army. At length he took refuge near his old home at Mount Hope. There, in August, 1676, he was attacked by Captain Church with a small body of colonists, and the heart of the great chieftain was pierced by the ball of an Indian. The great contest was ended by the capture of Philip's only remaining general, Annawan, by Captain Church. The capture of Annawan was accomplished by a bold stratagem, and the account of it reads like a tale from the "Arabian Nights."

King Philip.

118. The Cost of the War. — Thus King Philip's War was ended. The amount of suffering which it had occasioned was enormous. At least thirteen towns were wholly destroyed, and a number of others sustained more or less damage. Over six hundred of the colonists fell in battle, and many more were wounded. Scarcely a family could be found in which some one had not suffered. The principal burden fell upon Massachusetts and Plymouth. The loss in property was not less than half a million of dollars, a large sum for those days, and as great in proportion as the cost of the Revolutionary War was for the nation a hundred years later. More than six hundred buildings had been consumed by fire. It was years before some of the towns were rebuilt. 119. The Result. This struggle was the most severe that the colonies experienced with the natives at any time. It was really a case of life or death. Had Philip succeeded, he would have swept out of existence every white man in New England. After the contest was over, the settlers had a long period for rest and recuperation.

King Philip's Helmet.

CHAPTER XVIII.

NEW FRANCE.

120. France in America. The history of the French in America s an interesting one. The French people, at a very early date, manifested their interest in securing for France a strong foothold in the New World.

121. Verrazano was sent out by the French king in 1524, to find the new way to the East Indies. He coasted along our shore from the Carolinas to New York and Newport. He named the country New France (T 16).

122. James Cartier discovered the St. Lawrence River in 1534. The next year, on a second voyage, he ascended the river as far as the site of Montreal. The lofty hill back of the Indian village he named Mount Royal (¶ 17).

123. John Ribault, under the patronage of Coligny, established a colony in 1562, at Port Royal, South Carolina. The people erected a fort, which they named Carolana. After extreme suffering they abandoned the settlement and returned to Europe (¶ 19).

124. Laudonnière, in 1564, with three ships, landed at the harbor now known as St. Augustine, coasted to the north, entered the river St. John's, which he called the River of May, and built a fort (20). The next year the Spaniards, under Menendez, surprised the garrison and put them to the sword; only a few persons, including Laudonnière, escaped by flight. Menendez was a Spaniard, and his settlement at St. Augustine becoming permanent, Florida became Spanish territory. The French were, however, more successful at the North than at the South.

125. Samuel Champlain ascended the St. Lawrence in two small barks in 1603, and was captivated by the beauties of the country and the attractions of the great river. He was seized with a longing to plant a French empire and the Catholic faith in this New World.

126. Pierre de Monts, with Champlain, explored the Bay of Fundy, visited and named the river St. John, wintered on a little island at

the mouth of the river St. Croix, and in the summer of 1605 founded the colony at Port Royal, Nova Scotia. This was the first permanent French settlement in America. It was three years before the first settlement in Canada, and two years before that of Jamestown, Virginia.

Champlain made another voyage in 1608, and established the first permanent French settlement in Canada, at Quebec. The next year he discovered the beautiful lake which bears his name. He succeeded in establishing the authority of France in the Valley of the St. Lawrence. He has been styled "The Father of New. France."

The Valley of the Mississippi was early explored by French Jesuit priests, and many of the French names still found in that valley were first given by these priests more than two centuries. ago.

127. Father Marquette, in 1673, floated in a birch-bark canoe down the Wisconsin and the Mississippi rivers as far south as the mouth of the Arkansas.

128. The Chevalier de La Salle undertook various expeditions, which, though often filled with hardships, were also full of romantic adventures. He was inspired with a strong desire to find the outlet of the Mississippi River; and in 1682, he succeeded in floating down that river to its very mouth, where it emptied its waters into the Gulf of Mexico. It was La Salle that named this whole country Louisiana, in honor of his king, Louis XIV.

