[12] Belmont, Histoire du Canada; Frontenac à------, 17 Nov., 1689; Champigny au Ministre, 16 Nov., 1689. This letter is not the one just cited. Champigny wrote twice on the same day. [13] N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 435. [14] Ourehaoué was not one of the neutrals entrapped at Fort Frontenac, but was seized about the same time by the troops on their way up the St. Lawrence. [15] Frontenac au Ministre, 30 Avril, 1690.
When the deputation arrived at Onondaga and made known their errand, the Iroquois magnates, with their usual deliberation, deferred answering till a general council of the confederacy should have time to assemble; and, meanwhile, they sent messengers to ask the mayor of Albany, and others of their Dutch and English friends, to come to the meeting. They did not comply, merely sending the government interpreter, with a few Mohawk Indians, to represent their interests. On the other hand, the Jesuit Milet, who had been captured a few months before, adopted, and made an Oneida chief, used every effort to second the designs of Frontenac. The authorities of Albany tried in vain to induce the Iroquois to place him in their hands. They understood their interests too well, and held fast to the Jesuit. [16]
[16] Milet was taken in 1689, not, as has been supposed, in 1690. Lettre du Père Milet, 1691, printed by Shea.
The grand council took place at Onondaga on the twenty-second of January. Eighty chiefs and sachems, seated gravely on mats around the council fire, smoked their pipes in silence for a while; till at length an Onondaga orator rose, and announced that Frontenac, the old Onontio, had returned with Ourehaoué and twelve more of their captive friends, that he meant to rekindle the council fire at Fort Frontenac, and that he invited them to meet him there. [17]
[17] Frontenac declares that he sent no such message, and intimates that Cut Nose had been tampered with by persons over-anxious to conciliate the Iroquois, and who had even gone so far as to send them messages on their own account. These persons were Lamberville, François Hertel, and one of the Le Moynes. Frontenac was very angry at this interference, to which he ascribes the most mischievous consequences. Cut Nose, or Nez Coupé, is called Adarahta by Colden, and Gagniegaton, or Red Bird, by some French writers.
