CHAPTER IV
FRENCH AND ENGLISH DOWN TO THE PEACE OF UTRECHT
Down to the date of the Treaty of Utrecht, the Iroquois formed the first line of the foes of Canada. Behind them were the English.
| Little communication in early times between Canada and the English colonies. Route from the Atlantic to Quebec by the line of the Kennebec. |
After Quebec had been in 1632 given back to France, the English on the Atlantic coast, and the French on the St. Lawrence, for many years came little into contact with each other. In Acadia the two nations overlapped, with results which are told elsewhere, and it was the same in Newfoundland; but the French colonists at Quebec and the English colonists at Boston or in Virginia were far apart. We read of an English traveller finding his way, in 1640, from the coast of Maine, up the Kennebec river and by the Chaudière, to Quebec, his journey being noted as an explorer's feat with an ultimate design of reaching the North Sea; while a few years later, in 1647-51, the same route became better known, and was taken by French emissaries of peace to the New England states.
| Proposals for a treaty between the English and French colonies. |