Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/845

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Hennepin's Map of Eastern North America
From "A New Discovery," by Father Hennepin

English colonies, but hostilities broke out again. Accommodations which were satisfactory to Louis and to William in Europe could not put an end to the strife between Frenchmen whose prosperity was conditioned on a free path to the West past the Iroquois, and Englishmen whose gains depended upon blocking that pathway with the assistance of the Iroquois.

In two years after the signing of the Peace of Ryswick, and after a final order of the court forbidding passes to traders of the woods, which seemed to put a stop to French expansion to the West, and therefore to spell ruin to Frontenac's plans, this most brilliant figure of the new country died, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. His work did not die with him, for it was taken up by his successor, Callières, who had been Governor of Montreal, and Frontenac's friend. The treaty of peace which Frontenac was endeavoring to force upon the Iroquois was concluded after the death of the man whom the Indians called Onontio with a different feeling and a deeper significance than they expressed when they spoke of any of his predecessors.

This, in brief, is the history of Frontenac in Canada, an outline of the condition of the country, and of the policy which he pursued with logic and with passion. This policy prevailed until, in 1759, the English troops under Wolfe mounted to the Plains of Abraham, overcame Montcalm, and raised the English flag over the ramparts of Quebec. Frontenac was the great colonial Governor of his time in America.