wn into hostilities with the Iroquois confederacy,
which of all things they most wished to avoid. Peace and friendship
among the western tribes; peace without friendship between these tribes
and the Five Nations,--thus became maxims of French policy. The Canadian
governor called the western Indians his "children," and a family quarrel
among them would have been unfortunate, since the loving father must
needs have become involved in it, to the detriment of his trading
interests.

Yet to prevent such quarrels was difficult, partly because they had
existed time out of mind, and partly because it was the interest of the
English to promote them. Dutch and English traders, it is true, took
their lives in their hands if they ventured among the western Indians,
who were encouraged by their French father to plunder and kill them, and
who on occasion rarely hesitated to do so. Hence English communication
with the West was largely carried on through the Five Nations. Iroquois
messengers, hired for the purpose, carried wampum belts
"underground"--that is, secretly--to such of the interior tribes as were
disposed to listen with favor to the words of Corlaer, as they called
the governor of New York.

In spite of their shortcomings, the English had one powerful attraction
for all the tribes alike. This was the abundance and excellence of their
goods, which, with the exception of gunpowder, were better as well as
cheaper than those offered by the French. The Indians, it is true, liked
the taste of French brandy more than that of English rum; yet as their
chief object in drinking was to get drunk, and as rum would supply as
much intoxication as brandy at a lower price, it always found favor in
their eyes. In the one case, to get thoroughly drunk often cost a
beaver-skin; in the other, the same satisfaction could generally be had
for a mink-skin.

Thus the French found that some of their western children were disposed
to listen to English seductions, look askance at their father Onontio,
and turn their canoes, not towards Montreal, but towards Albany. Nor was
this the worst; for there were some of Onontio's wild and unruly western
family too ready to lift their hatchets against their brethren and fill
the wilderness with discord. Consequences followed most embarrassing to
the French, and among them an incident prominent in the early annals of
Detroit, that new establishment so obnoxious to the English, because it
barred their way to t