Let us devote ourselves to the accomplishment of our masters'
will; let us seek, as they do, to serve and promote religion; let us
live together in harmony, as they desire. I repeat and protest,
Monsieur, that it rests with you alone; but do not imagine that I am a
man to suffer others to play tricks on me. I willingly believe that
you have not ordered the Iroquois to plunder our Frenchmen; but,
whilst I have the honor to write to you, you know that Salvaye, Gedeon
Petit, and many other rogues and bankrupts like them, are with you,
and boast of sharing your table. I should not be surprised that you
tolerate them in your country; but I am astonished that you should
promise me not to tolerate them, that you so promise me again, and
that you perform nothing of what you promise. Trust me, Monsieur, make
no promise that you are not willing to keep." [Footnote: _Denonville a
Dongan_, 21 _Aug_., 1687; _Ibid., no date_ (1687).]
Denonville, vexed and perturbed by his long strife with Dongan and the
Iroquois, presently found a moment of comfort in tidings that reached
him from the north. Here, as in the west, there was violent rivalry
between the subjects of the two crowns. With the help of two French
renegades, named Radisson and Groseilliers, the English Company of
Hudson's Bay, then in its infancy, had established a post near the
mouth of Nelson River, on the western shore of that dreary inland sea.
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