es lived at this time on the Fox River of Green Bay,--a
stream which owes its name to them.[332] Their chief village seems to
have been between thirty and forty miles from the mouth of the river,
where it creeps through broad tracts of rushes, willows, and wild rice.
In spite of their losses at Detroit in 1712, their strength was far from
being broken.

During two successive summers preparations were made to attack them; but
the march was delayed, once by the tardiness of the Indian allies, and
again by the illness of Louvigny. At length, on the first of May, 1716,
he left Montreal with two hundred and twenty-five Frenchmen, while two
hundred more waited to join him at Detroit and Michilimackinac, where
the Indian allies were also to meet him. To save expense in pay and
outfit, the Canadians recruited for the war were allowed to take with
them goods for trading with the Indians. Hence great disorder and
insubordination, especially as more than forty barrels of brandy were
carried in the canoes, as a part of these commercial ventures, in
consequence of which we hear that when French and Indians were encamped
together, "hell was thrown open."[333]

The Outagamies stood their ground. Louvigny says, with probable
exaggeration, that when he made his attack their village held five
hundred warriors, and no less than three thousand women,--a disparity of
sexes no doubt due to the inveterate fighting habits of the tribe. The
wigwams were enclosed by a strong fence, consisting of three rows of
heavy oaken palisades. This method of fortification was used also by
tribes farther southward. When Bienville attacked the Chickasaws, he was
foiled by the solid wooden wall that resisted his cannon, being formed
of trunks of trees as large as a man's body, set upright, close
together, and made shot-proof by smaller trunks, planted within so as to
close the interstices of the outer row.[334]

The fortified village of the Outagamies was of a somewhat different
construction. The defences consisted of three rows of palisades, those
of the middle row being probably planted upright, and the other two set
aslant against them. Below, along the inside of the triple row, ran a
sort of shallow trench or rifle-pit, where the defenders lay ensconced,
firing through interstices left for the purpose between the
palisades.[335]

Louvigny had brought with him two cannon and a mortar; but being light,
they had little effect on the wooden wall, and as he