nd
sufficient subsistence on the island, they were compelled to form
villages on the main land, where they were again slaughtered by the
Iroquois. So inferior had they become, physically and intellectually,
if not numerically, to the Iroquois, that they resolved to put
themselves altogether under French protection. This protection the
missionaries procured for them, and a new settlement was formed at
Sillery. The Iroquois now did what they pleased. They were in full
possession of the whole country. The French were literally confined to
Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal. But that which neither French nor
Hurons could do by force, they were made to do themselves. They were
destroyed in hundreds by rum. The French appealed to their appetites.
Iroquois independence was broken in upon by a mere artifice of taste.
Furs were now bought, not with pieces of tin and strings of beads, but
with plugs of tobacco and bottles of spirits. Intoxication had its
ordinary effect. It caused these naturally hot-blooded, quarrelsome,
freemen to butcher each other, and it made them the slaves of the fur
trader, whose exertions increased as the favorite narcotic lessened the
exertions and weakened the energies of the hunter. So injurious was the
effect of the "fire water," and so obvious was the injury to the
Indians themselves, that the Chief of the domesticated Indians
petitioned the Governor, their great Father, to imprison all drunkards.
Whether or no D'Aillebout granted the request is not recorded. Probably
it was not then granted. Among the _Edits, Ordonnances Royaux,
declarations, et arrets du Counsel d'etat Roi concernant le Canada_,
nothing concerning Indian intoxication is to be found. D'Aillebout
ceased not long afterwards to be governor. In 1650 he was succeeded by
Monsieur de Lauzon. So hostile, however, had the feelings of the
Iroquois now become, that M. de Lauzon returned to France for a
detachment of soldiers. He brought out 100 men in 1653. Then the
Iroquois were disposed for peace. They begged for it. Might is right.
The power of the new Governor was acknowledged by the Iroquois. One
hundred muskets was a powerful argument against even 6,000 bows and
arrows. Frenchmen were sent among them. An Iroquois Roman Catholic
Church was founded. For two years all was tolerably quiet, but at the
end of that time the spirit of insubordination was so great that the
French, anticipating massacre, made a moon-light flitting to Quebec.

M.