328 PRIEST AND PURITAN. [1650-51 



Druilletes was evidently struck with the thrift 

 and vigor of these sturdy young colonies, and the 

 strength of their population. He says that Boston, 

 meaning Massachusetts, could alone furnish four 

 thousand fighting men, and that the four united 

 colonies could count forty thousand souls. ^ These 

 numbers may be challenged ; but, at all events, the 

 contrast was striking with the attenuated and suf- 

 fering bands of priests, nuns, and fur-traders on 

 the St. Lawrence. About twenty-one thousand per- 

 sons had come from Old to New England, with 

 the resolve of making it their home ; and though 

 this immigration had virtually ceased, the natural 

 increase had been great. The necessity, or the 

 strong desire, of escaping from persecution had 

 given the impulse to Puritan colonization ; while, 

 on the other hand, none but good Catholics, the 

 favored class of France, were tolerated in Canada. 

 These had no motive for exchanging the comforts 

 of home and the smiles of Fortune for a starving 

 wilderness and the scalping-knives of the Iroquois. 

 The Huguenots would have emigrated in swarms ; 

 but they were rigidly forbidden. The zeal of propa- 

 gandism and the fur-trade were, as we have seen, 

 the vital forces of New France. Of her feeble 

 population, the best part was bound to perpetual 

 chastity ; while the fur-traders and those in their 



du Voyage faict pour la Mission des Ahenaquois, el des Connoissances tirez de la 

 Nouvdle Angleterre et des Dispositions des Magistrats de cette Repuhlique pour 

 le Secours contre les Iroquois. See also Druilletes, Rapport sur le Resultat deses 

 Negotiations, in Ferland, Notes sur les Registres, 95. 



1 Druilletes, Reflexions touchant ce qu'on peut esperer de la Nouvelle Angl» 

 terre contre I'Irocquois (sic), appended to his journal. 



