See
Appendix A. In spite of Piquet's self-laudation, and in spite also of
the detraction of the author of the _Memoires sur le Canada,_ 1749-1760,
there can be no doubt of his practical capacity and his fertility of
resource. Duquesne, when governor of the colony, highly praises "ses
talents et son activite pour le service de Sa Majeste."]
The letter from which this is taken was written to urge upon the
Government a scheme in which the zealous priest could see nothing
impracticable. He proposed to raise a war-party of thirty-eight hundred
Indians, eighteen hundred of whom were to be drawn from the Canadian
missions, the Five Nations, and the tribes of the Ohio, while the
remaining two thousand were to be furnished by the Flatheads, or
Choctaws, who were at the same time to be supplied with missionaries.
The united force was first to drive the English from the Ohio, and next
attack the Dog Tribe, or Cherokees, who lived near the borders of
Virginia, with the people of which they were on friendly terms. "If,"
says Piquet, "the English of Virginia give any help to this last-named
tribe,--which will not fail to happen,--they [_the war-party_] will do
their utmost against them, through a grudge they bear them by reason of
some old quarrels." In other words, the missionary hopes to set a host
of savages to butchering English settlers in time of peace![34] His
wild project never took effect, though the Governor, he says, at first
approved it.
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