A vein of gasconade appears in most of his letters, not however accompanied with any conclusive evidence of a real wish to fight. His best fighting days were past, for he was sixty years old; nor had he always been a man of the sword. His early life was spent in the law; he had held a judicial post, and had been intendant of several French provinces. Even the military and naval employments, in which he afterwards acquitted himself with credit, were due to the part he took in forming a joint-stock company for colonizing Cayenne. ⁷⁶ In fact, he was but half a soldier; and it was perhaps for this reason that he insisted on being called, not Monsieur le Gouverneur, but Monsieur le Général. He was equal to Frontenac neither in vigor nor in rank, but he far surpassed him in avidity. Soon after his arrival, he wrote to the minister that he should not follow the example of his predecessors in making money out of his government by trade; and in consideration of these good intentions he asked for an addition to his pay. ⁷⁷ He then immediately made alliances with certain merchants of Quebec for carrying on an extensive illicit trade, backed by all the power of his office. Now ensued a strange and miserable complication. Questions of war mingled with questions of personal gain. There was a commercial revolution in the colony. The merchants whom Frontenac excluded from his ring now had their turn. It was they who, jointly with the intendant and the ecclesiastics, had procured the removal of the old governor; and it was they who gained the ear of the new one. Aubert de la Chesnaye, Jacques Le Ber, and the rest of their faction, now basked in official favor; and La Salle, La Forêt, and the other friends of Frontenac, were cast out. There was one exception. Greysolon Du Lhut, leader of coureurs de bois, was too important to be thus set aside. He was now as usual in the wilderness of the north, the roving chief of a half savage crew, trading, exploring, fighting, and laboring with persistent hardihood to foil the rival English traders of Hudson's Bay. Inducements to gain his adhesion were probably held out to him by La Barre and his allies: be this as it may, it is certain that he acted in harmony with the faction of the new governor. With La Forêt it was widely different. He commanded Fort Frontenac, which belonged to La Salle, when La Barre's associates, La Chesnaye and Le Ber, armed with an order from the governor, came up from Montreal, and seized upon the place with all that it contained. The pretext for this outrage was the false one that La Salle had not fulfilled the conditions under which the fort had been granted to him. La Forêt was told that he might retain his command, if he would join the faction of La Barre; but he refused, stood true to his chief, and soon after sailed for France.

La Barre summoned the most able and experienced persons in the colony to discuss the state of affairs. Their conclusion was that the Iroquois would attack and destroy the Illinois, and, this accomplished, turn upon the tribes of the lakes, conquer or destroy them also, and ruin the trade of Canada. ⁷⁸ Dark as was the prospect, La Barre and his fellow-speculators flattered themselves that the war could be averted for a year at least. The Iroquois owed their triumphs as much to their sagacity and craft as to their extraordinary boldness and ferocity. It had always been their policy to attack their enemies in detail, and while destroying one to cajole the rest. There seemed little doubt that they would leave the tribes of the lakes in peace till they had finished the ruin of the Illinois; so that if these, the allies of the colony, were abandoned to their fate, there would be time for a profitable trade in the direction of Michillimackinac.

But hopes seemed vain and prognostics illusory, when, early in spring, a report came that the Seneca Iroquois were preparing to attack, in force, not only the Illinois, but the Hurons and Ottawas of the lakes. La Barre and his confederates were in dismay. They already had large quantities of goods at Michillimackinac, the point immediately threatened; and an officer was hastily despatched, with men and munitions, to strengthen the defences of the place. ⁷⁹ A small vessel was sent to France with letters begging for troops. "I will perish at their head," wrote La Barre to the king, "or destroy your enemies;" ⁸⁰ and he assures the minister that the Senecas must be attacked or the country abandoned. ⁸¹ The intendant, Meules, shared something of his alarm, and informed the king that "the Iroquois are the only people on earth who do not know the grandeur of your Majesty." ⁸²

While thus appealing to the king, La Barre sent Charles le Moyne as envoy to Onondaga. Through his influence, a deputation of forty-three Iroquois chiefs was sent to meet the governor at Montreal. Here a grand council was held in the newly built church. Presents were given the deputies to the value of more than two thousand crowns. Soothing speeches were made them; and they were urged not to attack the tribes of the lakes, nor to plunder French traders, without permission. ⁸³ They assented; and La Barre then asked, timidly, why they made war on the Illinois. "Because they deserve to die," haughtily returned the Iroquois orator. La Barre dared not answer. They complained that La Salle had given guns, powder, and lead to the Illinois; or, in other words, that he had helped the allies of the colony to defend themselves. La Barre, who hated La Salle and his monopolies, assured them that he should be punished. ⁸⁴ It is affirmed, on good authority, that he said more than this, and told them they were welcome to plunder and kill him. ⁸⁵ The rapacious old man was playing with a two-edged sword.

