e colony as well as among the western tribes.

The events of 'William and Mary's War,' as it was known in New England,
show how wide the French zone in North America had come to be.
Frontenac's province extended from Newfoundland to the Mississippi,
from Onondaga to Hudson Bay. The rarest quality of a ruler is the
power to select good subordinates and fill them with his own high
spirit. Judged by this standard Frontenac deserves great praise, for
he never lacked capable and loyal lieutenants. With Callieres at
Montreal, Tonty on the Mississippi, Perrot and Du Lhut at
Michilimackinac, Villebon and Saint-Castin in Acadia, Sainte-Helene at
the siege of Quebec, and Iberville at Hudson Bay, he was well supported
by his staff. At this critical moment the shortcomings of the {151}
French in America were certainly not due to lack of purpose or driving
power. The system under which they worked was faulty, and in their
extremity they resorted to harsh expedients. But there were heroes in
New France, if courage and self-sacrifice are the essence of heroism.

The Peace of Ryswick, which was signed in the year after Frontenac's
campaign against the Onondagas, came as a happy release to Canada
(1697). For nine years the colony had been hard pressed, and a
breathing space was needed. The Iroquois still remained a peril, but
proportionately their losses since 1689 had been far heavier than those
of the French and English. Left to carry on the war by themselves,
they soon saw the hopelessness of their project to drive the French
from the St Lawrence. The English were ready to give them defensive
assistance, even after word came from Europe that peace had been
signed. In 1698 the Earl of Bellomont, then governor of New York,
wrote Frontenac that he would arm every man in his province to aid the
Iroquois if the French made good their threat to invade once more the
land of the Five Nations. Frontenac, then almost on his death-bed,
sent back the characteristic reply {152} that this kind of language
would only encourage him to attack the Iroquois with the more vigour.
The sequel shows that the English at Albany overplayed their part. The
reward of their protection was to be suzerainty, and at this price
protection proved unacceptable to the Iroquois, whose safety lay in the
equipoise of power between the rival whites. Three years later the
Five Nations renewed peace with Onontio; and, though Frontenac did not
live to see the d