De Lancey, acting governor when the letter arrived, soon dispatched invitations to Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, requesting that they send delegates to discuss the crisis in Indian affairs and, above all, repair the vital Iroquois alliance.

The Board of Trade and Plantations, in London, despite its distance from the scene, its customary focus on the bottom line, and the fact that they had neither spoken with nor laid eyes on the Native Americans, proved to have a remarkably accurate and sensitive perception of how the Iroquois alliance had gone wrong. In their letter to the governor, the Lords laid the blame squarely on officials of the province of New York for being “so inattentive to the general interest of his Majesty’s subjects in America,as well as to their own particular security” in ignoring complaints made by the Indians. Then, referring to the angry departure of Chief Hendrick and the Mohawks from their meeting with the governor, they condemned “the dissatisfactory answers given to the Indians” and the inexcusable failure to redress their grievances.

The instructions from the Lords of Trade made it clear to De Lancey that it was up to him to restore the alliance with the Six Nations, which was crucial to “all his Majesty’s Colonies and Plantations in America in general, as well as to New York in particular.” He was told to select delegates well acquainted with the Indians and their customs and interpreters who were men of ability and integrity, versed in the Indian language. Since it