ral and
lower parts of the colony, such as the Cote de Beaupre and the opposite
shore of the St. Lawrence, where the hands of the government and of the
Church were strong; while at the head of the colony,--that is, about
Montreal and its neighborhood,--which touched the primeval wilderness,
an uncontrollable spirit of adventure still held its own. Here, at the
beginning of the century, this spirit was as strong as it had ever been,
and achieved a series of explorations and discoveries which revealed the
plains of the Far West long before an Anglo-Saxon foot had pressed their
soil.

The expedition of one Le Sueur to what is now the State of Minnesota may
be taken as the starting-point of these enterprises. Le Sueur had
visited the country of the Sioux as early as 1683. He returned thither
in 1689 with the famous _voyageur_ Nicolas Perrot.[358] Four years
later, Count Frontenac sent him to the Sioux country again. The declared
purpose of the mission was to keep those fierce tribes at peace with
their neighbors; but the governor's enemies declared that a contraband
trade in beaver was the true object, and that Frontenac's secretary was
to have half the profits.[359] Le Sueur returned after two years,
bringing to Montreal a Sioux chief and his squaw,--the first of the
tribe ever seen there. He then went to France, and represented to the
court that he had built a fort at Lake Pepin, on the upper Mississippi;
that he was the only white man who knew the languages of that region;
and that if the French did not speedily seize upon it, the English, who
were already trading upon the Ohio, would be sure to do so. Thereupon he
asked for the command of the upper Mississippi, with all its tributary
waters, together with a monopoly of its fur-trade for ten years, and
permission to work its mines, promising that if his petition were
granted, he would secure the country to France without expense to the
King. The commission was given him. He bought an outfit and sailed for
Canada, but was captured by the English on the way. After the peace he
returned to France and begged for a renewal of his commission. Leave was
given him to work the copper and lead mines, but not to trade in
beaver-skins. He now formed a company to aid him in his enterprise, on
which a cry rose in Canada that under pretence of working mines he meant
to trade in beaver,--which is very likely, since to bring lead and
copper in bark canoes to Montreal from the Mississippi