red twenty-five of these savages, men, women, and
children. There were but two of the savages escaped this carnage, by
being accidentally not present. [_How improbable is the whole of this
story?_]

Towards the end of the same year, the English being come to Chibuckto,
made the report be every where spread [The missionaries in those parts
might indeed raise such reports; the which giving the savages an
aversion to the English, forced them to take hostile measures against
them in their own defence: but who would suspect the English themselves
of raising them, in direct opposition to their own interest?], that they
were going to destroy all the savages. They seemed to act in consequence
thereto, since they sent detachments of their troops, on all sides, in
pursuit of the savages.

These people were so alarmed with this procedure of the English, that
from that time they determined, as weak as they were, to declare open
war against them. Knowing that France had concluded a peace with
England, they nevertheless resolved not to cease from falling on the
English, wherever they could find them; saying, they were indispensably
obliged to it, since, against all justice, they wanted to expel them out
of their country. They then sent a declaration of war in form to the
English, in the name of their nation, and of the savages in alliance
with it.

As to what concerns the missionaries to the savages, they cannot be
suspected of using any connivence in all this, if justice is done to the
conduct they have always observed amongst them, and especially in the
time of the last war. How many acts of inhumanity would have been
committed by this nation, naturally vindictive, if the missionaries had
not taken pains, in good earnest, to put such ideas out of their heads?
It is notorious, that the savages believe that there are no extremities
of barbarity, but what are within the rules of war against those whom
they consider as their enemies. Inexpressible are the efforts which
these same missionaries have employed to restrain, on such occasions,
this criminal ferocity, especially as the savages deemed themselves
authorized by right of reprisals. How many unfortunate persons of the
English nation would have been detained for ever captives, or undergone
the most cruel deaths, if, by the intervention of the missionaries, the
savages had not been prevailed on to release them?

They are even ready to prove, by their written instructions, the le