the others.

With regard to the upper river and the territory of the numerous tribes
of Indians visited by Monsieur de Champlain and Father Joseph
themselves, or by others, besides possessing an abundance of game, which
might attract the French there in hopes of trade, the land was much more
fertile and the climate more congenial than in the Indian country down
the river. The upper river Indians, such as the Algonquins, Iroquois,
Hurons, Nipissirini, Neuters, Fire Nation, were sedentary, generally
docile, susceptible of instruction, charitable, strong, robust, patient;
insensible, however, and indifferent to all that concerns salvation;
lascivious, and so material that when told that their soul was immortal,
they would ask what they would eat after death in the next world. In
general, none of the savages whom they had known had any idea of a
divinity, believing, nevertheless, in another world where they hoped to
enjoy the same pleasures as they took here below--a people, in short,
without subordination, law or form of government or system, gross in
religious matters, shrewd and crafty for trade and profit, but
superstitious to excess.

It was the opinion of the council that none could ever succeed in
converting them, unless they made them men before they made them
Christians. To civilize them it was necessary first that the French
should mingle with them and habituate them to their presence and mode of
life, which could be done only by the increase of the colony, the
greatest obstacle to which was on the part of the gentlemen of the
company, who, to monopolize trade, did not wish the country to be
settled, and did not even wish to make the Indians sedentary, which was
the only condition favourable to the salvation of these heathen.