ted. The Iroquois got their fill of war, and
Frontenac destroyed their power as a central, dominating, terrorizing
confederacy.

The measure of this achievement is to be sought in the difficulties
which were overcome. Despite the eighty years of its existence the
colony was still so poor that regularity in the arrival of supplies
from France was a matter of vital importance. From the moment war
began English cruisers hovered about the mouth of the St Lawrence,
ready to pounce upon the supply-ships as they came up the river.
Sometimes the French boats escaped; sometimes they were captured; but
from this interruption of peaceful oversea traffic Canada suffered
grievously. Another source of weakness was the interruption of
agriculture which followed in the train of war. As a rule the Iroquois
spent the winter in hunting deer, but just as the ground was ready for
its crop they began to show themselves in the parishes near Montreal,
picking off the habitants in their {143} farms on the edge of the
forest, or driving them to the shelter of the stockade. These forays
made it difficult and dangerous to till the soil, with a corresponding
shrinkage in the volume of the crop. Almost every winter famine was
imminent in some part of the colony, and though spring was welcome for
its own sake, it invariably brought the Iroquois. A third calamity was
the interruption of the fur trade. Ordinarily the great cargoes
descended the Ottawa in fleets of from one hundred to two hundred
canoes. But the savages of the West well knew that when they embarked
with their precious bales upon a route which was infested by the
Iroquois, they gave hostages to fortune. In case of a battle the cargo
was a handicap, since they must protect it as well as themselves. In
case they were forced to flee for their lives, they lost the goods
which it had cost so much effort to collect. In these circumstances
the tribes of Michilimackinac would not bring down their furs unless
they felt certain that the whole course of the Ottawa was free from
danger. In seasons when they failed to come, the colony had nothing to
export and penury became extreme. At best the returns from the fur
trade were precarious. In 1690 and 1693 {144} there were good markets;
in 1691 and 1692 there were none at all.

From time to time Frontenac received from France both money and troops,
but neither in sufficient quantity to place him where he could deal the
Iroquois one fi