After his return to the village he was rushed upon one day by an infuriated savage, whose club laid him almost lifeless on the ground. Every day he was thus exposed to some imminent peril. His life was suspended upon the merest chance or savage caprice or passion. The good old woman who had adopted him, and whom he called his aunt, was his only friend in that vast region. She advised him to make his escape, but he believed it to be the will of God that he should remain there. In August, 1643, he had to accompany a portion of the tribe on a hunting and fishing party, during which he visited for the second time the Dutch at Rensselaerswyck, the present city of Albany. The inhabitants again made a generous effort to secure the liberation of Father Jogues, but their appeal to the savage Mohawk was in vain. It was here, too, amid the dangers and distractions that encompassed him at Rensselaerswyck, that he produced that beautiful monument of taste and learning, as well as of apostolic zeal and love, the relation of his captivity and sufferings to his superior, which has been so greatly admired for its pure and classic Latin. In this letter, he says: “I have baptized seventy since my captivity, children, and youth, and old men of five different tongues and nations, that men of every tribe, and tongue, and nation, might stand in the presence of the Lamb.” While engaged in helping the Iroquois to stretch their nets for fish, he heard of more Huron prisoners brought to the village, two of whom had already expired at the stake unbaptized. Obtaining the permission of his good aunt who had adopted him, he at once dropped the fish‐nets, and returned to the village in order that he might set his net for human souls. On his way to the village he passed through Rensselaerswyck. Van Curler insisted on his making his escape by flight, since certain death awaited him at the village, and offered a shelter and a passage on board of a ship destined first for Virginia and then for Bordeaux or Rochelle. It has already been related that Father Jogues had resolved to regard the Mohawk as his mission, he therefore hesitated to accept the generous offer of the Dutch, though inevitable death would soon remove him from that chosen field. But Van Curler and the minister of the settlement, John Megapolensis, pressed their appeal with such powerful arguments that the missionary promised to consider it, and asked one night for prayer and consultation with his soul and with God. After fervent supplication for the aid of heaven in deciding the matter with impartiality, and after much reflection, Father Jogues, knowing that if he returned to the village death would soon remove him from it, and convinced that his return to France or Canada would prove the only means of founding a regular mission in the Mohawk, resolved to attempt his escape, and went in the morning to announce his resolution to Van Curler and Megapolensis. They then arranged together the plan of escape.