[Illustration: Map of New England, New York & Central Canada, showing the Waterways] {123} CHAPTER IV FRENCH AND ENGLISH DOWN TO THE PEACE OF UTRECHT Down to the date of the Treaty of Utrecht, the Iroquois formed the first line of the foes of Canada. Behind them were the English. [Sidenote: _Little communication in early times between Canada and the English colonies._] [Sidenote: _Route from the Atlantic to Quebec by the line of the Kennebec._] After Quebec had been in 1632 given back to France, the English on the Atlantic coast, and the French on the St. Lawrence, for many years came little into contact with each other. In Acadia the two nations overlapped, with results which are told elsewhere, and it was the same in Newfoundland; but the French colonists at Quebec and the English colonists at Boston or in Virginia were far apart. We read of an English traveller finding his way, in 1640, from the coast of Maine, up the Kennebec river and by the Chaudière, to Quebec, his journey being noted as an explorer's feat with an ultimate design of reaching the North Sea; while a few years later, in 1647-51, the same route became better known, and was taken by French emissaries of peace to the New England states. [Sidenote: _Proposals for a treaty between the English and French colonies._] Negotiations were then on foot, at the instance of Winthrop, Governor of Massachusetts, for a treaty of commerce between the English and French colonies in North America, and it was suggested that they should keep peace with each other even in the event of war in Europe between the respective mother countries.[1] Such a treaty {124} might have been made and kept, if there had been no native question; but each side had Indian friends and Indian foes, and could not afford to alienate the one or add to the number of the other. The French wanted New England support against the Iroquois, and with the Iroquois the New Englanders had no quarrel. Thus the friendly overtures between the two parties came to nothing; but Frenchmen on the river of Canada and Englishmen by the open sea went their own ways, having no direct dealings with each other in war or peace. [Footnote 1: A like sensible policy was pursued in the little island of St. Kitts, when first colonized by French and English. They agreed to keep the peace whether or not France and Great Britain were at war. See vol. ii of this series, chap. iv, p. 135. See also Kingsford's _History of Canada_, vol. ii, p. 426.] [Sidenote: _The English take New York._]