must be treated after the same manner; because the indulgence which had hitherto been shown them seemed to authorize them to invade our plantations, and so much the rather to do it because they run no other hazard than that of being taken and well kept at their masters' houses: but, when they should understand that the French caused them to be burnt, they would have a care for the future how they advanced with so much boldness to the very gates of our cities: and, in fine, that the sentence of death being past, these two wretches must prepare to take a journey into the other world.’ This obstinacy appeared surprising in M. Frontenac, who but a little before had favored the escape of three or fourpersons liable to the sentence of death, upon the importunate prayer of madame the governess; but, though she redoubled her earnest supplications, she could not alter his firm resolution as to these two wretches. The Jesuits were thereupon sent to baptize them, and oblige them to acknowledge the Trinity and the Incarnation, and to represent to them the joys of paradise and the torments of hell, within the space of eight or ten hours. This was a very bold way of treating these great mysteries; and to endeavor to make the Iroquois understand them so quickly was to expose them to their laughter. Whether they took these truths for songs, I do not know; but from the minute they were acquainted with this fatal news they sent back these good fathers without ever hearing them; and then they began to sing the song of death, according to the custom of the savages. Some charitable person having thrown a knife to them in prison, he who had the least courage of the two thrust it into his breast, and died of the wound immediately. Some young Hurons of Lorette, between fourteen and fifteen years of age, came to seize the other and carry him away to CapeDiamond, where notice was given to prepare a great pile of wood. He ran to death with a greater unconcernedness than Socrates would have done. During the time of execution he sung continually, ‘That he was a warrior, brave and undaunted; that the most cruel kind of death could not shock his courage; that no torments could extort from him any cries; that his companion was a coward for having killed himself through the fear of torment; and, lastly, that if he was burnt he had this comfort, that he had treated many French and Hurons after the same manner.’ ”[1]
- ↑ Voyages de La Hontan, vol. i. p. 233 (ed. 1709).
