Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/841

Rh and freer trade with the Indians of the West. The Iroquois had stood across the path of the English and Dutch from Fort Orange to the Great Lakes, but, in return for abundance of rum, muskets, and powder and shot, arms for suicide and for war, they had opened to the southern speculators the gates of the fur trade, to the great annoyance and to the great damage of the French. La Barre and Denonville had insisted that Dongan, the Governor—called by the Indians the Corlaer—of New York, should refrain from interfering with these tribes, and especially should not interfere with the trade which belonged to France.

To all the foolish letters of La Barre and to all the stiff and indignant letters of Denonville, Dongan replied that the Iroquois were subject to King James, and that he would do as he would in respect of them. His emissaries stirred up the savages against the French, and Denonville had finally undertaken their punishment with disastrous consequences to Canada, and especially to Montreal and its suburb, Lachine. The impudent claims of these English had deeply moved and angered the King of France. He had undertaken to settle the matter by negotiation with his brother of England.

While James was willing, as we all know, to please Louis, Dongan and the New York colonists would no more obey his orders to cease from spoiling the Frenchmen than Massachusetts would surrender her charter because Charles demanded it. The English colonists were managing their own affairs, and they were performing their task with much more ability and much more skill than Louis and his ministers (Colbert, Seignelay, and Pontchartrain) conducted the business of their distant colony. When James's orders came to America they were misunderstood or

frankly disobeyed, or new conditions had arisen which would induce any clever colonial Governor to determine that the commands were no longer applicable. The trouble which these disobedient English gave to the French through their intrigues with the Iroquois led to much ill feeling at Quebec and to a good deal of annoyance at Versailles. Dongan was Catholic as well as Denonville, but when the latter accused him of bringing the Iroquois under the influence of heresy with his rum, his