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, 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—tended to postpone the day of reckoning between the English and French in America. England and France were not only at peace but in alliance. The Treaty of Dover had been signed in 1670, and two years later, just as Frontenac had set out for Quebec, Charles II had sent a force of six thousand English to aid Louis XIV against the Dutch. It was in this war that John Churchill, afterwards Duke of Marlborough, won his spurs—fighting on the French side!
None the less, there were premonitions of trouble in America, especially after Thomas Dongan became governor of New York in 1683. Andros had shown good judgment in his dealings with the Iroquois, and his successor, inheriting a sound policy, went even further on the same course. Dongan, an Irishman of high birth and a Catholic, strenuously opposed the pretensions of the French to sovereignty over the Iroquois. When it was urged that religion required the presence of the Jesuits among them, he denied the allegation, stating that he would provide English priests to take their place. A New England Calvinist could not have shown more firmness in upholding the English position. Indeed, no governor of Puritan New England had ever equalled Dongan in hostility to Catholic New France.
Frontenac's successor, Lefebvre de la Barre, who had served with distinction in the West Indies, arrived at Quebec in September 1682. By the same ship came the new intendant, Meulles. They found the Lower Town of Quebec in ruins, for a devastating fire had just swept through it. Hardly anything remained standing save the buildings on the cliff.
La Barre and Meulles were soon at loggerheads. It appears that, instead of striving to repair the effects of the fire, the new governor busied himself to accumulate a fortune. He had indeed promised the king that, unlike his predecessors, he would seek no profit from private trading, and had on this ground requested an increase of salary. Meulles presently reported that, far from keeping this promise, La Barre and his agents had shared ten or twelve thousand crowns of profit, and that unless checked the governor's revenues would soon exceed those of the king. Meulles also accuses La Barre of sending home deceitful reports regarding the success of his Indian policy. We need not dwell longer on these reports. They disclose with great clearness the opinion of the intendant as to the governor's fitness for his office.
La Barre stands condemned not by the innuendoes of Meulles, but by his own failure to cope with the Iroquois.
The presence of the Dutch and English had stimulated the Five Nations to enlarge their operations in the fur trade and multiply their profits. The French, from being earliest in the field, had established friendly relations with all the tribes to the north of the Great Lakes, including those who dwelt in the valley of the Ottawa; and La Salle and Tonty had recently penetrated to the Mississippi and extended French trade to the country of the Illinois Indians. The furs from this region were being carried up the Mississippi and forwarded to Quebec by the Lakes and the St Lawrence. This brought the Illinois within the circle of tribes commercially dependent on Quebec. At the same time the Iroquois, through the English on the Hudson, now possessed facilities greater than ever for disposing of all the furs they could acquire; and they wanted this trade for themselves.
The wholesome respect which the Iroquois entertained for Frontenac kept them from attacking the tribes under the protection of the French on the Great Lakes; but the remote Illinois were thought to be a safe prey. During the autumn of 1680 a war-party of more than six hundred Iroquois invaded the country of the Illinois. La Salle was then in Montreal, but Tonty met the invaders and did all he could to save the Illinois from their clutches. His efforts were in vain. The Illinois suffered all that had befallen the Hurons in 1649.[[1]] The Iroquois, however, were careful not to harm the French, and to demand from Tonty a letter to show Frontenac as proof that he and his companions had been respected.
Obviously this raid was a symptom of danger, and in 1681 Frontenac asked the king to send him five or six hundred troops. A further disturbing incident occurred at the Jesuit mission of Sault Ste Marie, where an Illinois Indian murdered a Seneca chieftain. That Frontenac intended to act with firmness towards the Iroquois, while giving them satisfaction for the murder of their chief, is clear from his acts in 1681 no less than from his general record. But his forces were small and he had received particular instructions to reduce expenditure. And, with Duchesneau at hand to place a sinister interpretation upon his every act, the conditions were not favourable for immediate action. Then in 1682 he was recalled.
Such, in general, were the conditions which confronted La Barre, and in fairness it must be admitted that they were the most serious thus far in the history of Canada. From the first the Iroquois had been a pest and a menace, but now, with the English to flatter and encourage them, they became a grave peril. The total population of the colony was now about ten thousand, of whom many were women and children. The regular troops were very few; and, though the disbanded Carignan soldiers furnished the groundwork of a valiant militia, the habitants and their seigneurs alone could not be expected to defend such a territory against such a foe.