Onontio, in setting out from Quebec, you must have fancied that the scorching beams of the sun had burnt down the forests which render our country inaccessible to the French; or else that the inundations of the lake had surrounded our cottages and confined us as prisoners. This certainly was your thought; and it could be nothing else but the curiosity of seeing a burnt or drowned country that moved you to undertake a journey hither. But now you have an opportunity of being undeceived, for I and my warriors come to assure you that the Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, Oneidas, and Mohawks are not yet destroyed. I return you thanks in their name for bringing into their country the calumet of peace, which your predecessor received from their hands. At the same time I congratulate you on having left under ground the tomahawk which has so often been dyed with the blood of the French. I must tell you, Onontio, that I am not asleep. My eyes are open, and the sun which vouchsafes the light gives me a clear view of a great captain at the head of a troop of soldiers, who speaks as if he were asleep. He pretends that he does not approach this lake with any other view than to smoke the calumet with the Onondagas. But Grangula knows better. He sees plainly that Onontio meant to knock them on the head if the French arms had not been so much weakened.... You must know, Onontio, that we have robbed no {101} Frenchman, save those who supplied the Illinois and the Miamis (our enemies) with muskets, powder, and ball.... We have conducted the English to our lakes in order to trade with the Ottawas and the Hurons; just as the Algonquins conducted the French to our five cantons, in order to carry on a commerce that the English lay claim to as their right. We are born freemen and have no dependence either upon the Onontio or the Corlaer [the English governor]. We have power to go where we please, to conduct whom we will to the places we resort to, and to buy and sell where we think fit.... We fell upon the Illinois and the Miamis because they cut down the trees of peace that served for boundaries and came to hunt beavers upon our lands.... We have done less than the English and French, who without any right have usurped the lands they are now possessed of. I give you to know, Onontio, that my voice is the voice of the five Iroquois cantons. This is their answer. Pray incline your ear and listen to what they represent.