Letter 184

My very dear son,

As the ship is about to leave with all speed to bring to France the news of the misfortunate the Iroquois have inflicted on us and to try to get flour for fear the enemy will destroy the harvest I didn’t want to let the ship go without sending you a short account of what happened so that you may thank God for the way He protected us and ask His help for the future.

To begin, the Algonquin, a very noble race took some Iroquois prisoners and were burning them according to their laws of justice here and at Three Rivers. Normally the captive in torment tells all he knows. One was being burnt on Whit Wednesday and being interrogated by Fr. Chaumonot said he had an army of hundred men who had their meeting place at the split rock near Montreal where 400 others were to join them and come together to attack Quebec Their plan was to decapitate the Governor and then put the whole colony to fire and sword. At the time he was talking they would be at the Richelieu Islands or at Montreal or Three Rivers and that he was certain one of these places was under siege. It was learned since that they were at Richelieu awaiting the time and opportunity to destroy us all, commencing with Quebec. I leave you to think how this news surprised us. That same day the Blessed Sacrament was exposed in our Church to which the Parish procession came to continue their devotions to implore God’s help when it became known the Iroquois were on the warpath. But the news of this great army which was thought to be near caused our Bishop to so fear for the nun’s safety that he took the Blessed Sacrament from our Church and ordered the Community to follow it. We were never more surprised because we couldn’t imagine that we were in danger in such a strong house as ours. However we had to obey. He did the same with the Hospital Sisters. The Blessed Sacrament was taken from the Parish Church too. Hearing the account given by the prisoner they decided to examine the Religious Houses to see if they could be secured. They were visited several times by the Governor and by experts and then they put a Garrison at each end of our house. The guard was changed regularly. They erected a number of redoubts; the strongest was near our stable to defend the barn on one side and the Church on the other. All the windows were filled with blocks of wood and fitted with loopholes and defense works placed on our stone steps. There were communicating bridges from one part of the house to another and even from our house to that of our employees. We couldn’t even go out to our courtyard except through one tiny door through which only one could pass at a time. In a word our Monastery had been converted into a fortress guarded by twenty-four determined men. When we were ordered to go out the Garrison was already in place. I had permission not to leave so as not to abandon our Monastery to so many soldiers whom I had to provide with food and munitions. Three other sisters remained with me and I must admit seeing the Blessed Sacrament had been taken from us and we were left without Him, one of our sisters, named Ursula cried bitterly and remained inconsolable. I accepted the privation, the most painful that could be. Our Community and the Hospital Sisters were led to the Jesuit House where the Father Superior assigned them apartments removed from the main building. Ours were given the building used by the sodality and the Hospital Sisters another quite near. All is like a fortress enclosed in strong walls... The Indian Christians were in the courtyard safe from their enemies. When the colonists saw us leaving a strong house like ours, for the Hospital is badly situated with regard to the Iroquois, they were terrified thinking all was lost. They left their houses and took refuge some in the fortress, others with the priests, others in the Bishop’s house and some with us. We had six or seven families, lodged in the house of our employees and in our parlours and out offices. The rest barricaded themselves in the lower town where there were several guard-stations.

The next day, Pentecost Thursday, the Jesuit Superior led our community back. It was the day we should have elected a Superior, but the trouble had made us defer the election. The following eight days went like this: in the evening the sisters were brought away and at six in the morning they were returned. We were deprived of the Blessed Sacrament until the Feast of Corpus Christi when the Bishop brought it back to us Having examined our Monastery it was decided that the nuns could safely remain there without a guard until news should come that the upper town was besieged.

At the beginning of June, eight renegade Huron with Iroquois were near Little Cape which is about six leagues up river from Quebec and at the same time a good widow who had taken refuge here, decided to go back to her own land with her family. As she and her son-in-law were working in the field they had cleared, her daughter with her four children were in the house. They were taken by surprise by these infidels who seized them and pushed them into their canoes. News was brought at once to the Governor who, indefatigably zealous to protect his people sent a troupe of French and Algonquins to pursue the barbarians. The Algonguins who knew the routes decided to ambush them deciding on a password for fear the two parties would mistake each other for enemies as it was getting dark. The canoe appeared. The Algonquins challenged, the others tried to take to flight but a rain of shots riddled and sank their canoe with one of the barbarians. The others were taken and the mother and children set free. She had heard voices that she recognised as friendly but was in a position where she could not see or be seen. Her joy was short-lived. She had received a death wound and her little infant was shot in the toe. She died a holy death a few days afterwards praising God for having saved her from the Iroquois fire that would have been her inevitable end. Our people returned victorious bringing their prisoners amid cries of joy. The life of one prisoner who was only fifteen was spared, the others were burnt and being converted died a Christian death hoping for salvation. At death they confirmed what the other prisoner had said: that they were astonished that the army delayed so long and that Three Rivers must have been under siege. That seemed the more probable because they had no news of a shallop full of soldiers that the Governor had sent to reconnoitre nor of two others that they had sent up sometime earlier.

