man and a woman. In response, Memeskia had three captured French soldiers killed, cut off the ears of a fourth prisoner, and sent him back to Canada as a warning to the Governor of New France. The Governor General of New France, Jacques-Pierre de Taffanel de la Jonquière, immediately began preparing another attack on Pickawillany, but plans were incomplete when he died on 17 March 1752. His successor, Charles III Le Moyne, Baron de Longueuil, worked unsuccessfully to put together a force of French troops and Indian warriors to attack the town again. The French were unable to persuade Ottawa leaders to launch an attack on Pickawillany, even though spies reported on the numbers of fighting men and defenses of the town: "They are 140 men, the others eighty, and have but two English among them without cannon or artillery." On 23 May 1752, Lieutenant John Mills wrote to Pennsylvania Governor James Hamilton to inform him "By some foreign Indians, just arrived, I am told that ... [Monsieur St. Orr, a French officer] is gone back to Canada to conduct an Army back, to be employed against them [the Twightwees]." Hamilton was skeptical, but in any case did not have the power to send assistance to the Miami Indians at Pickawillany without the approval of the Pennsylvania Provincial Council, and no action was taken. Raid on Pickawillany, 1752 In the winter of 1751–1752, Charles Michel de Langlade, a 23-year-old Métis coureur de bois seeking to advance his military career, began assembling a war party of French-allied Ottawa, Potawatomi, and Ojibwe warriors, traveling as far as Saginaw Bay to enlist the support of Ottawa there. Langlade knew that the Governor of New France had been trying to implement a plan to attack and destroy the village, but that he had been unable to recruit Indian warriors. Langlade was well-connected to the Ottawa (his maternal grandfather was Nissowaquet, an Ottawa war chief), and spoke the Odawa dialect fluently. He was able to persuade Ottawa warriors to attack Pickawillany by characterizing the raid as a gesture of friendship towards Onontio, the French governor. Langlade's plan to attack Pickawillany was carried out without the knowledge of the Canadian government. At the time of the raid he was only a cadet in the colonial regulars, and held no official rank. On 7 June, Langlade and a force of 272 Ottawa reached Detroit, where about 30