The new Governor, De Nonville, in order to bring the Iroquois into a proper state of submission and compell them to desist from annoying travellers on the St. Lawrence, determined to repeat Champlain's feat of invading their homeland. The record of this expedition from the mouth of its commanding officer, the Governor himself, is a very interesting document, especially to those interested in the study of that famous Long House that lay south of Lake Ontario.[22] Embarking at Fort Frontenac July 4, 1687, the expedition landed at Irondequoit Bay six days later, where De Nonville was reinforced by a party of French which had rendezvoused at Niagara from the West. Of this party little is known; possibly some of La Salle's crew were here, coming from their cabins at either end of the Niagara portage path, or possibly from the ship yard at the present La Salle. "It clearly appears," writes Marshall, "from De Nonville's narrative, that the party which he met at the mouth of the bay, was composed of French and Indians from the far west, who sailed from . . . Niagara, to join the expedition pursuant to his orders." These Indians, Mr. Browne affirms, were from Michilimackinac. Marching inland to the region Mr. Marshall believed, in the neighbourhood of the village of Victor, ten miles north-west of Canandaigua, a party of Senecas was put to flight and the entire region devastated until the 23rd; it was estimated that in the four Seneca villages the soldiers had destroyed about 1,200,000 bushels of corn--350,000 minots, of which all but 50,000 were green. On the 24th the lake was again reached.
The situation on the Niagara frontier at this moment could not better be described than it has been by Mr. Browne in his _The St. Lawrence River_, as follows:
De Nonville had now a clear way to build his fort at Niagara, which he proceeded to do, and then armed it with one hundred men. If triumphant in his bold plans, he had to learn that the viper crushed might rise to sting. The Senecas had their avengers. Maddened by the cowardly onset of De Nonville and his followers, the Iroquois to a man rose against the French. This was not done by any organised raid, but, shod with silence, small, eager war-parties haunted the forests of the St. Lawrence, striking where they were the least expected, and never failing to leave behind them the smoke of burning dwellings and the horrors of desolated lives. From Fort Frontenac to Tadousac there was not a home exempt from this deadly scourge; not a life that was not threatened. Unable to cope with so artful a foe, De Nonville was in despair. He sued for peace, but to obtain this he had to betray his allies, the Indians of the Upper Lakes, who had entered his service under the conditions that the war should continue until the Iroquois were exterminated. The latter sent delegates to confer with the French commander at Montreal.