vitality was imported into the little colony. Soon after this time,
Champlain committed the most impolitic act of his life. The Hurons,
Algonquins and other tribes of the St. Lawrence and the Ottawa, resolved
upon taking the war-path against their enemies, the Iroquois, or Five
Nations--the boldest, fiercest, and most powerful confederacy known to
Indian history. Champlain, ever since his arrival in the country, had done
his utmost to win the favour of the natives with whom he was brought more
immediately into contact, and he deemed that by joining them in opposing
the Iroquois, who were a standing menace to his colony, he would knit the
Hurons and Algonquins to the side of the King of France by permanent and
indissoluble ties. To some extent he was right, but he underestimated
the strength of the foe, an alliance with whom would have been of more
importance than an alliance with all the other Indian tribes of New France.
Champlain cast in his lot with the Hurons and Algonquins, and accompanied
them on their expedition against their enemies. By so doing he invoked the
deadly animosity of the latter against the French for all time to come. He
did not forsee that by this one stroke of policy he was paving the way for
a subsequent alliance between the Iroquois and the English.

On May 28th, 1609, in company with his Indian allies, he started on the
expedition, the immediate results of which were so insignificant--the
remote results of which were so momentous. The war-party embarked in
canoes, ascended the St. Lawrence to the mouth of the Richelieu--then
called the River of the Iroquois--and thence up the latter stream to the
lake which Champlain beheld for the first time, and which until that day
no European eye had ever looked upon. This picturesque sheet of water
was thenceforward called after him, and in its name his own is still
perpetuated. The party held on their course to the head waters of the lake,
near to which several Iroquois villages were situated. The enemy's scouts
received intelligence of the approach of the invaders, and advanced to