La Salle and the discovery of the great West - North Central ...

1678.] INTRIGUES OF THE JESUITS. 115lished as missionaries, that La Salle was strengtheninghis defences with the view of making war onthem. They and the intendant, who was their creature,endeavored to embroil the Iroquois with theFrench in order to ruin La Salle ; writing to him atthe same time that he was the bulwark of the country,and that he ought to be always on his guard. Theyalso tried to persuade Frontenac that it was necessaryto raise men and prepare for war. La Salle suspectedthem; and seeing that the Iroquois, in consequenceof their intrigues, were in an excited state, heinduced the governor to come to Fort Frontenac topacify them. He accordingly did so ; and a councilwas held, which ended in a complete restoration ofconfidence on the part of the Iroquois. 1 At thiscouncil they accused the two Jesuits, Bruyas andPierron, 2 of spreading reports that the French werepreparing to attack them. La Salle thought that the1Louis XIV. alludes to this visit, in a letter to Frontenac, dated28 April, 1677. " I cannot but approve/' he writes, " of what youhave done, in your voyage to Fort Frontenac, to reconcile theminds of the Five Iroquois Nations, and to clear yourself from thesuspicions they had entertained, and from the motives that mightinduce them to make war." Frontenac's despatches of this year,as well as of the preceding and following years, are missing fromthe archives.In a memoir written in November, 1680, La Salle alludes to " ledesir que Ton avoit que Monseigneur le Comte de Frontenac fist laguerre aux Iroquois."See Thomassy, Geologic Pratique de la Louisiane,203.2Bruyas was about this time stationed among the Onondagas.Pierron was among the Senecas. He had lately removed to themfrom the Mohawk country. Relation des Jesuites, 1673-79, 140(Shea). Bruyas was also for a long time among the Mohawk*.