M. de Denonville desired the more eagerly the return of this prelate so beloved in New France, since difficulties were arising on every hand.  Convinced that peace with the Iroquois could not last, he began by amassing provisions and ammunition at Fort Cataraqui, without heeding the protests of Colonel Dongan, the most vigilant and most experienced enemy of French domination in America; then he busied himself with fortifying Montreal.  He visited the place, appointed as its governor the Chevalier de Callieres, a former captain in the regiment of Navarre, and in the spring of 1687 employed six hundred men under the direction of M. du Luth, royal engineer, in the erection of a palisade.  These wooden defences, as was to be expected, were not durable and demanded repairs every year.  The year 1686, which had begun with the conquest of the southern portion of Hudson Bay, was spent almost entirely in preparations for war and negotiations for peace; the Iroquois, nevertheless, continued their inroads.  Finally M. de Denonville, having received during the following spring eight hundred poor recruits under the command of Vaudreuil, was ready for his expedition.  Part of these reinforcements were at once sent to Montreal, where M. de Callieres was gathering a body of troops on St. Helen’s Island:  eight hundred and thirty-two regulars, one thousand Canadians, and three hundred Indian allies, all burning with the desire of distinguishing themselves, awaited now only the signal for departure.

“With this superiority of forces,” says one author, “Denonville conceived, however, the unfortunate idea of beginning hostilities by an act which dishonoured the French name among the savages, that name which, in spite of their great irritation, they had always feared and respected.”  With the purpose of striking terror into the Iroquois he caused to be seized the chiefs whom the Five Nations had sent as delegates to Cataraqui at the request of Father de Lamberville, and sent them to France to serve on board the royal galleys.  This violation of the law of nations aroused the fury of the Iroquois, and two missionaries, Father Lamberville and Millet, though entirely innocent of this crime, escaped torture only with difficulty.  The king disapproved wholly of this treason, and returned the prisoners to Canada; others who, at Fort Frontenac, had been taken by M. de Champigny in as treacherous a manner, were likewise restored to liberty.

The army, divided into four bodies, set out on June 11th, 1687, in four hundred boats.  It was joined at Sand River, on the shore of Lake Ontario, by six hundred men from Detroit, and advanced inland.  After having passed through two very dangerous defiles, the French were suddenly attacked by eight hundred of the enemy ambushed in the bed of a stream.  At first surprised, they promptly recovered from their confusion, and put the savages to flight.  Some sixty Iroquois were wounded in this encounter, and forty-five whom they left dead on the field of battle were eaten by the Ottawas, according to the horrible custom of these cannibals.  They entered then into the territory of the Tsonnontouans, which was found deserted; everything had been reduced to ashes, except an immense quantity of maize, to which they set fire; they killed also a prodigious number of swine, but they did not meet with a single Indian.