hundred and thirty soldiers,
seven hundred militia and two hundred and sixty Indians, he marched to
Lake Ontario, where the Iroquois, intimidated, sent him a deputation.
The ambassadors, who expected to see a brilliant army full of ardour,
were astonished to find themselves in the presence of pale and emaciated
soldiers, worn out more by sickness and privations of every kind than by
fatigue. The governor, in fact, had lost ten or twelve days at Montreal;
on the way the provisions had become spoiled and insufficient, hence the
name of Famine Creek given to the place where he entered with his
troops, above the Oswego River. At this sight the temper of the
delegates changed, and their proposals showed it; they spoke with
arrogance, and almost demanded peace; they undertook to indemnify the
French merchants plundered by them on condition that the army should
decamp on the morrow. Such weakness could not attract to M. de la Barre
the affection of the colonists; the king relieved him from his
functions, and appointed as his successor the Marquis de Denonville, a
colonel of dragoons, whose valour seemed to promise the colony better
days.

CHAPTER XIV

RESIGNATION OF MGR. DE LAVAL

The long and conscientious pastoral visit which he had just ended had
proved to the indefatigable prelate that it would be extremely difficult
to establish his parishes solidly. Instead of grouping themselves
together, which would have given them the advantages of union both
against the attacks of savages and for the circumstances of life in
which man has need of the aid of his fellows, the colonists had built
their dwellings at random, according to the inspiration of the moment,
and sometimes at long distances from each other; thus there existed, as
late as 1678, only twenty-five fixed livings, and it promised to be very
difficult to found new ones. To give a pastor the direction of
parishioners established within an enormous radius of his parish house,
was to condemn his ministry in advance to inefficacy. To prove it, the
Abbe Gosselin cites a striking example. Of the two missionaries who
shared the southern shore, the one, M. Morel, ministered to the country
between Berthier and Riviere du Loup; the other, M. Volant de
Saint-Claude, from Berthier to Riviere du Chene, and each of them had
only about sixty families scattered here and there. And how was one to
expect that these poor farmers could maintain their pastor and build a
church?