ave willed it, who are you, that you should gainsay Him?"

The affair of Montreal stood, like that of Quebec; New France was
founded, in spite of the sufferings of the early colonists, thanks to
their courage, their fervent enthusiasm, and the support afforded them by
the religious zeal of their friends in Europe. The Jesuit missionaries
every day extended their explorations, sharing with M. de La Salle the
glory of the great discoveries of the West. Champlain had before this
dreamed of and sought for a passage across the continent, leading to the
Southern seas and permitting of commerce with India and Japan. La Salle,
in his intrepid expeditions, discovered Ohio and Illinois, navigated the
great lakes, crossed the Mississippi, which the Jesuits had been the
first to reach, and pushed on as far as Texas. Constructing forts in the
midst of the savage districts, taking possession of Louisiana in the name
of King Louis XIV., abandoned by the majority of his comrades and losing
the most faithful of them by death, attacked by savages, betrayed by his
own men, thwarted in his projects by his enemies and his rivals, this
indefatigable explorer fell at last beneath the blows of a few mutineers,
in 1687, just as he was trying to get back to New France; he left the
field open after him to the innumerable travellers of every nation and
every language who were one day to leave their mark on those measureless
tracts. Everywhere, in the western regions of the American continent,
the footsteps of the French, either travellers or missionaries, preceded
the boldest adventurers. It is the glory and the misfortune of France to
always lead the van in the march of civilization, without having the wit
to profit by the discoveries and the sagacious boldness of her children.
On the unknown roads which she has opened to the human mind and to human
enterprise she has often left the fruits to be gathered by nations less
inventive and less able than she, but more persevering and less perturbed
by a confusion of desires and an incessant renewal of hopes.

The treaty of Utrecht had taken out of French hands the gates of Canada,
Acadia, and Newfoundland. It was now in the neighborhood of New France
that the power of England was rising, growing rapidly through the
development of her colonies, usurping little by little the empire of the
seas. Canada was prospering, however; during the long wars which the
condition of Europe had kept up in Americ