The eighth of the same month, news came that the army was near and had been sighted. In less than half-an-hour everyone was at his post ready to defend himself. All our doors were newly barricaded and I provided our soldiers with all that was necessary. At that moment one of our people arrived from fishing and assured us that he had seen a canoe with eight men standing and that the canoe belonged to Sault de la Chaudière, an Iroquois Retreat. That led to the belief that the alarm was true. It proved false. The French were so encouraged that they would like it to be true because the Governor had everything in such good order especially at the fortress that he had made almost impregnable. Following his example nobody was afraid. I mean the men weren’t. The women were terrified. As for me I had no fear in my mind or exteriorly. However I did not sleep at all at night. My ear was always on the alert not to be taken by surprise and to be ready to give our soldiers what they needed. Next day the shallops we worried about arrived. They bought bad news of the death of our French men in Montreal. Seventeen had gone accompanied by forty Indians, Huron and Algonquins to take some Iroquois by surprise. They were taken themselves and cut to pieces by these barbarians. They fought bravely but unsuccessfully. That’s what Fr. Chaumonot said in a letter in which he gave an account he got from a Huron who escaped and who saw all that happened.

In April 1660, seventeen brave French men volunteers from Montreal made a plan to risk their lives in trying to ambush the Iroquois in a few places. They set out with the approval of those in authority. They were accompanied by forty Indians, Huron and Algonquins, well supplied with all necessities. On the first of May they reached a fortification that had been fixed up the previous autumn at the foot of Long Falls up river from Montreal, by the Algonquins. Next day, Sunday, two Huron who went out to reconnoitre reported that they saw five Iroquois coming towards them, also on reconnaissance. They consulted as to what was best to be done. A Huron advised return to Montreal because these five could be the scouts of the Army we had heard about that was going to burst on Quebec or they might be going to warn the hunters of the ambush and so render it useless. Annotacha, a famous Huron captain strongly opposed this idea, accusing the speaker of cowardice. They stayed where they were intending to spend the next day fortifying the palisade but the Iroquois didn’t give them the chance and shortly after two hundred of them came down the river. Our men at their prayers were taken by surprise. They had just time to retire behind their rather fragile fence, leaving their boilers outside with their meal. Shouts and rounds of shot came from both sides. An Iroquois captain, unarmed, came within shouting distance to ask who was in the fortress and what their intentions were. He was answered that they were French, Huron and Algonquins, a hundred men coming to meet the “pierced noses”. “Wait” said the other, “till we hold a council and then we’ll come to see you again”. “In the meantime no hostilities please for fear of upsetting the negotiations with the French in Montreal”. Then said ours: “Go to the other bank of the river while we are discussing the matter”. They wanted the Iroquois out of the way so that they could cut stakes and strengthen their defenses. But the enemy had no intention of withdrawing to the other side. Instead they erected a palisade opposite ours who fortified themselves as well as they could, interlacing branches of trees between the stakes and filling the vacant places with earth and stones to a man’s height but leaving loop-holes near every stake defended by three fusiliers. The work was hardly finished when the enemy began their assault. The besieged defended themselves valiantly, killing and wounding a number of the Iroquois without losing a single one themselves. Terrified the Iroquois took to flight and ours thought themselves lucky to have finished at such a low cost. A few young men jumped over the fence to get the head of the dead Iroquois leader as a trophy. The enemy recovered from their extraordinary fright, rallied and for seven whole days and nights rained gunshot on our men. They broke our canoes and made firebrands to burn their palisade. But the shooting was so continuous that they could not come near. They made a second attack fiercer than the first but ours sustained it courageously and the enemy took to flight a second time. Twenty of them went so far that they weren’t seen again. Some Iroquois said to Joseph, whom they were holding captive, that if ours had pursued them they would have lost all. Apart from the two attacks, the firing on the palisade, was meant only to prevent the besieged from taking flight and to hold them while the enemy waited for reenforcements.

