ining and
temper he was a war governor, who during his first administration fell
upon a time of peace. So long as peace prevailed he lacked the powers
and the opportunity to {86} enable him to reveal his true strength; and
his energy, without sufficient vent, broke forth in quarrels at the
council board.

With wider authority, Frontenac might have proved a successful governor
even in time of peace, for he was very intelligent and had at heart the
welfare of the colony. As it was, his restrictions chafed and goaded
him until wrathfulness took the place of reason. But we shall err if
we conclude that when he left Canada in discomfiture he had not earned
her thanks. Through pride and faults of temper he had impaired his
usefulness and marred his record. Even so there was that which rescued
his work from the stigma of failure. He had guarded his people from
the tomahawk and the scalping-knife. With prescient eye he had
foreseen the imperial greatness of the West. Whatever his
shortcomings, they had not been those of meanness or timidity.

[1] Fort Crevecoeur was La Salle's post in the heart of the Illinois
country.

{87}

CHAPTER VI

THE LURID INTERVAL

We have seen that during Frontenac's first term of office no urgent
danger menaced the colony on the frontier. The missionary and the
explorer were steadily pressing forward to the head of the Great Lakes
and into the valley of the Mississippi, enlarging the sphere of French
influence and rendering the interior tributary to the commerce of
Quebec. But this peaceful and silent expansion had not passed
unnoticed by those in whose minds it aroused both rivalry and dread.
Untroubled from without as New France had been under Frontenac, there
were always two lurking perils--the Iroquois and the English.

The Five Nations owed their leadership among the Indian tribes not only
to superior discipline and method but also to their geographical
situation. The valley of the St Lawrence lay within easy reach, either
through Lake Champlain or Lake Ontario. On the {88} east at their very
door lay the valley of the Mohawk and the Hudson. From the western
fringe of their territory they could advance quickly to Lake Erie, or
descend the Ohio into the valley of the Mississippi. It was doubtless
due to their prowess rather than to accident that they originally came
into possession of this central and favoured position; however, they
could now make their force fe