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CHAPTER III. The French in Canada—Champlain Attacks the Iroquois— Quebec a Military Post—Weak Efforts at Colonization— Fur-traders and Missiquaries-The Foundation of New France—The French King Claims from the Upper Lakes to the Sea—Slow Growth of the French Colonies—Mixing with the Savages—The " Coureurs de Bois." Although the French navigator, Jacques Cartier, had sailed up the St. Lawrence as early as 1534, it was not until 1608—the year after the foundation of Jamestown—that Samuel de Champlaiu effected a permanent settlement at Quebec. It happened that the Indians of the St. Lawrence region were at bitter enmity with the Iroquois, or Five Nations, who lived in the present State of New York, arid this enmity had no small influence in deciding the subsequent duel between France and England for empire in North America. Champlain accepted the St. Lawrence Indians as allies, and consented to lead a war party against the Iroquois. lu 1609, the year after the settlement of Quebec, Champlain entered the lake which bears his name, accompanied by a number of the St. Lawrence Indians, and engaged the Iroquois in battle. The warriors of the Five Nations were brave, but the white man's gun was too much for them, and when two of their chiefs fell dead, pierced by a shot from Champlain's weapon, they turned and fled. The French thus won the friendship of the Canadian Indians and the undying hatred of the Five Nations, and the latter therefore stood faithfully by first the Dutch, and later the English in the establishment of their power at Manhattan. Quebec continued for many years to be hardly more than a military post. At the time ofChamplain's death, in 1635, there was, says Winsor, a fortress with a few small guns on thecliffs of Cape Diamond. Along the foot of the precipice was...
