itish colonies, was barred out
from it by the interposition of New York, which lay across her westward
path, thus forcing her to turn her energies to the sea, where half a
century later her achievements inspired the glowing panegyrics of Burke
before the House of Commons.

New York, then, was for many years the only rival of Canada for the
control of the West. It was a fatal error in the rulers of New France
that they did not, in the seventeenth century, use more strenuous
efforts to possess themselves, by purchase, exchange, or conquest, of
this troublesome and dangerous neighbor. There was a time, under the
reign of Charles II., when negotiation for the purchase of New York
might have been successful; and if this failed, the conquest of the
province, if attempted by forces equal to the importance of the object,
would have been far from hopeless. With New York in French hands, the
fate of the continent would probably have been changed. The British
possessions would have been cut in two. New England, isolated and placed
in constant jeopardy, would have vainly poured her unmanageable herds of
raw militia against the disciplined veterans of Old France intrenched at
the mouth of the Hudson. Canada would have gained complete control of
her old enemies, the Iroquois, who would have been wholly dependent on
her for the arms and ammunition without which they could do nothing.

The Iroquois, as the French had been accustomed to call them, were known
to the English as the Five Nations,--a name which during the eighteenth
century the French also adopted. Soon after the Peace of Utrecht, a
kindred tribe, the Tuscaroras, was joined to the original five members
of the confederacy, which thenceforward was sometimes called the Six
Nations, though the Tuscaroras were never very prominent in its history;
and, to avoid confusion, we will keep the more familiar name of the Five
Nations, which the French used to the last.

For more than two generations this league of tribes had held Canada in
terror, and more than once threatened it with destruction. But now a
change had come over the confederates. Count Frontenac had humbled their
pride. They were crowded between the rival European nations, both of
whom they distrusted. Their traditional hatred of the French would have
given the English of New York a controlling influence over them if the
advantage had been used with energy and tact. But a narrow and
short-sighted conduct threw it away.