There Was None Of Them There
Who Dared Approach; On The Contrary, They All Went Out Of The House Armed
With Their Poniards.
But some Frenchmen who were near to us, having
perceived things thus, they ran in a fury right to
The house, where having
entered, the savages threw their poniards upon the ground in saying to us
that the English had promissed to their chief a barrel of powder & other
merchandise to kill all the French; but that their chief being dead, for
they believed in fact that he was so, we had nothing more to fear, because
that they were men of courage, abhorring wicked actions. My people, having
seen that I was wounded, put themselves into a state to lay violent hands
on the savages; but I prevented any disturbance, wishing by that
generousity, & in sparing his life to the chief, to give some proofs of my
courage, & that I did not fear neither the English there nor themselves.
After which they left us, & we resolved to put ourselves better upon our
guard in the future, & of making come to our relief the savages our allies.
"Some days after, these savages, by the smoke of our fires, which were our
ordinary signals, arrived at our house. According to their custom, they
having been apprised of my adventure, without saying anything to us,
marched upon the track of the other savages, & having overtaken them, they
invited them to a feast, in order to know from them the truth of the
things; of which having been informed, the one among them who was my
adopted brother-in-law spoke to the chief who had wished to assassinate me
thus, as has been reported to me by him: 'Thou art not a man, because that,
having about thee 15 of thy people thou hast tried to accomplish the end of
killing a single man.' To which the other replied haughtily, & with
impudence, 'It is true; but if I have missed him this autumn with the
fifteen men, he shall not escape in the Spring by my own hand alone.' 'It
is necessary,' then replied my adopted brother-in-law, 'that thou makest me
die first; for without that I shall hinder thy wicked design.' Upon which,
having come within reach, the chief whose life I had spared received a blow
of a bayonet in the stomach, & another of a hatchet upon the head, upon
which he fell dead upon the spot. In respect to the others, they did not
retaliate with any kind of bad treatment, & they allowed them to retire
with all liberty, in saying to them that if they were in the design of
revenging the death of their chief, they had only to speak, & they would
declare war upon them.
"After that expedition these same savages our allies divided into two
parties, & without telling us their design descended to the place where the
English made their establishment; they attacked them & killed some of them,
of which they then came to inform me, in telling me that they had killed a
great number of my enemies to avenge me of the conspiracy that they had
done me & my brother, and that they were ready to sacrifice their lives for
my service; in recognition of which I thanked them & made them a feast,
begging them not to kill any more of them, & to await the return of my
father & my uncle, who would revenge upon the English the insult which they
had made me, without their tarnishing the glory that they had merited in
chastising the English & the savages, their friends, of their perfidy. We
were nevertheless always upon the defensive, & we apprehended being
surprised at the place where we were as much on the part of the English, as
of those of the savages, their friends; that is why we resolved of coming
to establish ourselves in the place where we are at present, & which is, as
you see, difficult enough of access for all those who have not been
enslaved as we are amongst the savages. We built there this house in a few
days with the assistance of the savages, & for still greater security we
obliged several among them to pass the winter with us on the condition of
our feeding them, which was the reason that our young men parted in the
summer, having almost consumed all our provisions. During the winter
nothing worthy of mention passed, except that some savages made several
juggles to know from our Manitou, who is their familiar spirit among them,
if my father and my uncle would return in the spring; who answered them
that they would not be missing there, and that they would bring with them
all kinds of merchandise and of that which would avenge them on their
enemies.
"At the beginning of April, 1684, some savages from the South coast arrived
at our new house to trade for guns; but as we had none of them they went to
the English, who had, as I afterwards learned, made them Some presents &
promissed them many other things if they would undertake to kill me with
the one of my men whom you saw still wounded, who spoke plainly the
language of the country. These savages, encouraged by the hope of gain,
accepted the proposition and promissed to execute it. For that means they
found an opportunity of gaining over one of the savages who was among us,
who served them as a spy, and informed them of all that we did.
Nevertheless they dared not attack us with open force, because they feared
us, & that was the reason why they proceeded otherwise in it; and this is
how it was to be done.
"The Frenchman that you saw wounded, having gone by my orders with one of
his comrades to the place where these savages, our friends, made some
smoked stag meat that they had killed, to tell them to bring me some of it,
fell, in chasing a stag, upon the barrel of his gun, and bent it in such a
manner that he could not kill anything with it without before having
straightened it; which having done, after having arrived at the place where
the savages were, he wished to make a test of it, firing blank at some
distance from their cabin; but whilst he disposed himself to that, one of
the savages who had promissed to the English his death & mine, who was
unknown to several of his comrades amongst the others, fired a shot at him
with his gun, which pierced his shoulder with a ball.
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