“The Algonquins living at Sillery, after passing the winter in innocence and piety, resolved, towards spring, to go and wage a petty warfare. They were only forty, but their courage exceeded their number. Arriving at the Richelieu Islands without discovering any foe, they entered the river of the same name and directed their course to Lake Champlain, where they lay in ambush. Scarcely had they arrived there when those victors who had dealt their blow at Montreal, and were conducting their poor Frenchmen in triumph, were discovered by our Algonquins, who followed them with their eyes and noted their camping spot. Our Christian soldiers, under cover of the night, stealthily advanced and surrounded the place where the enemy were sleeping, in readiness to attack them at the first dawn of day. But as it is very difficult to walk in the night time without making a noise, or by hitting some branch, one of the Iroquois chiefs was awakened in some way or other. He was a brave man named Garistatsia (“the Iron”), vigilant and greatly renowned for his exploits performed against us and against our savages. The chief of the Algonquins, perceiving that the leader of the Iroquois was this Garistatsia—or in French Le Fer, so famous and renowned by the many disasters that have so often made us mingle our tears with our blood, made straight at him and by a hatchet stroke on the head, forced Garistatsia to fall to the ground, where his courage forbade him to acknowledge himself vanquished, and he yielded the victory after losing his life. Ten of the enemy remained dead on the spot, while three were taken alive, and the rest escaped, completely covered with wounds.” This was a terrific engagement, though short. It evidently occurred on the west shore of Lake Champlain, between a band of Iroquois raiders returning over land from Montreal and a band of Algonquins, who, coming up the Richelieu, had “scarcely arrived” at Lake Champlain. These latter proceeded to surround the Iroquois. How much more easily surrounded on a point than on a continuous shore! The leader of the Iroquois “was famous and renowned.” He had “so often made us” _i. e._ both French and Algonquins, “mingle our tears with our blood!” So well known was he that the leader of the Algonquins, even in the dark, “made straight at him”—in order to rid the country of this distinguished enemy. Therefore, I think it not unreasonable to claim that this battle, in the year 1663, was fought on the cape on the west border of Lake Champlain opposite the lower portion of Isle La Motte, known now and for so many years as Point au Fer, and that the cape received its appellation from that of the mighty Iroquois chief killed there—“Garistatsia, or in French Le Fer.” II