Above all else the situation demanded strong leadership; and this was precisely what La Barre failed to supply.  He was preoccupied with the profits of the fur trade, ignorant of Indian character, and past his physical prime; and his policy towards the Iroquois was a continuous series of blunders.  Through the great personal influence of Charles Le Moyne the Five Nations were induced, in 1683, to send representatives to Montreal, where La Barre met them and gave them lavish presents.  The Iroquois, always good judges of character, did not take long to discover in the new governor a very different Onontio from the imposing personage who had held conference with them at Fort Frontenac ten years earlier.

The feebleness of La Barre’s effort to maintain French sovereignty over the Iroquois is reflected in his request that they should ask his permission before attacking tribes friendly to the French.  When he asked them why they had attacked the Illinois, they gave this ominous answer:  ‘Because they deserved to die.’  La Barre could effect nothing by a display of authority, and even with the help of gifts he could only postpone war against the tribes of the Great Lakes.  The Iroquois intimated that for the present they would be content to finish the destruction of the Illinois—­a work which would involve the destruction of the French posts in the valley of the Mississippi.  La Barre’s chief purpose was to protect his own interests as a trader, and, so far from wishing to strengthen La Salle’s position on the Mississippi, he looked upon that illustrious explorer as a competitor whom it was legitimate to destroy by craft.  By an act of poetic justice the Iroquois a few months later plundered a convoy of canoes which La Barre himself had sent out to the Mississippi for trading purposes.

The season of 1684 proved even less prosperous for the French.  Not only Dongan was doing his best to make the Iroquois allies of the English; Lord Howard of Effingham, the governor of Virginia, was busy to the same end.  For some time past certain tribes of the Five Nations, though not the confederacy as a whole, had been making forays upon the English settlers in Maryland and even in Virginia.  To adjust this matter Lord Howard came to Albany in person, held a council which was attended by representatives of all the tribes, and succeeded in effecting a peace.  Amid the customary ceremonies the Five Nations buried the hatchet with the English, and stood ready to concentrate their war-parties upon the French.

It must not be inferred that by an act of reconciliation these subtle savages threw themselves into the arms of the English, exchanging a new suzerainty for an old.  They always did the best they could for their own hand, seeking to play one white man against the other for their own advantage.  It was a situation where, on the part of French and English, individual skill and knowledge of Indian character counted for much.  On the one hand, Dongan showed great intelligence and activity in making the most of the fact that Albany was nearer to the land of the Five Nations than Quebec, or even Montreal.  On the other, the French had envoys who stood high in the esteem of the Iroquois—­notably Charles Le Moyne, of Longueuil, and Lamberville, the Jesuit missionary.