I cannot give you a truer idea of the war we have to wage
with the Iroquois than by comparing them to a great number of wolves
or other ferocious beasts, issuing out of a vast forest to ravage the
neighboring settlements. The people gather to hunt them down; but
nobody can find their lair, for they are always in motion. An abler
man than I would be greatly at a loss to manage the affairs of this
country. It is for the interest of the colony to have peace at any
cost whatever. For the glory of the king and the good of religion, we
should be glad to have it an advantageous one; and so it would have
been, but for the malice of the English and the protection they have
given our enemies." [Footnote: _Denonville au Roy_, 1688; _Ibid._,
_Memoire du_ 10 _Aoust_, 1688; _Ibid._, _Memoire du_ 9 _Nov._, 1688.]
And yet he had, one would think, a reasonable force at his disposal.
His thirty-two companies of regulars were reduced by this time to
about fourteen hundred men, but he had also three or four hundred
Indian converts, besides the militia of the colony, of whom he had
stationed a large body under Vaudreuil at the head of the Island of
Montreal. All told, they were several times more numerous than the
agile warriors who held the colony in terror.
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