La Salle and the discovery of the great West - North Central ...

1673.] TREATY WITH THE INDIANS. 95had talked the matter over in their villages ;but it isa striking proof of the influence which Frontenac hadgained over them, that, in the following year, theyactually sent several of their children to Quebec tobe educated, — the girls among the Ursulines, andthe boys in the household of the governor.Three days after the council, the Iroquois set outon their return ; and as the palisades of the fort werenow finished, and the barracks nearly so, Frontenacbegan to send his party homeward by detachments.He himself was detained for a time by the arrival ofanother band of Iroquois, from the villages on thenorth side of Lake Ontario. He repeated to themthe speech he had made to the others ; and, this finalmeeting over, he embarked with his guard, leaving asufficient number to hold the fort, which was to beprovisioned for a year by means of a convoy then onits way up the river. Passing the rapids safely, hereached Montreal on the first of August.His enterprise had been a complete success. Hehad gained every point, and, in spite of the dangerousnavigation, had not lost a single canoe. Thanks tothe enforced and gratuitous assistance ofthe inhabitants,the whole had cost the King only about tenthousand francs, which Frontenac had advanced onhis own credit. Though in a commercial point ofview thenew establishment was of very questionablebenefit to the colony at large, the governor had,nevertheless, conferred an inestimable blessing on allCanada by the assurance he had gained of a long