194 VILLEMAEIE DE MONTREAL. [1640. 



return for the money expended. Their profit was 

 to be reaped in the skies : and, indeed, there was 

 none to be reaped on earth. The feeble settlement 

 at Quebec was at this time in danger of utter ruin : 

 for the Iroquois, enraged at the attacks made on 

 them by Champlain, had begun a fearful course of 

 retaliation, and the very existence of the colony 

 trembled in the balance. But if Quebec was ex- 

 posed to their ferocious inroads, Montreal was in- 

 comparably more so. A settlement here would 

 be a perilous outpost, — a hand thrust into the 

 jaws of the tiger. It would provoke attack, and 

 lie almost in the path of the war-parties. The 

 associates could gain nothing by the fur-trade ; for 

 they would not be allowed to share in it. On the 

 other hand, danger apart, the place was an excel- 

 lent one for a mission ; for here met two great 

 rivers : the St. Lawrence, with its countless tribu- 

 taries, flowed in from the west, while the Ottawa 

 descended from the north ; and Montreal, embraced 

 by their uniting waters, was the key to a vast in- 

 land navigation. Thither the Indians would nat- 

 urally resort ; and thence the missionaries could 

 make their way into the heart of a boundless 

 heathendom. None of the ordinary motives of 

 colonization had part in this design. It owed its 

 conception and its birth to religious zeal alone. 



The island of Montreal belonged to Lauson, for- 

 mer president of the great company of the Hun- 

 dred Associates ; and, as we have seen, his son 

 had a monopoly of fishing in the St. Lawrence. 

 Dauversiere and Fancamp, after much diplomacy. 



