struggle for the control of the upper St. Lawrence and of the Canadian fur trade. On all sides of their own country the Iroquois, like other masterful peoples, extended their sphere of influence; but their real outlet was to the north, towards the lakes and the great river. On this side the white men were most active and restless, ever sending their emissaries a little further on, ever putting themselves in evidence in some new tribe or village.[18] The French were not content to live outside the Indians; nor were they content, having found a resting-place, to stay there. To be in and among the natives, to control and to convert them, to be the recognized protectors of the land and its peoples, to be the ultimate recipients of the produce of the country, and the guardians of the channels by which the produce was conveyed--no smaller aims sufficed for the French in Canada. In the pursuit of these objects they directly competed with the Iroquois Indians. Great was the territory, few in number were the Frenchmen and Iroquois alike; but they were rivals for ascendency on the same river, and there was not room for both. [Footnote 17: _Calendar of State Papers_, Colonial, 1685-8, No. 1160, pp. 328-9, Dongan to the Lords of Trade, March, 1687.] [Footnote 18: 'But this justice must be done to the French, that they far exceeded the English in the daring attempts of some of their inhabitants, in travelling very far among unknown Indians, discovering new countries, and everywhere spreading the fame of the French name and grandeur' (Colden, p. 35).] Because they were enemies of the French, the Iroquois naturally became the allies of the English; but before they had much, if any experience of the latter, they had come into contact with a third European people, the Dutch on the Hudson river. [Sidenote: _The Dutch on the Hudson river._] [Sidenote: _New Netherland._]