chains, wore a belt with more than 1,200 sharp points, and indulged in other such religious luxuries for the comfort of his soul, had a revelation. While at his devotions, an inward voice commanded him to found a new order of hospital nuns, and to establish, on the island called Montreal, in Canada, a hospital to be conducted by them. About the same time Jacques Olier, a young priest, afterwards the founder of the seminary of S. Sulpice, was told, in a similar manner and under like circumstances, that he was destined to be a light to the Gentiles, and, further, that he was to form a society of priests and establish it on an island in Canada, called Montreal. The two men were entire strangers to one another, and neither had any knowledge of Canadian geography; but they became miraculously acquainted with all the details of the situation and surroundings of Montreal, and as soon as they met, apparently by chance, each immediately recognised the other and knew the design in his mind. Montreal was a wilderness without inhabitants, so that it would have seemed to an ordinary mind that a hospital there was a superfluity. Nevertheless, Olier found some money, more was obtained from the faithful, arrangements were made with Lauson, the nominal owner of the island and fisheries, and an expedition of forty men, commanded by the devout and valiant Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, was despatched to take possession. Another miraculous introduction had provided Mdlle. Jeanne Mauce, an honourable lady on the shady side of thirty, to accompany the adventurers as nurse and housekeeper. In spite of difficulties thrown in its way by the governor and Jesuit community of Quebec, the little band reached the island, and in 1642, just 100 years after Cartier's last visit, laid the foundations of Villemarie de Montreal. For some time the infant town escaped the notice of the hostile Iroquois, and when they at last found it, it was so far strongly fortified as to afford security to those within it.

In 1654 the Swedish Governor of Fort Christina on the Delaware, between surprise and treachery, captured the Dutch Fort Casimir, on the site of Newcastle, on the same river. In the following year Stuyvesant (Peter the headstrong), the third and last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam, recaptured Fort Casimir, reduced Fort Christina, and annexed New Sweden to the New Netherlands. Ten years later New Amsterdam and the New Netherlands, were in their turn annexed by England, and New Amsterdam became New York, and Orange, Albany.

In 1663 the province of Carolina, extending from 36° N. Lat. to the River San Matheo, was formed and Clarendon, the Duke of Albemarle, Lord Craven, Ashley Cooper, (the future Earl of Shaftesbury), and others, were made its proprietors and rulers. A constitution was drawn up, by John Locke, on the broadest and most liberal lines with regard to religious toleration and liberty of conscience. The original grant covered the space between 31° and 36° N. Lat. from the Atlantic and the Pacific, and included the countries afterwards known as South Carolina and Georgia, and many others. In 1670, the proprietors despatched an expedition, under West and Sayle, to settle further south, and a separate Government was established for South Carolina. In 1680, William Penn, son of Admiral Sir William Penn, the conqueror of Jamaica (who died leaving to his son a claim of £16,000 on the Government) obtained a charter for the territory of Pennsylvania; the Duke of York afterwards sold to him Newcastle and Delaware, and in 1682 an effective settlement was made by him. The Quaker colony remained the property of the Penn family until the American War of Independence, but Delaware was detached, and made an independent colony in 1702.

Meanwhile the French, from their stations on the St. Lawrence, had been pushing their trade with the Indians, and converting them to Christianity. The brave Jesuits never hesitated to obey orders to penetrate the wildest and most dangerous regions, and in this way Father Marquette, accompanied by Joliét, had visited the valleys of the Illinois and Mississippi. In 1682, Robert Cavalier de la Salle, a Frenchman, educated by the Jesuits, but of too masterful and independent a spirit to submit to the narrow and degrading discipline of the order, abandoning a life of easy independence, started from Montreal, explored Lakes Ontario, Erie, St. Clair and Michigan, descended the Illinois river to its junction with the Mississippi (Father of Waters), and followed the latter stream to its mouth. He claimed the territory for France and named it Louisiana. Two years later the brave and unfortunate explorer sailed from La Rochelle, with about 280 persons, including 100 soldiers, some skilled artisans and young women, intending to form a settlement near the mouth of the river. The story of this disastrous undertaking, and of the brutal and treacherous murder of La Salle by some of his own followers, is recorded by M. Joutel, an officer who accompanied him. Hennepin, priest, liar and traitor, claimed to have preceded him in his discoveries, but his imposture has been detected and exposed.

Between 1724 and 1731 Vermont, lying between the English colonies of New York and New Hampshire, was settled by the French. In 1732 Georgia was settled by General Oglethorpe.

