Oblige me, I request you, to have the enclosed sent to its address. Please,
My Lord, pardon me the liberty which I take to present my humble respects to the Governor of Virginia, who is called among the Indians, Big Sword or Cutlass, who I learn is with you at
Albany, to whom, some time ago, I caused to be restored an Englishman named Rolelman, whom these Indians here had plundered and captured and whom I took into my hut to save him from the
fury of some refractory people and from those who would make him their slave. vice I would desire to render him.
It is the least ser-
DENONVILLe's EXPEDITION TO THE GENESEE COUNTRY AND NIAGARA.
MEMOIR CONCERNING THE PRESENT STATE OF CANADA AND THE MEASURES THAT MAY BE ADOPTED FOR THE SECURITY OF THE COUNTRY.
12 NOVEMBER 1685.
(Extract.) [Paris Doc. III.]
The most to be feared is the Iroquois who are the most powerful in consequence of the facility with which they obtain arms from the English and the number of slaves they make daily among this is the only their neighbours by carrying away at an early age their children, whom they adopt means of their increase, for thro' their debaucheries of Brandy wliich lead them into frightful dis;
orders, the few children their women raise could not of themselves assuredly sustain them, if they
did not make prisoners.
The great trade in arms and ammunition at a low rate, among the English has given them hitherto that advantage which they have over other nations who in order to be disarmed have been destroyed