CHAPTER XIX — INTERCOLONIAL WARS
117. The Taking of Schenectady (1690)
BY COMPTROLLER-GENERAL DE MONSEIGNAT
Monseignat was a Canadian official, a protege of Madame de Maintenon, to whom this account is addressed. — Bibliography: Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, V, 190; Parkman, Frontenac and New France, ch. xi; Channing and Hart, Guide, § 131. — For earlier Indian wars, see Contemporaries, I, Nos. 39, 40, 60, 91, 127, 134.
. . . NEWS arrived at Quebec of the success of the first party that had gone out against the English, and which had been organized at Montreal. It might have consisted of two hundred and ten men ; to wit, of 80 Indians of the Sault and the Mountain, sixteen Algonquins, and the remainder Frenchmen. It was commanded by Lieutenants Le Moyne de Sainte Héléne and Dailleboust de Mantet, both Canadians, under whom were Sieurs le Moyne d'Iberville and Repentigny de Montesson. The best qualified of the French were Sieurs de Bonrepos and de La Brosse, reduced lieutenants (reformés) Sieurs Le Moyne de Biainville, Le Bert du Chesne, and la Marque de Montigny, who all served as volunteers. They took their departure from Montreal in the fore part of February. . . .
. . . they . . . experienced inconceivable difficulties . . . having been obliged to wade up to their knees in water, and to break the ice with their feet in order to find a solid footing.
They arrived within two leagues of Corlard about four o'clock in the evening, and were harangued by the Great Mohawk, the chief of the Iroquois of the Sault. He urged on all to perform their duty, and to forget their past fatigue, in the hope of taking ample revenge for the injuries they had received from the Iroquois at the solicitation of the English, and of washing them out in the blood of those traitors. This Indian was without contradiction the most considerable of his tribe, an honest man, as full of spirit, prudence and generosity as possible, and capable at the same time of the grandest undertakings. Four squaws
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