[7] Champlain, Samuel de, the father of Canada, and first among French explorers in the New World, ought to be held in high esteem by Americans. The work he did was for all time. A man of sterling qualities; of resources; of solid judgment; never effervescent, sometimes headstrong, yet prompt to act in emergencies. Though not noble, he had a chivalric nature united with capacity for affairs. His Voyages is a storehouse of information concerning Canada and New England.
[8] Jean Nicolet has become the subject of much discussion. The evidence fixing his visit in 1634 is wholly circumstantial, therefore unsatisfactory. But it is by no means improbable. I was first inclined to doubt the whole story as told by Father Vimont, thinking he might have been imposed upon, but it bears the stamp of genuineness. The Father wrote in 1640, hence Nicolet must have gone to Green Bay earlier. No one disputes his claim to be the first white who visited that region. See Jesuit Relations of 1640.
[9] The Dutch then occupied New York, with a fort and trading post at Albany. They were competitors of the French for the fur trade, and therefore natural allies of the Iroquois, to whom they sold guns to be used against the French. After New York became an English Colony (1664) the English pursued the same policy of confining the French to the north shore of Lake Ontario.
[10] Father Claude Allouez, in the Jesuit Relations.
[11] Messipi, first mentioned under its present name. Mostly pronounced to-day as here spelled.
[12] Father Claude Dablon arrived in Canada, 1655. In 1668 he went with Marquette to the Mission of St. Esprit on Lake Superior. Afterward he founded that of S. St. Marie.—Jesuit Relations.
[13] Father James Marquette came to Canada 1666. His going west was in the nature of a re-enforcement to those earlier missionaries who had prepared the way. He died while returning from a journey to the Illinois towns in 1675, or after that made with Joliet the previous year. Marquette, Mich., is named for him.
THE SITUATION IN A.D. 1672.
Since the day of Champlain's death New France had been wofully misgoverned. Men who, like him, would be willing to give their best efforts and best years to building up the colony, in singleness of purpose, were not forthcoming. Champlain left no successor. Speaking generally, the post of governor was calculated at what it would be worth to the holder. Sometimes it was sold outright, sometimes given in payment of services, or again to some needy favorite as a means to repair his ruined fortunes. Hence most governors looked upon Canada as a place to get rich in, just as the better sort of merchants looked to making fortunes, and then going home to France as quickly as possible to enjoy them. Where everybody thought about the country only as a place of temporary sojourn and nobody as a home, it is evident there could be no feeling of permanence.