lt throughout the whole north-eastern
portion of the continent.

Over seventy years had now passed since Champlain's attack upon the
Iroquois in 1609; but lapse of time had not altered the nature of the
savage, nor were the causes of mutual hostility less real than at
first. A ferocious lust for war remained the deepest passion of the
Iroquois, to be satisfied at convenient intervals. It was unfortunate,
in their view, that they could not always be at war; but they
recognized that there must be breathing times and that it was important
to choose the right moment for massacre and pillage. Daring but
sagacious, they followed an opportunist policy. At times their
warriors delighted to lurk in the outskirts of Montreal with tomahawk
and scalping-knife and to organize great war-parties, such as that {89}
which was arrested by Dollard and his heroic companions at the Long
Sault in 1660. At other times they held fair speech with the governor
and permitted the Jesuits to live in their villages, for the French had
weapons and means of fighting which inspired respect.

The appearance of the Dutch on the Hudson in 1614 was an event of great
importance to the Five Nations. The Dutch were quite as ready as the
French to trade in furs, and it was thus that the Iroquois first
procured the firearms which they used in their raids on the French
settlements. That the Iroquois rejoiced at having a European colony on
the Hudson may be doubted, but as they were unable to prevent it, they
drew what profit they could by putting the French and Dutch in
competition, both for their alliance and their neutrality.

But, though the Dutch were heretics and rivals, it was a bad day for
New France when the English seized New Amsterdam (1664) and began to
establish themselves from Manhattan to Albany. The inevitable conflict
was first foreshadowed in the activities of Sir Edmund Andros, which
followed his appointment as governor of New York in 1674. He visited
the Mohawks in their own villages, {90} organized a board of Indian
commissioners at Albany, and sought to cement an alliance with the
whole confederacy of the Five Nations. In opposition to this France
made the formal claim (1677) that by actual residence in the Iroquois
country the Jesuits had brought the Iroquois under French sovereignty.

Iroquois, French, and English thus formed the points of a political
triangle. Home politics, however--the friendship of Stuart and
Bourbon--te