Among the qualities of this great Canadian all must admire his intrepidity in war, his skill as a navigator, and his capacity as an explorer; but beyond these were the astonishing administrative ability and political sagacity which he displayed in such an eminent degree in the planning, founding, and fostering of the great province of Louisiana. [Illustration: New Orleans in 1719.] III. JONATHAN CARVER, THE EXPLORER OF MINNESOTA. Throughout the bloody series of French and Indian wars which ravaged the frontier settlements of America during the first half of the eighteenth century, France maintained secure possession of the regions of the great lakes and the basin of the upper Mississippi. The successful campaign of the gallant Wolfe against the no less gallant Montcalm ultimately resulted in the termination of French supremacy in these sections, and under the treaty of Paris, in 1763, Canada with all other dominions of France east of the Mississippi passed under the control of Great Britain. To this time the English colonists had confined their operations almost entirely to the region of the Atlantic Coast, so when Great Britain acquired her immense war-inheritance the country to the west of the Appalachian Mountain range was practically an unknown region to its new masters. The extension of English settlements toward the interior of the continent was determined on by the English Government, and the more accessible of the French trading-posts in the northwest were immediately occupied. Maps were few and inaccurate, information as to the Indians vague and exaggerated, while nothing was known as to the resources of the country except that furs were obtainable in large numbers. Scarcely were the terms of the treaty promulgated than the enterprising pioneers moved westward and gradually pressed back the Indians nearest the English settlements. A few other men, however, undertook to penetrate the valley of the Mississippi to the very frontier of Louisiana, which remained a French possession. Among these hardy and adventurous Americans the most enterprising was Captain Jonathan Carver, who was born in Stillwater, N. Y., in 1732. He was the grandson of William Joseph Carver, one of the earliest of the royal appointments in Connecticut, and his first public service was at the age of eighteen, when he secured an ensigncy in a Connecticut regiment. In 1757, when Colonel Oliver Partridge raised a battalion of infantry in Massachusetts to serve against Canada, Carver was made a lieutenant therein. Later he served as captain under Colonel Whitcomb, in 1760, and under Colonel Saltonstall, in 1762, and participated in the taking of Crown Point and other operations in northern New York.