] A larger expedition was organized in the autumn of 1686.
Rooseboom again set out for the lakes with twenty or more canoes. He
was to winter among the Senecas, and wait the arrival of Major
McGregory, a Scotch officer, who was to leave Albany in the spring
with fifty men, take command of the united parties, and advance to
Lake Huron, accompanied by a band of Iroquois, to form a general
treaty of trade and alliance with the tribes claimed by France as her
subjects. [Footnote: Brodhead, _Hist. of New York_, II. 443;
_Commission of McGregory_, in _N. Y. Col. Docs_., IX. 318.]
Denonville was beside himself at the news. He had already urged upon
Louis XIV. the policy of buying the colony of New York, which he
thought might easily be done, and which, as he said, "would make us
masters of the Iroquois without a war." This time he wrote in a less
pacific mood: "I have a mind to go straight to Albany, storm their
fort, and burn every thing." [Footnote: _Denonville au Ministre_, 16
_Nov_., 1686.] And he begged for soldiers more earnestly than ever.
"Things grow worse and worse. The English stir up the Iroquois against
us, and send parties to Michillimackinac to rob us of our trade. It
would be better to declare war against them than to perish by their
intrigues.
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