The loss of the _Griffon_ by shipwreck on its initial voyage and the subsequent misfortunes that seemed to follow the brave La Salle up to the very day that witnessed his brutal murder in a far Texan prairie in 1687, are, in a measure only a part of the story of Niagara. Had that great man lived to realise any fair fraction of his emparadising dream of empire the effect on the history of the Niagara frontier would have been momentous; a mere comparison of what now did transpire at the mouth of the Niagara, in the very year of La Salle's death, illustrates perfectly the lack of enterprise that seems suddenly to have faded from the situation. With La Salle gone, the whole attitude of the regime in power at Quebec seems to change; whereas La Salle was on the very point of establishing at Niagara an important station on the communication to Louisiana. What actually did happen here is pitiful by comparison. The new Governor, De Nonville, in order to bring the Iroquois into a proper state of submission and compell them to desist from annoying travellers on the St. Lawrence, determined to repeat Champlain's feat of invading their homeland. The record of this expedition from the mouth of its commanding officer, the Governor himself, is a very interesting document, especially to those interested in the study of that famous Long House that lay south of Lake Ontario.[22] Embarking at Fort Frontenac July 4, 1687, the expedition landed at Irondequoit Bay six days later, where De Nonville was reinforced by a party of French which had rendezvoused at Niagara from the West. Of this party little is known; possibly some of La Salle's crew were here, coming from their cabins at either end of the Niagara portage path, or possibly from the ship yard at the present La Salle. "It clearly appears," writes Marshall, "from De Nonville's narrative, that the party which he met at the mouth of the bay, was composed of French and Indians from the far west, who sailed from . . . Niagara, to join the expedition pursuant to his orders." These Indians, Mr. Browne affirms, were from Michilimackinac. Marching inland to the region Mr. Marshall believed, in the neighbourhood of the village of Victor, ten miles north-west of Canandaigua, a party of Senecas was put to flight and the entire region devastated until the 23rd; it was estimated that in the four Seneca villages the soldiers had destroyed about 1,200,000 bushels of corn--350,000 minots, of which all but 50,000 were green. On the 24th the lake was again reached. The situation on the Niagara frontier at this moment could not better be described than it has been by Mr. Browne in his _The St. Lawrence River_, as follows: