What distressed us the most was, not so much the flames into which a part of our Frenchmen would be cast, as the unfortunate captivity to

which the most of them were destined by the Iroquois, in which the salvation of their souls was more to be dreaded than the loss of their bodies. This is what the greater number most especially apprehended, who already seeing themselves prisoners, coveted rather the stroke of the hatchet or

even the flames, than this captivity.

They were determined in order to avoid this last misfortune,

even to risk all and to fly each, his way in the woods, to perish there of hunger and wretchedness or to attempt to reach some of the French settlements.

In these circumstances so precipitous, our Fathers and I and a gentleman named Monsieur du

Puys, who commanded all our Frenchmen and a garrison of soldiers, nine of whom had already of themselves resolved to abandon us, concluded that it would be better to withdraw in a body, either to encourage one another to die or to sell life more dearly.

For that reason it became necessary to

depart without breathing a syllable about it ; for the least suspicion that the Iroquois would have had of

our retreat, would hurry down on us the disaster we would avoid.

But how hope to be able to depart without being discovered, being in the heart of the country, and always beset by a number of these Barbarians who left not our house so as to watch our countenances in this conjuncture