war on the Iroquois, brought some account of the battle which had been fought between the English and French ships. Some men had been killed; the Sieur De Roquement wounded in the foot, and the French vessels taken and carried into Gaspey; the crews had been all put on board one of the ships to be sent to France, the officers kept as prisoners of war, and the English, after burning a "cache" of corn belonging to the Jesuits at Gaspey, had set sail for England. About this time Champlain formed an alliance with an Indian chief named "Chomina," who greatly relieved his anxieties about future subsistence by promising to assist him, as much as possible, with provisions, and in case of need, against the English. Desdames also arrived from Gaspey, confirming the intelligence brought by the Indians of the total defeat and capture of the French ships, and that eight English vessels were cruising on the coast of Acadia.