Documentary History of the State of New York, Vol. I
Latitude on the Presentation River, which the Indians name Soegasti, thirty leagues above MontReal fifteen leagues from Lake Ontario or Lake Frontenac, which with Lake Champlain gives rise 15 leagues west of the source of the River Hudson which falls into the to the River St. Laurence Fort Frontenac had been built near there in 1671, to arrest the incursions of the sea at New York. English and the Iroquois the bay served as a port for the Mercantile and Military Marine which had been formed there on that sort of sea where the tempests are as frequent and as dangerous as on the ocean. But the Post of La Presentatio7i appeared still more important, because the harbour is very good, the river freezes there rarely, the barks can leave with northern, eastern and southern winds, the lands are excellent, and that quarter can be fortified most advantageously. Besides, that Mission was adapted by its situation to reconcile to us the Iroquois savages of the Five Nations who inhabit between Virginia and Lake Ontario. The Marquis of Beauharnois and afterwards M. de la Jonquiere, Governor General of New France, were very desirous that we should "occupy it, especially at a time when English jealousy irritated by a war of many years, sought to ;
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alienate from us the Tribes of Canada.
This establishment was as if the key of the Colony, because the English, French and Upper Canada savages could not pass elsewhere than under the cannon of Fort Presentation when coming down