But what was an Iroquois conquest? The
Iroquois rarely occupied the countries they overran. Their military
expeditions were mere raids, great or small. Sometimes, as in the case
of the Hurons, they made a solitude and called it peace; again, as in
the case of the Illinois, they drove off the occupants of the soil, who
returned after the invaders were gone. But the range of their
war-parties was prodigious; and the English laid claim to every
mountain, forest, or prairie where an Iroquois had taken a scalp. This
would give them not only the country between the Alleghanies and the
Mississippi, but also that between Lake Huron and the Ottawa, thus
reducing Canada to the patch on the American map now represented by the
province of Quebec,--or rather, by a part of it, since the extension of
Acadia to the St. Lawrence would cut off the present counties of Gaspe,
Rimouski, and Bonaventure. Indeed among the advocates of British claims
there were those who denied that France had any rights whatever on the
south side of the St. Lawrence.[124] Such being the attitude of the two
contestants, it was plain that there was no resort but the last argument
of kings. Peace must be won with the sword.
[Footnote 124: The extent of British claims is best shown on two maps of
the time, Mitchell's _Map of the British and French Dominions in North
America_ and Huske's _New and Accurate Map of North America_; both are
in the British Museum.
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