How our Frenchmen suffered: the cold, the stench, the want of sleep, the hunger and thirst leaving them more fatigued than the enemy! The thirst was so great that they could no longer swallow the coarse meal to which soldiers are reduced in extremity. They found a little water in a hole in the palisade but there wasn’t a mouthful each. From time to time the young men made sorties, jumping over the fence and protected by soldiers they ran to the river for water but they had lost their big vessels and in the little containers couldn’t bring enough for sixty persons and the “porridge”. Besides the water scarcity the supply of shot began to run out. The Huron and the Algonquins replied to every Iroquois discharge day and night and so used all they had. The French gave them all they could but the whole supply was soon gone. What would they do when the Iroquois allies came and five hundred were expected? They resolved to fight like brave Frenchmen and die like good Christians. They had been practicing both arts for the past seven days during which they did nothing but fight and pray. Whenever there was a respite from the Iroquois guns they were on their knees and the next minute they were shouldering their guns. After seven days of siege the canoes of the Iroquois allies appeared. They were soon in front of the little fort raising a hue and a cry accompanied by 500 gunshots to which the Iroquois answered with cries of joy that made the Heavens, the earth and the river ring. Captain Annotacha made a speech saying: “We are lost my comrades, we have no means of resisting 700 rested men, few as we are, weary and disheartened. I do not regret my life for I could not lose it for a better cause than the safety of the country but I have compassion for children who follow us. In our extreme danger I thought of a plan to save their lives. We have among us an Iroquois prisoner. My advice is to send him to his people with fine presents to soften them and to make terms”. His proposal was accepted and two important Huron offered to accompany him. They were given very fine presents, told what to say and helped to climb over the palisade. They set out and recommended the affair to God. A Huron captain, named Eustace, began in the name of all to call on all the Saints and Blesseds in Heaven for their help in such evident danger of death. He said: “You know, O Blessed inhabitants of Heaven what has brought us here. You know it is our desire to repress the Iroquois fury to prevent them taking our women and children for fear they would make them give up the faith and lose Paradise by bringing them as captives to their country. We can obtain our deliverance from the great Master of our lives if you pray to Him. Do now what you think best because we don’t know what is expedient. If we are at the end of our lives offer to God the death we are going to suffer to satisfy for the sins we have committed against His law and beg for our women and children the grace to die as good Christians so that we will all be together in Heaven”.

While the besieged were praying the deputies went to the enemy camp. They were received with a great shout and a great number of Huron captured by the Iroquois came to the palisade to beg their former compatriots to do as the deputies had done that is to yield as it was the only way to save their lives. Ah how powerful is the love of life and liberty. At these false solicitations about two dozen of these limed chickens came out of their cage leaving only fourteen Huron and four Algonquins with our seventeen French men. The cries of joy in the enemy camp redoubled. They thought the rest would give in too. Why should they listen to talk of peace? They came as far as the fort with the intention of seizing those who wanted to take to flight. But our French men far from surrendering began to fire in every direction and killed a good number of those who came nearest. Then Annotocha shouted to the French and comrades: “You have spoiled it all. You should have awaited the result of the enemy council. How do we know they would not ask for peace terms and if they didn’t give them to us, they would divide us one from the other as has happened many a time before? But now you have annoyed them. They will hurl themselves on us with such rage and we will doubtless be destroyed”. He wasn’t far wrong, the Iroquois seeing their people killed when they least expected it were carried away with such a desire for vengeance that, ignoring the incessant firing they threw themselves on the palisade, catching on to stakes under the loopholes trying to cut them where they were out of range of the gunshot. Guns could do nothing so the French tried to dislodge them by fire. When that failed they tried to ignite a barrel of gunpowder but there was a miscalculation and they themselves had their faces and hands burned and were all blinded for a time and unable to fight. The Iroquois seized the advantage and took all the loopholes that had been abandoned by the wounded heroes. They fell, one by one, Huron, Algonquin and French. Of the besieged, some were dead, some wounded. A French man seeing that some of the wounded had sufficient life left to be burnt by Iroquois killed them in a mistaken act of zeal and charity. The Iroquois took eight prisoners four French and four Huron survivors of the thirty who were in the fort. They found two not dead and they burnt them inhumanely. When they had collected the booty, they erected a great scaffold where they mounted the prisoners including those who had given themselves up. They tormented them cruelly, made some swallow fire, they cut the fingers off others, burnt some, cut off arms and legs off others. In the midst of the carnage the Iroquois captain, holding up a big stick called out, “What French man is courageous enough to bear this?” At this a French man stripped off his clothes, ready to be flogged, but a Huron spoke: “Why do you want to ill treat this French man who has done you nothing but good?” “He put my feet in irons”, replied the barbarian. “It was for love of me he did it”, said the Huron, “vent your anger on me not on him”. Such charity softened the barbarian who threw down his stick and flogged neither. The others were still on the scaffold satisfying the eyes and the rage of their enemies who continued to torture and to taunt them. No one forgot the instructions their priests had given them. Ignatius began to exhort the captives aloud: “My nephews and my friends we have come to the end that Faith had taught us to hope for. We are almost at the gates of Heaven. Let each one of us be careful not to get ship-wreaked within sight of land. Ah my dear fellow captives, may our torments take away our bodies rather than the prayer of our lips and Jesus from our heart. Let us remember that our torments will soon end and that the reward is eternal. It is to defend the faith of our women and children from our enemies that we are exposed to all those evils we suffer following the example of Jesus who suffered death to deliver men from the power of Satan, their enemy. Let us trust in Him, let us not cease to call on Him. No doubt He will give us the courage to put up with our sufferings. Will he abandon us now that we resemble Him most He who never refused help to those opposed to his teaching when they turned to him with confidence?” This short exhortation had such power over the minds of the poor sufferers that they all promised to pray until their final breath and the Huron who escaped eight days later asserted that up to that time they prayed to God every day and exhorted each other to do it every time they met.

