y or New
Amsterdam to trade. The rollicking _coureurs des bois_, who came to be
almost a race by themselves, added their jollity and often carried it
too far, ending in fighting and arrests.

But it was not all gayety. Up to this time there had been two terrible
attacks on the fort, and many minor ones. Attempts had been made to burn
it; sometimes the garrison almost starved in bad seasons. France, in all
her seventy years of possession, never struck the secret of colonizing.
The thrifty emigrant in want of a home where he could breathe a freer
air than on his native soil was at once refused. The Jesuit rule was
strict as to religion; the King of France would allow no laws but his
own, and looked upon his colonies as sources of revenue if any could be
squeezed out of them, sources of glory if not.

The downfall of Canada had been a sad blow. The French colonist felt it
more keenly than the people thousands of miles away, occupied with many
other things. And the bitterest of all protests was made by the Jesuits
and the Church. They had been fervent and heroic laborers, and many a
life had been bravely sacrificed for the furtherance of the work among
the Indians.

True, there had not been a cordial sympathy between the Jesuits and the
Recollets, but the latter had proved the greater favorites in Detroit.
There was now the Recollet house near the church, where they were
training young girls and teaching the catechism and the rules of the
Church, as often orally as by book, as few could read. Here were some
Indian girls from tribes that had been almost decimated in the savage
wars, some of whom were bound out afterward as servants. There were
slaves, mostly of the old Pawnee tribe, some very old, indeed; others
had married, but their children were under the ban of their parents.

With the coming of the English there was a wider liberty, a new
atmosphere, and though the French protested bitterly and could not but
believe the mother country would make some strenuous effort to recover
the territory as they temporized with the Indians and held out vague
hopes, yet, as the years passed on, they found themselves insensibly
yielding to the sway, and compelled now and then to fight for their
homes against a treacherous enemy. Mayor Gladwyn had been a hero to them
in his bravery and perseverance.

There came in a wealthier class of citizens to settle, and officials
were not wanting in showy attire. Black silk breeches and hose,