After this, the savages suspecting lest something might happen contrary to what they hoped from us, the holy Fathers proceeded to make them an address on the subject of this crime. They set forth to them the friendship which the French had shown them for ten or twelve years back, when we began to know them, during which time we had continually lived in peace and intimacy with them, nay even with such freedom as could hardly be expressed. They added moreover that I had in person assisted them several times in war against their enemies, thereby exposing my life for their welfare; while we were not under any obligations to do so, being impelled only by friendship and good will towards them, and feeling pity at the miseries and persecutions which their enemies caused them to endure and suffer. This is why we were unable to believe, they said, that this murder had been committed without their consent, and especially since they had taken it upon themselves to favor those who committed it. Speaking to the father of the criminal, they represented to him the enormity of the deed committed by his son, saying that as reparation for it he deserved death, since by our law so wicked a deed did not go unpunished, and that whoever was found guilty and convicted of it deserved to be condemned to death as reparation for so heinous an act; but, as to the other inhabitants of the country, who were not guilty of the crime, they said no one wished them any harm or desired to visit upon them the consequences of it. All the savages, having clearly heard this, said, as their only excuse, but with all respect, that they had not consented to this act; that they knew very well that these two criminals ought to be put to death, unless we should be disposed to pardon them; that they were well aware of their wickedness, not before but after the commission of the deed; that they had been informed of the death of the two ill-fated men too late to prevent it. Moreover, they said that they had kept it secret, in order to preserve constantly an intimate relationship and confidence with us, and declared that they had administered to the evil-doers severe reprimands, and set forth the calamity which they had not only brought upon themselves, but upon all their tribe, relatives and friends; and they promised that such a calamity should never occur again and begged us to forget this offence, and not visit it with the consequences it deserved, but rather go back to the primary motive which induced the two savages to go there, and have regard for that. Furthermore they said that the culprit had come freely and delivered himself into our hands, not to be punished but to receive mercy from the French.