a more stable
and balanced character it would have been impossible.

Cadillac's proposal was accepted. The company was required to abandon
Detroit to him on his paying them the expenses they had incurred. Their
monopoly was transferred to him; but as far as concerned beaver-skins,
his trade was limited to twenty thousand francs a year. The governor was
ordered to give him as many soldiers as he might want, permit as many
persons to settle at Detroit as might choose to do so, and provide
missionaries.[38] The minister exhorted him to quarrel no more with the
Jesuits, or anybody else, to banish blasphemy and bad morals from the
post, and not to offend the Five Nations.

The promised era of prosperity did not come. Detroit lingered on in a
weak and troubled infancy, disturbed, as we shall see, by startling
incidents. Its occupation by the French produced a noteworthy result.
The Five Nations, filled with jealousy and alarm, appealed to the King
of England for protection, and, the better to insure it, conveyed the
whole country from Lake Ontario northward to Lake Superior, and westward
as far as Chicago, "unto our souveraigne Lord King William the Third"
and his heirs and successors forever. This territory is described in the
deed as being about eight hundred miles long and four hundred wide, and
was claimed by the Five Nations as theirs by right of conquest.[39] It
of course included Detroit itself. The conveyance was drawn by the
English authorities at Albany in a form to suit their purposes, and
included terms of subjection and sovereignty which the signers could
understand but imperfectly, if at all. The Five Nations gave away their
land to no purpose. The French remained in undisturbed possession of
Detroit. The English made no attempt to enforce their title, but they
put the deed on file, and used it long after as the base of their claim
to the region of the Lakes.

FOOTNOTES:

[15] See "Old Regime in Canada," 383.

[16] _Relation de La Mothe-Cadillac_, in Margry, v. 75.

[17] He wrote his name as above. It is often written La Motte, which has
the advantage of conveying the pronunciation unequivocally to an
unaccustomed English ear. La Mothe-Cadillac came of a good family of
Languedoc. His father, Jean de La Mothe, seigneur de Cadillac et de
Launay, or Laumet, was a counsellor in the Parliament of Toulouse. The
date of young Cadillac's birth is uncertain. The register of his
marriage places it in 1661, and t