Note 142 — Chapter XXIX

This expedition was meant to be a serious check to the English pretensions of supremacy over the Iroquois. A memoir of this period shows the claims of the French as follows: That the Iroquois had submitted in 1604; that Champlain had taken possession of their lands in the name of the King; that they had declared themselves to be the subjects of France in the treaty with M. de Tracy in 1655-6, and that the subsequent treaty of the Iroquois with the English in 1684 could not prevail against rights already acquired. Frontenac and de Callières were to attack Orange and if that expedition succeeded, they were to attack Manhattan and M. de Vaudreuil was to undertake the government in their absence.