experienced
enemy of French domination in America; then he busied himself with
fortifying Montreal. He visited the place, appointed as its governor
the Chevalier de Callieres, a former captain in the regiment of
Navarre, and in the spring of 1687 employed six hundred men under the
direction of M. du Luth, royal engineer, in the erection of a palisade.
These wooden defences, as was to be expected, were not durable and
demanded repairs every year. The year 1686, which had begun with the
conquest of the southern portion of Hudson Bay, was spent almost
entirely in preparations for war and negotiations for peace; the
Iroquois, nevertheless, continued their inroads. Finally M. de
Denonville, having received during the following spring eight hundred
poor recruits under the command of Vaudreuil, was ready for his
expedition. Part of these reinforcements were at once sent to Montreal,
where M. de Callieres was gathering a body of troops on St. Helen's
Island: eight hundred and thirty-two regulars, one thousand Canadians,
and three hundred Indian allies, all burning with the desire of
distinguishing themselves, awaited now only the signal for departure.

"With this superiority of forces," says one author, "Denonville
conceived, however, the unfortunate idea of beginning hostilities by an
act which dishonoured the French name among the savages, that name
which, in spite of their great irritation, they had always feared and
respected." With the purpose of striking terror into the Iroquois he
caused to be seized the chiefs whom the Five Nations had sent as
delegates to Cataraqui at the request of Father de Lamberville, and
sent them to France to serve on board the royal galleys. This violation
of the law of nations aroused the fury of the Iroquois, and two
missionaries, Father Lamberville and Millet, though entirely innocent of
this crime, escaped torture only with difficulty. The king disapproved
wholly of this treason, and returned the prisoners to Canada; others
who, at Fort Frontenac, had been taken by M. de Champigny in as
treacherous a manner, were likewise restored to liberty.

The army, divided into four bodies, set out on June 11th, 1687, in four
hundred boats. It was joined at Sand River, on the shore of Lake
Ontario, by six hundred men from Detroit, and advanced inland. After
having passed through two very dangerous defiles, the French were
suddenly attacked by eight hundred of the enemy ambushed in the bed of a
stream