Le Moyne's mission was to the Onondagas, and its result was an application from that tribe that a French settlement should be established among them. The invitation was accepted; and in the summer of 1656 between forty and fifty Frenchmen established themselves on Lake Onondaga, in the very heart of the Iroquois country. It was a desperate enterprise. The men could ill be spared from Quebec, and they were but hostages among the Five Nations. The Indians pretended peace, but even while the Onondagas were escorting the Frenchmen up the river, the Mohawks attacked the expedition, and subsequently under the very guns of Quebec carried off Huron captives from the Isle of Orleans. For a little less than two years, the small band of French colonists remained amid the Onondagas, in hourly peril of their lives; and finally, towards the end of 1658, at dead of night, while the Indians were overcome by gluttony and debauch, they launched their boats and canoes on the Oswego river, reached Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence, and found themselves once more at Montreal. It was a fit ending to the first stage of Canadian history--a hopeless venture, a confession of weakness, a hairsbreadth escape. So far there had been no colonization of Canada. There had been one wise, far-seeing man--Champlain. Brave soldiers had come from France, and still braver priests. There had been going in and out among the natives, toil and hardship, adventure and loss of life. But the French had as yet no real hold on Canada. Between Quebec and the Three Rivers--between the Three Rivers and Montreal, not they but the Iroquois were masters of the St. Lawrence. A trading company claimed to rule: its rule was nothingness. Within Quebec bishops and Governors quarrelled for precedence: under its walls the Mohawks yelled defiance. Montreal, the story goes, was only saved by a band of Frenchmen, who, in a log hut on the Ottawa, sold their lives as dearly as the heroes of Greek or Roman legend; and to crown it all, {93} at the beginning of 1663, the shock of a mighty earthquake was felt throughout the land, making the forts and convents tremble, sending, as it were, a shiver through the feeble frame of New France. [Sidenote: _The One Hundred Associates surrender their charter._] It was the prelude of a better time. In March, 1663, the One Hundred Associates surrendered their charter to the Crown. A century later, by the Peace of Paris in 1763, France lost Canada. In those hundred years a fair trial was given to French colonization. How much was done to leave the impress of a great nation on Canada, the province of Quebec to-day will testify. Wherein the work was found wanting is told in history. [Sidenote: _The Company of the West._]