FOUR DAYS AT DETROIT. 291 



mandiog as it does a rich tract of country and lying at 

 the very entrance to the Upper Lakes. The Iroquois 

 were then in possession and their village was known 

 as Teuslia Grondi. Both the English and French 

 coveted this point, but the latter were more enterpris- 

 ing, and anticipated their rivals by making an ap- 

 pointment with the Iroquois for a great council at 

 Montreal, in which the Governor-General of Canada 

 and others were to have a voice. The wary Frenchmen 

 presented their claims very plausibly, but failed to win 

 the approbation of the equally wary Indians. They 

 were told that their brothers, the Englishmen, had 

 been refused, and that it was not well to show par- 

 tiality ; but this excuse had very little weight with the 

 subjects of the Grande Monarque, who had been ac- 

 customed to make themselves at home generally. The 

 Governor-General in an impressive speech replied that 

 neither the Iroquois nor the English had any right to 

 the land which belonged to the King of France, and 

 that an expedition had been already sent out to estab- 

 lish a fort on the Detroit River! 



This was indeed the case. La Motte Cadillac, with 

 a Jesuit missionary and one hundred men, was on his 

 way, while his countrymen, with the consistency which 

 has ever marked the dealings between the red and 

 white races, were asking permission of the Indians. 

 The French fleet, composed of twenty-five birch canoes 

 bearing the colors of France, reached the Detroit 

 Kiver in July, 1701. There was a telling significance 

 in the floatino; of that flaa: over the boats decorated 

 with Indian symbols and, if Che savages had discerned 

 it, the French commander and his followers would 

 never have reached their destination. As it was, they 



