repel them. The opposing forces met in the forest on the south-western
shore, not far from Crown point, on the morning of the 30th of July. The
Iroquois, two hundred in number, advanced to the onset. "Among them," says
Mr. Parkman, "could be seen several chiefs, conspicuous by their tall
plumes. Some bore shields of wood and hide, and some were covered with a
kind of armour made of tough twigs, interlaced with a vegetable fibre,
supposed by Champlain to be cotton. The allies, growing anxious, called
with loud cries for their champion, and opened their ranks that he
might pass to the front. He did so, and advancing before his red
companions-in-arms stood revealed to the astonished gaze of the Iroquois,
who, beholding the warlike apparition in their path, stared in mute
amazement. But his arquebuse was levelled; the report startled the woods,
a chief fell dead, and another by his side rolled among the bushes. Then
there arose from the allies a yell which, says Champlain, would have
drowned a thunderclap, and the forest was full of whizzing arrows. For a
moment the Iroquois stood firm, and sent back their arrows lustily; but
when another and another gunshot came from the thickets on their flank they
broke and fled in uncontrollable terror. Swifter than hounds, the allies
tore through the bushes, in pursuit. Some of the Iroquois were killed, more
were taken. Camp, canoes, provisions, all were abandoned, and many weapons
flung down in the panic flight. The arquebuse had done its work. The
victory was complete." The victorious allies, much to the disgust of
Champlain, tortured their prisoners in the most barbarous fashion, and
returned to Quebec, taking with them fifty Iroquois scalps. Thus was the
first Indian blood shed by the white man in Canada. The man who shed it was
a European and a Christian, who had not even the excuse of provocation.
This is a matter worth bearing in mind when we read of the frightful
atrocities committed by the Iroquois upon the whites in after years.
Champlain's conduct on this occasion seems incapable of defence, and it was
certainly a very grave error, considered simply as an act of policy. The