also found their way to France in increasing quantities.
Quebec became the centre of a considerable shipping trade, and
sea-going vessels were launched from the stocks on the bank of the
little St. Charles.

Moreover, the energies of the people presently found another and
alluring field. In 1716 a missionary to the Sault Indians discovered
the gensing root, which, as a medical drug, was quoted in European
markets at its weight in silver. At first its price in Quebec was only
forty sols per pound, but when the people saw its value rising to
almost as many _livres_, the rush of searchers to the woods left all
other industries at a standstill. Agriculture furnished a slow road to
wealth by comparison with the hunt of the gensing plant, and Quebec
passed through the fever of a modern gold-rush. Natural and economic
conditions, however, had provided their own remedy; and in time the
glut of the market and the extirpation of the gensing plant sent the
feverish botanists back to their wonted pursuits. Then ensued a period
of peace and quiet progress, of patriotic co-operation of the
officials and the people for the good of the land.

In 1725 the long and beneficent rule of the first Vaudreuil came to an
end, and the Marquis de Beauharnois succeeded to the governorship of
Quebec. The features of this and the succeeding administrations were
the further expansion westward of New France and the construction of
that chain of forts by which she sought finally to fasten her grip
upon the continent. One by one these fortresses rose up in the far
wilderness to hem in the English between the sea and the Alleghanies,
and one by one they were demolished, as England and her colonies
slowly rolled down the curtain on the drama of French dominion in
North America.

Nearer home, also, that is to say, nearer to Quebec, French enterprise
had taken the form of building and manning forts; and as the fate of
these scattered strongholds closely affects the story of Quebec, a
brief outline of their location is here given.

Port Royal had passed for ever out of French hands, and to take its
place the giant bastions of Louisbourg had risen on a ridge of rock
which made one arm of Gabarus Bay. On the river Missaguash, which the
French claimed to mark the northern boundary of English Acadia, stood
Fort Beausejour. Chambly, Sorel, and St. Therese, on the Richelieu,
were Indian forts of old foundation; and as a further defence against
the English, Be