character long familiar to Canada.  All emigrants with families were to be carried thither at the King’s expense; and every settler was to receive in free gift a gun, a hoe, an axe, a ploughshare, a scythe, a sickle, two augers, large and small, a sow, six hens, a cock, six pounds of powder, and twelve pounds of lead; while to these favors were added many others.  The result was that twelve families were persuaded to go, or about a twentieth part of the number wanted.[46] Detroit was expected to furnish supplies to the other posts for five hundred miles around, control the neighboring Indians, thwart English machinations, and drive off English interlopers.

[Footnote 45:  Le Ministre a la Jonquiere et Bigot, 14 Mai, 1749.  Le Ministre a Celoron, 23 Mai, 1749.]

[Footnote 46:  Ordonnance du 2 Jan. 1750.  La Jonquiere et Bigot au Ministre, 1750.  Forty-six persons of all ages and both sexes had been induced by La Galissoniere to go the year before. Lettres communes de la Jonquiere et Bigot, 1749.  The total fixed population of Detroit and its neighborhood in 1750 is stated at four hundred and eighty-three souls.  In the following two years, a considerable number of young men came of their own accord, and Celoron wrote to Montreal to ask for girls to marry them.]

La Galissoniere no longer governed Canada.  He had been honorably recalled, and the Marquis de la Jonquiere sent in his stead.[47] La Jonquiere, like his predecessor, was a naval officer of high repute; he was tall and imposing in person, and of undoubted capacity and courage; but old and, according to his enemies, very avaricious.[48] The Colonial Minister gave him special instructions regarding that thorn in the side of Canada, Oswego.  To attack it openly would be indiscreet, as the two nations were at peace; but there was a way of dealing with it less hazardous, if not more lawful.  This was to attack it vicariously by means of the Iroquois.  “If Abbe Piquet succeeds in his mission,” wrote the Minister to the new Governor, “we can easily persuade these savages to destroy Oswego.  This is of the utmost importance; but act with great caution."[49] In the next year the Minister wrote again:  “The only means that can be used for such an operation in time of peace are those of the Iroquois.  If by making these savages regard such an establishment [Oswego] as opposed to their liberty, and, so to speak, a usurpation by which the English mean to get possession of their lands, they could be induced to undertake its destruction, an operation of the sort is not to be neglected; but M. le Marquis de la Jonquiere should feel with what circumspection such an affair should be conducted, and he should labor to accomplish it in a manner not to commit himself."[50] To this La Jonquiere replies that it will need time; but that he will gradually bring the Iroquois to attack and destroy the English post.  He received stringent orders to use every means to prevent the English from