and whose excessive and unauthorized power, my duty and my passionate affection for the service of the king obliged me in conscience to repress. My recall, which made them masters in the conduct of the government, was followed by all the disasters which overwhelmed this unhappy colony. The millions that the king spent here, the troops that he sent out, and the Canadians that he took into pay, all went for nothing. Most of the soldiers, and no small number of brave Canadians, perished in enterprises ill devised and ruinous to the country, which I found on my arrival ravaged with unheard-of cruelty by the Iroquois, without resistance, and in sight of the troops and of the forts. The inhabitants were discouraged, and unnerved by want of confidence in their chiefs; while the friendly Indians, seeing our weakness, were ready to join our enemies. I was fortunate enough and diligent enough to change this deplorable state of things, and drive away the English, whom my predecessors did not have on their hands, and this too with only half as many troops as they had. I am far from wishing to blame their conduct. I leave you to judge it. But I cannot have the tranquillity and freedom of mind which I need for the work I have to do here, without feeling entire confidence that the cabal which is again forming against me cannot produce impressions which may prevent you from doing me justice. For the rest, if it is thought fit that I should leave the priests to do as they like, I shall be delivered from an infinity of troubles and cares, in which I can have no other interest than the good of the colony, the trade of the kingdom, and the peace of the king's subjects, and of which I alone bear the burden, as well as the jealousy of sundry persons, and the iniquity of the ecclesiastics, who begin to call impious those who are obliged to oppose their passions and their interests." [8] [4] Champigny au Ministre, 12 Oct., 1691. [5] Ibid., 4 Nov., 1693. [6] Frontenac au Ministre, 15 Sept., 1692. [7] Ibid., 20 Oct., 1691. [8] "L'iniquité des ecclésiastiques qui commencent à traiter d'impies ceux qui sont obligés de resister à leurs passions et à leurs interêts." Frontenac au Ministre, 20 Oct., 1691. As Champigny always sided with the Jesuits, his relations with Frontenac grew daily more critical. Open rupture at length seemed imminent, and the king interposed to keep the peace. "There has been discord between you under a show of harmony," he wrote to the disputants. [9] Frontenac was exhorted to forbearance and calmness; while the intendant was told that he allowed himself to be made an instrument of others, and that his charges against the governor proved nothing but his own ill-temper. [10] The minister wrote in vain. The bickerings that he reproved were but premonitions of a greater strife. [9] Mémoire du Roy pour Frontenac et Champigny, 1694. [10] Le Ministre à Frontenac, 8 May, 1694; Le Ministre à Champigny, même date.