This is the account given by the Huron who escaped. Without it we would not know of this bloody encounter. It is to be hoped that a few others will escape and tell us the rest. This Huron named Louis, an excellent Christian was held to be burned in the enemy country and was so carefully guarded that he was bound to an Iroquois for fear of escape. Another Huron was condemned to the same fate. They called on God and the Blessed Virgin with such fervour and I confidence that they escaped as by a miracle. Keeping alive by eating lime berries and herbs, they ran without stopping to Montreal. Louis told me, in our parlour, of his great confidence in the Blessed Virgin and while he was tied to the sleeping Iroquois, one of the ropes broke of itself, and being half freed he quietly broke the others and got free. He had to cross the whole army and although they had set sentries, he got away. They have reported that an Iroquois met a French man and said: “I arrest you”. The Frenchman, who they say was a mercy killer had a pistol hidden in his clothing which the enemy had failed to see, fired saying: “And I kill you”; and did so.

Without the information given by these escapees we would not know what had become of our Frenchmen and Indians, nor the whereabouts of the Iroquois army, who after winning battle went off to their own country, swollen with pride at their victory, which after all wasn’t much to boast of - seven hundred men defeating a handful! But it is the nature of these barbarians, if they had captured and killed only twenty, they return at once to boast of it in their own country otherwise we would all have been destroyed because nobody was on guard or suspected an enemy attack. They would have come at Pentecost, when the men were in the fields and we would have been undefended. They would have killed and robbed and taken men, women and children. They could do nothing against our stone built house but would have spread terror everywhere. They are certain to come again in autumn or next Spring. That’s why they have fortified every place in Quebec and in the surrounding country. The Governor has worked to erect redoubts or closed villages, for he obliges everybody to build a house for his family and help to build common barns and threaten to set fire to the houses of those who refuse to obey. It’s a wise policy and necessary for the time. Otherwise individuals were in danger of death with their families so nine or ten fortified villages were occupied and able to defend themselves. The real danger is famine for if the enemy come in autumn, they will destroy the harvest. If in spring they will prevent the sowing.

This fear of famine made them get a ship that had arrived only on the thirteenth of this month, to return to France to try to get flour so that there would be a reserve in case of necessity because flour, properly prepared, keeps here for several years, and when the country is provided for, people will not fear the enemy scourge so much. This ship will make two journeys this year. This is extraordinary, because no matter what its speed it could not be back here until October and will have to return immediately.

Winter this year was more severe and longer than anybody remembers. We couldn’t warm ourselves; our habits seemed as light as feathers and some thought they would die of cold. But it didn’t happen. Not one of us was inconvenienced. The Iroquois army came soon enough. But we weren’t afraid and the peace of none of us was disturbed. The noise our guards made caused us no distraction. They were in our cloister only in the evening and went out in the morning to their work. Our dormitory was closed off. At night we left them the downstairs corridors and the out offices for their patrols. All openings to the courtyard were barricaded. Besides about a dozen dogs guarded the outside doors and were incomparably more feared by the enemy than were the guardsmen. That’s a short account of what happened in this New France since the end of April. If there are any further developments we will let you know by the later ships. De d’Ailleboust, Governor of Montreal, has died a natural death. He is a great loss to Montreal and I recommend him to your prayers.

From Quebec. 25 June 1660.
Kelly, Sr M. St. Dominic, O.S.U. Marie of the Incarnation 1599 - 1672 Correspondence, (translated from the French edition by Dom Guy Oury Monk of Solesmes), Irish Ursuline Union, 2000, p. 234 - 239.