the Falls of St. Louis. I told them that I was making an excursion in their
territory to observe the fertility of their soil, their lakes and rivers,
and the sea which they had told me was in their country; and that I desired
to see a tribe distant six days' journey from them, called the
_Nebicerini_, in order to invite them also to the war, and accordingly I
asked them to give me four canoes with eight savages to guide me to these
lands. And since the Algonquins are not great friends of the _Nebicerini_,
[70] they seemed to listen to me with greater attention.

After I had finished my discourse, they began again to smoke, and to confer
among themselves in a very low voice respecting my propositions. Then
Tessoueat in behalf of all the rest began and said, that they had always
regarded me more friendly towards them than any Frenchman they had seen;
that the proofs they had of this in the past made their confidence easier
for the future: moreover, that I had shown myself in reality their friend,
by encountering so many risks in coming to see them and invite them to the
war, and that all these considerations obliged them to feel as kindly
disposed towards me as towards their own children. But they said that I had
the preceding year broken my promise, that two thousand savages had gone to
the Falls with the expectation of finding me ready to go to the war, and
making me presents, but that they had not found me and were greatly
saddened, supposing that I was dead, as some persons had told them. He said
also, that the French who were at the Falls did not want to help them in
their wars, that they had been badly treated by certain ones, so that they
had resolved among themselves not to go to the Falls again, and that this
had caused them, as they did not expect to see me again, to go alone to the
war, and that in fact twelve hundred of them had already gone. And since
the greater part of their warriors were absent, they begged me to postpone
the expedition to the following year, saying that they would communicate
the matter to all the people of their country. In regard to the four