of the English, ahnost without arms or provisions, by the glory 

 of his name and the energy of his courage, and only capitulated 

 his famishing garrison, when the last hope of relief had failed. 

 Having suppressed the Indian excitements which had agitated his 

 provinces, and amply assented and perfected the dominion of his 

 Sovereign over the empire he had founded, Champlain died ia 

 1635 and is commemorated in the annals of the country he serv- 

 ed, so ably and with such fidelity, as " the father of New France.'^ 



CHAPTER XL 



TO THE OCCUPATION OF CROWN POINT EY FRANCE. 



I am not aware that any evidence exists that the environs of 

 Lake Charnplain vritnessed the missionary labors of the Jesuits ; 

 but we can with difficulty believe, that a region so neai* and acces- 

 sible, would have been unexplored by the deep devotion and 

 -ardent enthusiasm, which impelled them to bear the cross and to 

 find their neophytes upon the shores of Lake Superior. 



The policy of Champlain, in farming an intimate alliance witk 

 the Algonquins, although successful in its immediate object, the 

 cherishing the union and affections of the tribes of New France, 

 in its results, excited the unyielding feuds and hostility of the 

 formidable Mohawks, and entailed upon the French more than a 

 century of fierce and bloody savage warfare. 



The French government, while it maintained the sovereignty 

 of New France, wielded a powerful iiitluence over all the aborigi- 

 nal tribes, within its vast limits. The preponderance of Eng- 

 land, even in the councils of the Iroquois, was often disputed by 

 France and rendered by her machinations, precarious and ineffi- 

 cient. The ^' chain of friends^iip," between France and the con- 

 federacies of the Ilurons and Algonquins never was broken or 

 became dim. The gay and joyous manners of the French 

 won the heart of the savage. The solemn grandeur, and the 

 impo^ing formulas and pomp of the Catholic rituals, attracted his 

 wonder and admiration and fascinated his senses, if they did not 

 subdue his feelingis. His appetites were pampered and his 

 wants supplied with a lavish prodigality, the result perhaps of 



