ored with the
valuable furs brought by the Indian hunters. These difficulties would
doubtless have smothered the infant nation in its cradle, had it not
been for the untiring zeal and constancy of its great founder. At every
step he met with new trials from the indifference, caprice, or
contradiction of his associates, but, with his eye steadily fixed upon
the future, he devoted his fortune and the energies of his life to the
cause, and rose superior to every obstacle.

In 1620, the Prince of Conde sold the vice-royalty of New France to his
brother-in-law, the Marshal de Montmorenci, for eleven thousand crowns.
The marshal wisely continued Champlain as lieutenant governor, and
intrusted the management of colonial affairs in France to M. Dolu, a
gentleman of known zeal and probity. Champlain being hopeful that these
changes would favorably affect Canada, resolved now to establish his
family permanently in that country. Taking them with him, he sailed from
France in the above-named year, and arrived at Quebec in the end of May.
In passing by Tadoussac, he found that some adventurers of Rochelle had
opened a trade with the savages, in violation of the company's
privileges, and had given the fatal example of furnishing the hunters
with fire-arms in exchange for their peltries.

A great danger menaced the colony in the year 1621. The Iroquois sent
three large parties of warriors to attack the French settlements. This
savage tribe feared that if the white men obtained a footing in the
country, their alliance with the Hurons and Algonquins, of which the
effects had already been felt, might render them too powerful. The first
division marched upon Sault St. Louis, where a few Frenchmen were
established. Happily, there was warning of their approach; the
defenders, aided by some Indian allies, repulsed them with much loss,
and took several prisoners. The Iroquois had, however, seized Father
Guillaume Poulain, one of the Recollets, in their retreat; they tied him
to a stake, and were about to burn him alive, when they were persuaded
to exchange the good priest for one of their own chiefs, who had fallen
into the hands of the French. Another party of these fierce marauders
dropped down the river to Quebec in a fleet of thirty canoes, and
suddenly invested the Convent of the Recollets, where a small fort had
been erected; they did not venture to attack this little stronghold, but
fell upon some Huron villages near at hand, and mass