as the Iroquois themselves;) could only have the effect of keeping up the mutual good-will they in secret entertained towards each other; and therefore, to embitter the minds of the Iroquois, it was judged proper, on the present occasion, to make a sacrifice of this chief."*

The cold-blooded reasoning of La Potherie can only be equalled by the savage determination of De Louvigny, whom Charlevoix describes as "one of the most accomplished officers then in New France." The account given of the wanton execution of this Iroquois warrior, whom his Huron captors intended to spare, and who was brought to the stake by an officer in the service of a Christian nation―celebrated, as La Potherie would have it, for its humanity is scarcely to be credited; and cannot be read without feelings of indignation. The details, indeed, are almost too horrid for perusal; but discredit having been thrown by various writers upon similar accounts of French cruelty towards the Indians, as detailed by the Baron de La Hontan, the reader may peruse the description given by La Potherie, which shews that the French not only sanctioned, but aided in these barbarities. His account has never been questioned; and it may be noticed, that his history containing the narrative alluded to, was published

* La Potherie, vol. ii. ch. 22.

at Paris, with the customary royal privilege and approbation.*

"The Ottowas (who had remained neuter) were invited to attend at this ceremony. The captive was bound by the hands and feet to a post stuck in the ground, leaving him sufficient liberty to move round it. A large fire was lighted near him, in which they made several gunbarrels and other instruments red-hot; the prisoner in the meanwhile occupying himself in singing his death-song. Every thing being now ready, a Frenchman began by passing a red-hot gunbarrel along his feet, one of the Ottowas took another, and they scorched him, one after the other, up to the hams, during all which time he continued singing tranquilly. He could not, however, forbear uttering loud cries when they burnt his thighs with the red-hot irons, exclaiming fire was powerful. All the assemblage of savages now mocked him with shouts, asking him how he pretended to be a warrior, being afraid of fire. In these tortures they kept him for two hours without any respite; and as often as he shrunk and dropped his head upon the stake, they mocked and reviled him the more. An Ottowa, wishing to refine upon his torments, made a deep slash in his body, from the shoulder to the hams, and then putting gun-powder into the wound, set fire to it. The prisoner felt this torture more severely than the former ones, and being dreadfully parched with thirst, they gave him to drink, not however for the purpose of quenching his thirst, but to prolong his sufferings. When they perceived his strength beginning to fail, one of the Ottowas scalped him, leaving the scalp hanging down his back, and then covered his head with burning sand and redhot ashes. They then unbound him, and told him to run for his life. He set out reeling like a drunken man, falling and getting up again. They made him go towards the

The constant and severe losses felt in Canada for a long course of years, did not prove sufficient to open the eyes of the French government to the impolicy of the conduct adopted with regard to the Indians. The Count de Frontenac himself was not to be taught wisdom by experience; and the last campaign he directed against the Five Nations, was as rash and useless as those which had been conducted by Champlain, his predecessor in the government, upwards of half a century before. Frontenac set out, in 1696, with great military parade, from Montreal, expecting to strike a final blow at the existence of the Iroquois confederacy. He was attended by many brave and distinguished officers, at the head of a force consisting of about three thousand Europeans, Canadians, and Indians, accompanied with field-pieces, howitzers, &c. As the French advanced into their country, the Iroquois retreated before them, taking with them their old men, women, and children. The Indian forts, villages, and corn fields, were entirely destroyed; but after a tedious and harassing campaign, the governor-general, or as La Po

setting sun, (the country of departed souls,) preventing him from turning towards the east, and only allowing him such space to move in as they thought proper. He had still strength left to throw stones by hazard at his tormentors: at length he was stoned to death."-La Potherie, vol. ii. ch. 22.

F

therie blazons him, "the love and delight of New France, the father of all the savage tribes in alliance with the French, and the terror of that formidable people the Iroquois," had to retrace his steps to Montreal, without gaining any advantage over the enemy, or obtaining a single trophy of victory: unless the glory of burning alive a couple of Indians can be called so. Of these, one was a young Mohawk, who, having run away from the village of Christian Indians, near Montreal, rejoined his own countrymen. He then, from mere curiosity, (as admitted by Charlevoix himself,) came to visit the Oneydas, and had joined a party of their chiefs, who, after the French in this expedition had burnt their villages, were going to surrender themselves. The Mohawk voluntarily followed their example, and the result of his confidence in the French was his being burnt alive.

The other prisoner was an old feeble Onandago sachem, who could not, or rather who would not, accompany his countrymen in their retreat. This Indian was supposed to be a hundred years old. It might have been expected that the Count de Frontenac, who had himself grown grey in his campaigns against the Iroquois, and who, now in the seventy-fifth year of his age, was obliged to be carried to the field in his elbow-chair, might have had a fellow-feeling for an old brother warrior, and

at least have ordered this ancient captive to have been treated with generosity. The old prisoner, however, was given by the French, as usual, to their Indian confederates; by whom he was burnt alive. "Never was a man," says Charlevoix, "treated with greater barbarity, nor who shewed more firmness and greatness of soul. It was, indeed, a most extraordinary spectacle, to see upwards of four hundred savages let loose upon a feeble old man, from whom all their tortures could not draw forth a single groan; and who, as long as life continued, never ceased reproaching them for being the slaves of the French, of whom he spoke with the utmost contempt. When one of his tormentors, either from compassion or rage, stabbed him with a knife, in order to put an end to his existence," "I thank you," said the old captive," but you should not attempt to shorten my life; you would have the more time to learn from me to die like a man. As for myself, I die content, having no act of cowardice with which to reproach myself."*

At a still later period, not a hundred years ago, Crespel, the Franciscan missionary, records a similar expedition, equally useless, and still more sanguinary. When the Chevalier de Beauharnois was governor-general of New France, he sent

*La Potherie, vol. iii. let. 7; and Charlevoix, Nouvelle France, liv. xvi.