The news of this establishment on soil always considered as belonging to France appeared to him the more important as he felt the difficulty of preserving the post of Niagara where there is no tort, should the English once fortify Chouaguen and that in losing Niagara the Colony is lost and at the same time all the trade with the upper Country Indians, who go the more willingly to the English since they obtain goods there much cheaper and get as much brandy as they like, which we cannot absolutely dispense furnishing the upper country Indians, though with prudence, if it be desirable to prevent them carrying their furs and surrendering themselves to the English. M. de Longueuil wrote in the month of February that the Iroquois of the Sault had appointed four of their chiefs and one of the Lake of the Two Mountains to go to Orange to represent to the Dutch that they would not suffer their settling at Chouaguen and that they would declare war against them ;

if they established themselves there.

He repaired on the ice to Montreal on the 12 March where he received the confirmation of the news of the English, and learned that they and the Dutch had started with a great many canoes for Lake Ontario to make a settlement at the mouth of the River Choueguen in concert with the Iroquois that he w as afraid he could not prevent it if they be supported by those Indians, to a war with whom, he knows, the King does not intend to expose himself. The Indians of the Sault returned from Orange dissatisfied with their reception. He immediately despatched M. de Longueuil to the Iroquois and thence to Choueguen. He commanded him to induce the savages not to suffer this Establishment, and in case he could not prevail on them to oppose it openly, to persuade them to remain neuter and to suggest to them at the same time, that it is their interest to maintain us at Niagara or to consent to our building a more solid and secure house r