In the spring of 1690 Frontenac dispatched a force of a hundred and fifty men to reinforce the garrison at Michilimackinac.  On their way westward these troops encountered a band of Iroquois and fortunately killed a number of them.  The scalps were an ocular proof of success; and Perrot, who was of the party, knew how to turn the victory to its best use by encouraging the Ottawas to torture an Iroquois prisoner.  The breach thus made between the Ottawas and the Five Nations distinctly widened as soon as word came that the French had destroyed Schenectady.  Thus this dreadful raid against the English did not fail of its psychological effect, as may be gathered from one of the immediate consequences.  Early in August there appeared on Lake St Louis a vast flotilla of canoes, which at first caused the afflicted habitants to fear that the Iroquois were upon them again.  Instead of this it was a great band of friendly savages from the West, drawn from all the trading tribes and bringing a cargo of furs of far more than the usual value.  Frontenac himself chanced to be in Montreal at this fortunate moment.  The market was held and concluded to mutual satisfaction, but the crowning event of the meeting was a council, at which, after an exchange of harangues, Frontenac entered into the festivities of the savages as though he were one of themselves (August 1690).  The governor’s example was followed by his leading officers.  Amid the chanting of the war-song and the swinging of the tomahawk the French renewed their alliance with the Indians of the West.  All were to fight until the Iroquois were destroyed.  Even the Ottawas, who had been coquetting with the Senecas, now came out squarely and said that they would stand by Onontio.

Here, at last, was a real answer to the Lachine massacre.  The challenge had been fairly given, and now it was not a Denonville who made the reply.  There followed three years of incessant warfare between the Iroquois and the French, which furnished a fair test of the strength that each side could muster when fighting at its best.  The Five Nations had made up their minds.  The cares of diplomacy they threw to the winds.  They were on the war-path, united and determined.  The French, on their side, had Frontenac for leader and many outrages to avenge.  It was war of the wilderness in its most unrelenting form, with no mercy expected or asked.  The general result can be quickly stated.  The Iroquois got their fill of war, and Frontenac destroyed their power as a central, dominating, terrorizing confederacy.

The measure of this achievement is to be sought in the difficulties which were overcome.  Despite the eighty years of its existence the colony was still so poor that regularity in the arrival of supplies from France was a matter of vital importance.  From the moment war began English cruisers hovered about the mouth of the St Lawrence, ready to pounce upon the supply-ships as they came up the river.