Those details, My lord, require considerable troops, which could not fail to greatly advance this country by laboring to draw (resserer) the Colony closer together and make it more compact, by means of forts around which clearances would be made. Al this, My lord, is no trifling work to be prepared. For what certainty can there be of destroying so powerful an enemy as that Nation which has assuredly two thousand men under arms independent of a large number of other tribes their allies, estimated at twelve hundred ? The vast extent of forest into which they Avill retreat and where Indians alone can pursue them the uncertainty of the strength of the Indians which we shall have with us the difficulty of rendezvousing so far off all these considerations ought to make us reflect on the means of sustaining ourselves in case we should not meet that success Ave may desire, and which cannot come without a manifest interposition of Heaven for the success of projects so scattered. It is very certain that were I in a position to be able to send a strong detachment to the Mohawk Country by the River Richelieu whilst I was proceeding against the Senecas, not only should I create considerable alarm among the English which would keep them at home, but I would obtain a great advantage over the Iroquois by separating and pillaging them and laying waste their corn fields at both ends of the Iroquois towns. It would be very desirable that I could destroy all the corn in the same year, so that the one could no longer support the other this would reduce them to great wretchedness and would put a burthen on the English, if they sought a refuge there for means to l