[4] Warrant, authorizing Governor Dongan to protect the Five Nations, 10 Nov., 1687, N. Y. Col. Docs., III. 503.
The royal declaration was a great relief to Dongan. Thus far he had acted at his own risk; now he was sustained by the orders of his king. He instantly assumed a warlike attitude; and, in the next spring, wrote to the Earl of Sunderland that he had been at Albany all winter, with four hundred infantry, fifty horsemen, and eight hundred Indians. This was not without cause, for a report had come from Canada that the French were about to march on Albany to destroy it. "And now, my Lord," continues Dongan, "we must build forts in ye countrey upon ye great Lakes, as ye French doe, otherwise we lose ye Countrey, ye Bever trade, and our Indians." [5] Denonville, meanwhile, had begun to yield, and promised to send back McGregory and the men captured with him. [6] Dongan, not satisfied, insisted on payment for all the captured merchandise, and on the immediate demolition of Fort Niagara. He added another demand, which must have been singularly galling to his rival. It was to the effect that the Iroquois prisoners seized at Fort Frontenac, and sent to the galleys in France, should be surrendered as British subjects to the English ambassador at Paris or the secretary of state in London. [7]
[5] Dongan to Sunderland, Feb., 1688, N. Y. Col. Docs., III. 510.
[6] Denonville à Dongan, 2 Oct., 1687. McGregory soon arrived, and Dongan sent him back to Canada as an emissary with a civil message to Denonville. Dongan to Denonville, 10 Nov., 1687.
[7] Dongan to Denonville, 31 Oct., 1687; Dongan's First Demand of the French Agents, N. Y. Col. Docs., III. 515, 520.
Denonville was sorely perplexed. He was hard pressed, and eager for peace with the Iroquois at any price; but Dongan was using every means to prevent their treating of peace with the French governor until he had complied with all the English demands. In this extremity, Denonville sent Father Vaillant to Albany, in the hope of bringing his intractable rival to conditions less humiliating. The Jesuit played his part with ability, and proved more than a match for his adversary in dialectics; but Dongan held fast to all his demands. Vaillant tried to temporize, and asked for a truce, with a view to a final settlement by reference to the two kings. [8] Dongan referred the question to a meeting of Iroquois chiefs, who declared in reply that they would make neither peace nor truce till Fort Niagara was demolished and all the prisoners restored. Dongan, well pleased, commended their spirit, and assured them that King James, "who is the greatest man the sunn shines uppon, and never told a ly in his life, has given you his Royall word to protect you." [9] Vaillant returned from his bootless errand; and a stormy correspondence followed between the two governors. Dongan renewed his demands, then protested his wish for peace, extolled King James for his pious zeal, and declared that he was sending over missionaries of his own to convert the Iroquois. [10] What Denonville wanted was not their conversion by Englishmen, but their conversion by Frenchmen, and the presence in their towns of those most useful political agents, the Jesuits. [11] He replied angrily, charging Dongan with preventing the conversion of the Iroquois by driving off the French missionaries, and accusing him, farther, of instigating the tribes of New York to attack Canada.[12] Suddenly there was a change in the temper of his letters. He wrote to his rival in terms of studied civility; declared that he wished he could meet him, and consult with him on the best means of advancing the cause of true religion; begged that he would not refuse him his friendship; and thanked him in warm terms for befriending some French prisoners whom he had saved from the Iroquois, and treated with great kindness. [13]
[8] The papers of this discussion will be found in N. Y. Col. Docs., III.
[9] Dongan's Reply to the Five Nations, Ibid., III. 535.
[10] Dongan to Denonville, 17 Feb., 1688, Ibid., III. 519.
[11] "II y a une nécessité indispensable pour les intérais de la Religion et de la Colonie de restablir les missionaires Jésuites dans tous les villages Iroquois: si vous ne trouvés moyen de faire retourner ces Pères dans leurs anciennes missions, vous devés en attendre beaucoup de malheur pour cette Colonie; car je dois vous dire que jusqu'icy c'est leur habilité qui a soutenu les affaires du pays par leur sçavoir-faire à gouverner les esprits de ces barbares, qui ne sont Sauvages que de nom." Denonville, Mémoire adressé au Ministre, 9 Nov., 1688.