It will be seen by a glance at the sketch map at the end of this note how the province of New York, which is mainly the subject of the map engraved upon the horn, lay with respect to the English and French colonies. in 1755, at the beginning of the Seven years' war, and how its situation marked it as a battlefield between the contending nations. But a modern map, with its clearly marked boundaries of Canada and the States, gives no idea of the confusion then existing. The western boundaries of the English colonies were ill-defined, or not defined at all. Both countries claimed the whole continent by right of discovery. They were equally land-robbers as regarded the Indians; but the proverb that "when thieves fall out "honest men come by their own," has been falsified in America.

THE

CHAPTER III.

THE NATIVE RACES AND THE FUR TRADE.

HE 12th October, 1492, was an unhappy day for the then inhabitants of America and the Islands. The peaceful natives of Hispaniola, for example, were in fifteen years reduced in numbers from at least 1,000,000 to 60,000; they were worked to death, starved, tortured, and driven to suicide by the revolting cruelty of the Spaniards. The conquests of Mexico and Peru are proverbial examples of the worst kinds of treachery and sanguinary ferocity on the part of conquerors. But the Spaniards were not singular in their evil doings. Many of the early voyagers seem to have kidnapped the natives as a matter of course, either to sell them or to keep them in slavery. Columbus, Hojeda, Cortereal, Ovando, Ayllon, Cartier and Waymouth did it. There is a wonderful unanimity in the earlier accounts of the natives with respect to their peaceful and friendly demeanour towards the white man, but what wonder that, when the character of these eastern barbarians was discovered by the western savage, friendly sentiments ceased, and exploration became possible only for armed men.

But, notwithstanding this unfortunate beginning of intercourse, both the French and the English in later years, succeeded in forming valuable alliances with many of the northern tribes. The two nations dealt with their redskinned hosts in somewhat different ways-the French spoke them fair, disclaimed all intention of taking their lands, flattered them, baptized them, and gave them religious toys, which pleased the vanity of the savage, but they gave them not so good value for their furs as the English did. The English on the other hand treated the Indians as inferiors, made no secret of their intention to possess the land, for which, however, they paid, and trusted by fair barter to get their share of the valuable trade in furs.

Between the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario on the north-west, Lake Champlain on the east, and a line drawn south of the Mohawk, and Lakes Seneca and Onondaga on the south, dwelt the Iroquois, a powerful confederation of tribes known as "The Five Nations." They consisted of the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida and Mohawk tribes, all probably

originally forming one family, which, having been broken into sections by internal dissensions, was wise enough to reunite for mutual protection and support against their rivals the Hurons. In 1715 the confederation was joined by the Tuscaroras, and was afterwards known as " The Six Nations." The Iroquois, undoubtedly the strongest among Indian nations, became an important factor in shaping the history of Indian influence in North America. As we have seen, Champlain in 1609 and the following years, had succeeded in alienating these powerful tribes by somewhat wanton attacks upon them. The Frenchmen, clad in armour and armed with arquebusses, made great havoc among the Indians, who, hitherto unconquered, were overmatched in a kind of fighting new to them. From this cause, and others connected with trade, the Iroquois became the friends of England, and proved most valuable allies in the struggle between the two European nations.

On either side of Niagara lay the country of the Attiwandarons, called "the neutral nation," on account of their abstention from taking part in the wars between the Hurons and Iroquois.

Between Lakes Huron, Ontario and Nipissing was the country of the Hurons, a nation on the same high level with the Iroquois, as compared with other native races, and of the same linguistic stock.

On the north of the Ottawa, extending eastward into the New England States were the Algonquins, nomadic and unsettled, and, both physically and intellectually, inferior to the Hurons and Iroquois.

The Hurons, Algonquins, with the Micmacs, Abenakis, &c., of Acadia besides many other tribes further from the field of the map on the horn, became the allies of the French.

As allies, however, the Indians were only to be depended upon so long as fortune favoured the side they had chosen. Astute and crafty, though strictly honourable according to his lights, the Indian had almost as good an idea of taking care of No. 1 as the European. Nevertheless, he was often shamefully imposed upon and overreached, and cannot be blamed if, when taught by experience, he paid the Europeans in their own coin. Intensely proud he was also; and this was a dangerous quality for his allies. A fancied slight, or a suspicion of wrong, would cause an Indian force to withdraw from a battle at the most critical moment, without regard to the consequences to its friends.