You will learn later that this struggle between the French and English lasted for more than half a century after the time of which I have been telling, and ended in a great war between the nations, that extended in America all over the country that was then settled. But at last the English gained the day and the French gave up all the country that they had owned in America east of the Mississippi to the English, and that is how this country came to be under English rule. After the French and Indian wars were over the colonists had very little trouble with the Indians, and in a few years there was peace and quiet all over New England. CHAPTER XXII. LA SALLE. Many stories had been brought by the Indians to the French settlers in Canada, of the great country that lay west of the St. Lawrence and the lakes; and now and then an adventurous trapper had visited the shores of Lake Michigan, and had heard these stories repeated by the tribes living there; and then French priests found their way thither, and by and by it came to be believed that the country in the west was as well worth exploring as the shores of the Atlantic and St. Lawrence; and travellers began to visit the new territory and to trade more extensively with its natives, and to listen with believing ears to their tales of a great river that flowed from the north away and away, hundreds of miles, to the sea. At that time France was very desirous of discovering a passage from the St. Lawrence to the Pacific Ocean, and when this new river began to be so much talked about, it was wondered whether it might not flow into the Pacific. But some people thought differently; they said that they had no doubt the great river flowed directly south and emptied into the Gulf of Mexico; and, after a great deal of talk, it was decided to send an expedition from Canada to find this great river, and to see where it rose and into what it flowed. The principal men in the party were Louis Joliet, who had been sent from France to discover the passage to the Pacific, and Father Marquette, a French priest, whose long residence among the Indians, and the love and respect with which he had inspired them, made him a very suitable companion for Joliet.