For the earlier history of New France the reader is
referred to three other volumes in this Series--The
Founder of New France, The Seigneurs of Old Canada, and
The Jesuit Missions.] but his first attempts had been
unlucky, and later on his powerful mind was diverted to
other plans and achievements and he became absorbed in
the wider field of European politics. To the shackles of
commercial greed, to forgetfulness on the part of the
mother country, had been added the curse of Indian wars.
During twenty-five years the daring and ferocious Iroquois
had been the constant scourge of the handful of settlers,
traders, and missionaries. Champlain's successors in the
office of governor, Montmagny, Ailleboust, Lauzon,
Argenson, Avaugour, had no military force adequate to
the task of meeting and crushing these formidable foes.
Year after year the wretched colony maintained its struggle
for existence amidst deadly perils, receiving almost no
help from France, and to all appearance doomed to
destruction. To make things worse, internal strife
exercised its disintegrating influence; there was contention
among the leaders in New France over the vexed question
of the liquor traffic. In the face of so many adverse
circumstances--complete lack of means, cessation of
immigration from the mother country, the perpetual menace
of the bloody Iroquois incursions, a dying trade, and a
stillborn agriculture--how could the colony be kept alive
at all? Spiritual and civil authorities, the governor
and the bishop, the Jesuits and the traders, all united
in petitioning for assistance. But the motherland was
far away, and European wars and rivalries were engrossing