129. French Explorers. Before the year 1700, the French explorers, led by such men as La Salle, Joliet, Father Hennepin, and Father Marquette, had explored the Great Lakes, and the Fox, Maumee, Wabash, Wisconsin, and Illinois rivers, and the Mississippi from the Falls of St. Anthony to the Gulf. They had traversed the valley region from Newfoundland up the Valley of the St. Lawrence, through the Great Lakes, down the Mississippi River and its branches, and westward to Texas. They had planted here and there in the wilderness rude settlements, and later they erected a line of forts, extending through the two valleys of these two great rivers.

130. New France. This whole region, comprising both valleys, that is, the Valley of the St. Lawrence and the whole country be

tween the Alleghanies and the Rocky Mountains, they had taken possession of in the name of the French king, and had named it New France. Meanwhile, the English had made larger, stronger, and more permanent settlements along the Atlantic coast, occupying but a narrow strip, which extended from Maine to Georgia. At about this time, these English colonies contained probably two hundred thousand inhabitants; while the whole of New France possessed a population of perhaps not more than ten thousand.

CHAPTER XIX.

FRANCE VERSUS ENGLAND.

131. The Mouth of the Mississippi. — It was a beautiful spring day in 1682, when La Salle reached the mouth of the Mississippi, and found that this great river emptied its waters into the Gulf of Mexico. Then he set up a rude wooden cross bearing the arms of France, and with volleys of musketry and loud shouts of "God save the King!" took possession in the name of France of all that vast territory watered by the Mississippi and its tributaries. The extent of this region was then unknown, but it included all the country from the Alleghanies to the Rocky Mountains, and extended from the torrid gulf upon the south to the Great Lakes of the north. This wide expanse was twice as large as all France, Spain, Great Britain, and Germany combined. La Salle was a loyal subject of his king and a faithful son of his church. It was, therefore, with commendable pride that he dedicated this fertile garden in the heart of the new world to the church and to his king. He named the whole region Louisiana; but the general name which was applied to all the French possessions in America, including both this section and Canada, was New France.

132. French Hopes. From what we have learned, it will readily be seen that the French pioneers were bold, energetic, and enterprising, and that they had great expectations for the future of New France in America.

133. The English and the French. It cannot be supposed that Great Britain and her colonies in America could look with much

complacency upon these vigorous efforts of the Frenchmen to secure for their country such a wide region. But, meanwhile, the English colonists in the east had done little or nothing toward exploring and occupying additional territory. They contented. themselves with holding their first settlements along the Atlantic coast. The Alleghany Mountains formed a natural barrier between their homes and the French forts in the Mississippi Valley. What France had secured, she was thoroughly determined to retain. This is evident from the long line of forts which had been built since La Salle had made his explorations from the Lakes to the Gulf. In the Old World the English and the French nations had long been natural enemies to each other. The grasping intentions of France in America did not tend to make the English any more friendly to the French. The natural antipathy between the two nationalities was quite as strong in America as in Europe.

134. The Indians. The English settlements, as we have seen, had much trouble with the Indians. The Pequot War, and especially King Philip's War, had brought about a chronic state of alienation and hostility between the two races. On the other hand,

the French priests had won the good-will of the Indians in their section of the country. War broke out between the rival colonies in 1689, and the contest then begun extended, with intervals of peace, over seventy years. The final settlement between the two nations brought conditions of permanent peace only by the absolute triumph of one party and the total annihilation of the other. The long, protracted struggle for supremacy on this continent was in reality one war, but it was divided into four parts, and is therefore generally denominated in the histories, The Four French and Indian Wars.

CHAPTER XX.

KING WILLIAM'S, QUEEN ANNE'S, ANd king geoRGE'S WARS.

135. Four French Wars. - These four wars were all carried on between Great Britain and the English colonies of North America on the one side, and France, with her American colonies and Indian allies, on the other side. When the war first broke out in 1689,