Thus the Illinois, with the few Frenchmen who had tried to defend them, were left to perish; and, in return, a brief and doubtful respite was gained for the tribes of the lakes. La Barre and his confederates took heart again. Merchandise, in abundance, was sent to Michillimackinac, and thence to the remoter tribes of the north and west. The governor and his partner, La Chesnaye, sent up a fleet of thirty canoes; ⁸⁶ and, a little later, they are reported to have sent more than a hundred. This forest trade robbed the colonists, by forestalling the annual market of Montreal; while a considerable part of the furs acquired by it were secretly sent to the English and Dutch of New York. Thus the heavy duties of the custom-house at Quebec were evaded; and silver coin was received in payment, instead of questionable bills of exchange. ⁸⁷ Frontenac had not been faithful to his trust; but, compared to his successor, he was a model of official virtue.

La Barre busied himself with ostentatious preparation for war; built vessels at Fort Frontenac, and sent up fleets of canoes, laden or partly laden with munitions. But his accusers say that the king's canoes were used to transport the governor's goods, and that the men sent to garrison Fort Frontenac were destined, not to fight the Iroquois, but to sell them brandy. "Last year," writes the intendant, "Monsieur de la Barre had a vessel built, for which he made his Majesty pay heavily;" and he proceeds to say that it was built for trade, and was used for no other purpose. "If," he continues, "the two (king's) vessels now at Fort Frontenac had not been used for trading, they would have saved us half the expense we have been forced to incur in transporting munitions and supplies. The pretended necessity of having vessels at this fort, and the consequent employing of carpenters, and sending up of iron, cordage, sails, and many other things, at his Majesty's charge, was simply in the view of carrying on trade." He says, farther, that in May last, the vessels, canoes, and men being nearly all absent on this errand, the fort was left in so defenceless a state that a party of Senecas, returning from their winter hunt, took from it a quantity of goods, and drank as much brandy as they wanted. "In short," he concludes, "it is plain that Monsieur de la Barre uses this fort only as a depot for the trade of Lake Ontario." ⁸⁸

In the spring of 1683, La Barre had taken a step as rash as it was lawless and unjust. He sent the Chevalier de Baugis, lieutenant of his guard, with a considerable number of canoes and men, to seize La Salle's fort of St. Louis on the river Illinois; a measure which, while gratifying the passions and the greed of himself and his allies, would greatly increase he danger of rupture with the Iroquois. Late in the season, he despatched seven canoes and fourteen men, with goods to the value of fifteen or sixteen thousand livres, to trade with the tribes of the Mississippi. As he had sown, so he reaped. The seven canoes passed through the country of the Illinois. A large war party of Senecas and Cayugas invaded it in February. La Barre had told their chiefs that they were welcome to plunder the canoes of La Salle. The Iroquois were not discriminating. They fell upon the governor's canoes, seized all the goods, and captured the men. ⁸⁹ Then they attacked Baugis at Fort St. Louis. The place, perched on a rock, was strong, and they were beaten off; but the act was one of open war.

When La Barre heard the news, he was furious. ⁹⁰ He trembled for the vast amount of goods which he and his fellow-speculators had sent to Michillimackinac and the lakes. There was but one resource: to call out the militia, muster the Indian allies, advance to Lake Ontario, and dictate peace to the Senecas, at the head of an imposing force; or, failing in this, to attack and crush them. A small vessel lying at Quebec was despatched to France, with urgent appeals for immediate aid, though there was little hope that it could arrive in time. She bore a long letter, half piteous, half bombastic, from La Barre to the king. He declared that extreme necessity and the despair of the people had forced him into war, and protested that he should always think it a privilege to lay down life for his Majesty. "I cannot refuse to your country of Canada, and your faithful subjects, to throw myself, with unequal forces, against the foe, while at the same time begging your aid for a poor, unhappy people on the point of falling victims to a nation of barbarians." He says that the total number of men in Canada capable of bearing arms is about two thousand; that he received last year a hundred and fifty raw recruits; and that he wants, in addition, seven or eight hundred good soldiers. "Recall me," he concludes, "if you will not help me, for I cannot bear to see the country perish in my hands." At the same time, he declares his intention to attack the Senecas, with or without help, about the middle of August. ⁹¹

Here we leave him, for a while, scared, excited, and blustering.