was extremely well received; though one speaker reminded him that he had
forgotten one important point, inasmuch as he had not told them at what
prices they could obtain goods at Cataraqui. Frontenac evaded a precise
answer, but promised them that the goods should be as cheap as possible,
in view of the great difficulty of transportation. As to the request
concerning their children, they said that they could not accede to it till
they had talked the matter over in their villages; but it is a striking
proof of the influence which Frontenac had gained over them, that, in the
following year, they actually sent several of their children to Quebec to
be educated, the girls among the Ursulines, and the boys in the household
of the Governor.

Three days after the council, the Iroquois set out on their return; and,
as the palisades of the fort were now finished, and the barracks nearly
so, Frontenac began to send his party homeward by detachments. He himself
was detained, for a time, by the arrival of another band of Iroquois, from
the villages on the north side of Lake Ontario. He repeated to them the
speech he had made to the others; and, this final meeting over, embarked
with his guard, leaving a sufficient number to hold the fort, which was to
be provisioned for a year by means of a convoy, then on its way up the
river. Passing the rapids safely, he reached Montreal on the first of
August.

His enterprise had been a complete success. He had gained every point,
and, in spite of the dangerous navigation, had not lost a single canoe.
Thanks to the enforced and gratuitous assistance of the inhabitants, the
whole had cost the king only about ten thousand francs, which Frontenac
had advanced on his own credit. Though, in a commercial point of view, the
new establishment was of very questionable benefit to the colony at large,
the Governor had, nevertheless, conferred an inestimable blessing on all