how the conquest of Canada was postponed by the lack of cohesion among the English colonies. Selfishness and mutual jealousy prevented them from combining against the common foe. Save for this disunion and fancied conflict of interest, New France must have succumbed long before the time of Montcalm. But the vital significance of the conflict between New England and New France lies in the contrast of their spirit and institutions. The English race has extended itself through the world because it possessed the genius of emigration. The French colonist did his work magnificently in the new home. But the conditions in the old home were unfavourable to emigration. The Huguenots, the one class of the population with a strong motive for emigrating, were excluded from Canada in the interest of orthodoxy. The dangers of the Atlantic and the hardships of life in a wintry wilderness might well deter the ordinary French peasant; moreover, it by no means rested with him to say whether he would go or stay. But, whatever their nature, the French race lost a wonderful opportunity through the causes which prevented a healthy, steady exodus to America.

England profited by having classes of people

sufficiently well educated to form independent opinions and strong enough to carry out the programme dictated by these opinions. While each of the English colonies sprang from a different motive, all had in common the purpose to form an effective settlement. The fur trade did France more harm than good. It deflected her attention from the middle to the northern latitudes and lured her colonists from the land in search of quick profits. It was the enemy to the home. On the other hand, the English came to America primarily in search of a home. Profits they sought, like other people, but they sought them chiefly from the soil.

Thus English ideas took root in America, gained new vitality, and assumed an importance they had not possessed in England for many centuries. And, while for the moment the organization of the English colonies was not well suited to offensive war, as we may judge from the abortive efforts of Phips and Schuyler, this defect could be corrected. Arising, as it did arise, from a lack of unity among the colonies, it was even indicative of latent strength. From one angle, localism seems selfishness and weakness; from another, it shows the vigorous life of separate com

munities, each self-centred and jealous of its authority because the local instinct is so vitally active. It only needed time to broaden the outlook and give the English colonies a sense of their common interest. Virginia, New York, and Massachusetts, by striking their roots each year more deeply into the soil of America, became more and more self-supporting states in everything save name and political allegiance; while New France, which with its austere climate would have developed more slowly in any case, remained dependent on the king's court.

Thus Frontenac's task was quite hopeless, if we define it as the effort to overthrow English power in America. But neither he nor any one of that age defined his duties so widely. In 1689 Canada was in extremes, with the Iroquois at Lachine and Dongan threatening an attack from New York. Frontenac's policy was defensive. If he struck first, it was because he considered audacity to be his best safeguard. No one knew better than Frontenac that a successful raid does not mean conquest.

CHAPTER VIII

FRONTENAC'S LAST DAYS

THOUGH the English might withdraw from Quebec, New France always had the Iroquois with her. We must now pursue the thread of Frontenac's dealings with the savages from the moment when he replaced Denonville.

It requires no flight of the imagination to appreciate the rage Frontenac must have felt when, on returning to Canada, he saw before his eyes the effects of La Barre's rapacity and Denonville's perfidy, of which the massacres of Lachine and La Chesnaye furnished the most ghastly proofs. But in these two cases the element of tragedy was so strong as to efface the mood of exasperation. There remained a third incident which must have provoked pure rage. This was the destruction of Fort Frontenac, blown up, at Denonville's order, by the French themselves (October 1689). The erection and maintenance of this post had been a cardinal point in Frontenac's

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Indian policy; and, more particularly to aggravate the offence, there was the humiliating fact that Denonville had ordered it demolished to comply with a demand from the Iroquois. This shameful concession had been made shortly before Frontenac reached Canada. It was Denonville's last important act in the colony. On the chance that something might have occurred to delay execution of the order, Frontenac at once countermanded it and sent forward an ex

pedition of three hundred men. But they were too late. His beloved fortress was gone. The only comfort which Frontenac could derive from the incident was that the work of destruction had been carried out imperfectly. There remained a portion of the works which could still be used.

Thus with regard to the Iroquois the situation was far worse in 1689 than it had been when Frontenac came to Canada in 1672. Everything which he had done to conciliate the Five Nations had been undone; and Dongan's intelligent activities, coinciding with this long series of French mistakes, had helped to make matters worse. Nor was it now merely a question of the Iroquois. The whole Indian world had been convulsed by the re