THE HOPES OF NEW FRANCE. 447 



writes the Father Superior, " to return to the com- 

 bat at the first sound of the trumpet ; " ^ while of 

 those who remained, about twenty in number, sev- 

 eral soon fell victims to famine, hardship, and the 

 Iroquois. A few years more, and Canada ceased 

 to be a mission ; political and commercial interests 

 gradually became ascendant, and the story of Jesuit 

 propagandism was interwoven with her civil and 

 military annals. 



Here, then, closes this wild and bloody act of the 

 great drama of New France ; and now let the cur- 

 tain fall, while we ponder its meaning. 



The cause of the failure of the Jesuits is obvious. 

 The guns and tomahawks of the Iroquois were the 

 ruin of theij* hopes. Could they have curbed or 

 converted those ferocious bands, it is little less than 

 certain that their dream would have become a real- 

 ity. Savages tamed — not civilized, for that was 

 scarcely possible — would have been distributed 

 in communities through the valleys of the Great 

 Lakes and the Mississippi, ruled by priests in the 

 interest of Catholicity and of France. Their habits 

 of agriculture would have been developed, and their 

 instincts of mutual slaughter repressed. The swift 

 decline of the Indian population would have been 

 arrested; and it would have been made, through 

 the fur-trade, a source of prosperity to New France. 

 Unmolested by Indian enemies, and fed by a rich 

 commerce, she would have put forth a vigorous 

 growth. True to her far-reaching and adventurous 

 genius, she would have occupied the West Avith 



1 Lettre de Lalemant au R. P. Provincial {Relation, 1650, 48). 



