Meanwhile, what had happened to the Illinois Indians ? The Frenchmen who had gone from the Ouiatanons to rouse the Illinois received a royal welcome from the Indians of the Rock, and, collecting their warriors, led a band of four hundred and fifty to Chicago, which was reached on the seventeenth of August. The leader was much mortified to find no one there and to get no news from Mackinac. To divert the savages and if possible to obtain news, scouts were sent out to a distance of thirty leagues. Their efforts were fruitless, however. On their return ten days later without any tidings, the Indians could be restrained no longer. They dispersed and the Frenchmen returned to Starved Rock, where they found their countrymen whom they had left among the Ouiatanons.
One further act remains to complete this series of misfortunes. The coureurs de bois assembled at Mackinac, but the failure of the supplies which were expected from Montreal to arrive led to the abandonment of the northern end of the expedition.[121] This explains the non-arrival of the canoes at Chicago, which had so disappointed the Ouiatanon and Illinois detachments. In ignorance of these various miscarriages the Detroit contingent arrived. From Chicago they proceeded to the Illinois village at the Rock, expecting to find there the French leaders of the enterprise.[122] They, however, were now at Kaskaskia, overcome with illness. They could only send a messenger to urge the Illinois to join the Hurons and others who composed the expedition in a foray against the Mascoutens and Kickapoos, allies of the Foxes, who were hunting "along a certain river." This was done, and in November the combined bands, accompanied by only two Frenchmen, fell upon the Mascoutens. The report of what followed must be taken with the usual allowance for statements which have an Indian origin.[123] According to their story they attacked the Mascoutens, who were stationed on a rock, and after a sharp battle forced their position, killing one hundred warriors and taking forty-seven prisoners, without counting the women and children. To conceal the route of their retreat the party went down the river in canoes a distance of twenty-five leagues. In spite of this precaution they were overtaken on the eleventh day by four hundred men, "the elite of the Reynards." Though they numbered but eighty, and were incumbered by the prisoners and wounded, they asserted that in a battle lasting from dawn till three o'clock in the afternoon they defeated the Foxes with great loss and pursued them for several hours.
[121] Ibid., 339.
[122] Ibid., 341. That they came to Chicago is not directly stated, but I consider this a fair inference from this and the preceding documents.
[123] It is true there were two Frenchmen with the party, as already stated. But these had a direct interest in permitting the Indian reports to go uncorrected; one of them was, in fact, promoted for his participation in this expedition, and the other was an outlawed bushranger among the Illinois, whose "reprobate life" had been the subject of an indignant letter from the governor to the French ministry only the year before (Wisconsin Historical Collections, XVI, 302-3). Now, apparently, a virtue was made of necessity, and he was urged to use his influence over the Illinois to induce them to join the Hurons in the proposed expedition.
In the following year, 1716, the delayed project against the Foxes was executed. Louvigny was again intrusted with the command.[124] He left Montreal the first of May with two hundred and twenty-five Frenchmen, and two hundred more were to join him at Mackinac.[125] While en route they were joined by about four hundred Indian allies, and the whole party proceeded by way of Mackinac and Green Bay to the country of the Foxes. The latter had gathered to the number of five hundred warriors and three thousand women and children in a fort protected by three rows of oaken palisades and a ditch, located on the Fox River some distance from Green Bay. This Louvigny besieged in regular European fashion, with trenches and mining operations. The Foxes fought with spirit, although, according to Charlevoix, both besiegers and besieged believed them to be on the brink of destruction. At the end of three days, however, a surrender was arranged, terms were granted the besieged, and the invading army marched away.
[124] Wisconsin Historical Collections, XVI, 328-30.
[125] Ibid., 342. For secondary accounts of this expedition see Hebberd, Wisconsin under the Dominion of France, 94 ff.; Charlevoix, History of New France (Shea transl.), V, 305 ff.
The reason for this surprising outcome of the great expedition remains a matter of doubt to the present day. Louvigny asserted that the terms he imposed were so harsh that no one believed the Foxes would accede to them; and further, that his allies approved of the arrangement made.[126] The first of these statements is not worthy of serious attention, and the last the French Indians themselves indignantly denied.[127] The Fox chieftain, Ouashala, later asserted that they could easily have escaped by means of a sortie by night, and that this had already been resolved upon. Possibly the real truth is that Louvigny was hampered by his instructions and that he feared to press the Foxes to the last extremity. It may be also that the reported approach of three hundred allies of the Foxes influenced his decision. Whatever the reason, the results from the expedition were meager. The Foxes did not fulfil the terms of their agreement with Louvigny, and although they refrained from making war on the French Indians for a time, the situation in the Northwest continued to be as intolerable to the French as ever.
[126] Wisconsin Historical Collections, XVI, 343.