La Barre recounted the three offences of the Iroquois. They had robbed and ill-used French traders; for this he demanded reparation. They had brought the English to the lakes which belonged to the French, thus diverting trade from the latter; this he would forget, provided it did not happen again. They had attacked the Illinois, and still held many in captivity. “These people are my master’s children,” said La Barre, “and must therefore cease to be your slaves.” They must be sent home at once. He enforced each statement with a wampum belt, and ended every request with an announcement, as bold as though he had the whole French army at his back, that should these demands not be complied with, he “had express orders to declare war,” even going so far once as to say, “in case of your refusal, war is positively proclaimed.” He would gladly leave them in peace, should they prove “religious observers of the treaties,” but if not he added, concluding with a statement which he knew to be false, he would be obliged to join the governor of New York, who had orders from his king to assist La Barre in burning the five villages and cutting off the Iroquois. While La Barre’s interpreter translated this speech, Grangula sat silent and attentive, gazing steadily at the bowl of his pipe. After the harangue was finished he rose and walked round inside the square made by the French and savages, five or six times. Then he returned to his place, and drawing himself to his full height began to speak. “Onontio, I honor you,” he said, “and all the warriors that accompany me do the same. Your interpreter has made an end of his discourse, and now I come to begin mine. My voice glides to your ear, pray listen to my words.” He thought that the French captain must have started out from Quebec with some strange idea that the Five Nations had been wiped out by fire or flood. Nothing else, he implied, could make him set out against so powerful a federation with such an army. The Indian chief ironically assured the French general of the continued prosperity of the Five Nations, congratulating him that he brought the calumet of peace, rather than the bloody axe that had been so often dyed with the blood of the French. Then he spoke out boldly and directly, telling La Barre that he knew better than to believe the Frenchman’s pretence that he did not have any other purpose in approaching the lake than to smoke the pipe of peace with the Onondagas. He saw plainly that the Onontio meant to “knock them on the head,” if the French arms had not been so much weakened. The French soldiers were to be congratulated that the Great Spirit had visited them with sickness, for only thus had their lives been saved from Indian massacre. Even the women and old men and children would have attacked the French camp without fear, had not Akouessan (Le Moyne) appeared at the Onondaga village announcing that he was an ambassador of peace, not of war.