said and done, the truest friends that the North American Indian has
ever had.

The effects of the fur trade upon both Indians and French were
far-reaching. The trade changed the red man's order of life, took him
in a single generation from the stone to the iron age, demolished his
old notions of the world, carried him on long journeys, and made him a
different man. French brandy and English rum sapped his stamina, and
the _grand libertinage_ of the traders calloused whatever moral sense
he had. His folklore, his religion, and his institutions made no
progress after the trader had once entered his territories.

On the French the effects of tribal commerce were not so disastrous,
though pernicious enough. The trade drew off into the wilderness the
vigorous blood of the colony. It cast its spell over New France from
Lachine to the Saguenay. Men left their farms, their wives, and their
families, they mortgaged their property, and they borrowed from their
friends in order to join the annual hegira to the West. Yet very few
of these traders accumulated fortunes. It was not the trader but the
merchant at Montreal or Quebec who got the lion's share of the profit
and took none of the risks. Many of the _coureurs-de-bois_ entered the
trade with ample funds and emerged in poverty. Nicholas Perrot
and Greysolon Du Lhut were conspicuous examples. It was a highly
speculative game. At times large profits came easily and were spent
recklessly. The trade encouraged profligacy, bravado, and garishness;
it deadened the moral sense of the colony, and even schooled men in
trickery and peculation. It was a corrupting influence in the official
life of New France, and even governors could not keep from soiling
their hands in it. But most unfortunate of all, the colony was
impelled to put its economic energies into what was at best an