The Dutch traders of Albany and the importing merchants who supplied them with Indian goods had a strong interest in preventing active hostilities with Canada, which would have spoiled their trade. So, too, and for similar reasons, had influential persons in Canada. The French authorities, moreover, thought it impolitic to harass the frontiers of New York by war parties, since the Five Nations might come to the aid of their Dutch and English allies, and so break the peaceful relations which the French were anxious to maintain with them. Thus it happened that, during the first six or seven years of the eighteenth century, there was a virtual truce between Canada and New York, and the whole burden of the war fell upon New England, or rather upon Massachusetts, with its outlying district of Maine and its small and weak neighbor, New Hampshire.[14] FOOTNOTES: [1] _Premier Projet pour L'Expedition contre la Nouvelle Angleterre, 1701._ _Second Projet_, etc. Compare _N. Y. Col. Docs._, ix. 725. [2] _Memoire du Sieur d'Iberville sur Boston et ses Dependances_, 1700 (1701?). Baron de Saint-Castin also drew up a plan for attacking Boston in 1702 with lists of necessary munitions and other supplies. [3] _Brouillan a Bellomont, 10 Aout, 1701. Conseil de Baston a Brouillan, 22 Aout, 1701._ Brouillan acted under royal orders, having been told, in case of war being declared, to propose a treaty with New England, unless he should find that he can "se garantir des insultes des Anglais" and do considerable harm to their trade, in which case he is to make no treaty. _Memoire du Roy au Sieur de Brouillan, 23 Mars, 1700._ [4] Schuyler, _Colonial New York_, i. 431, 432. [5] _Colonel Quary to the Lords of Trade, 16 June, 1703._ [6] _Cornbury to the Lords of Trade, 9 September, 1703._ [7] _Bellomont to the Lords of Trade, 28 February, 1700._ [8] _Ibid._ [9] Schuyler, _Colonial New York_, i. 488. [10] _N. Y. Col. Docs._, iv. 658. [11] _Bellomont to the Lords of Trade, 17 October, 1700._ [12] _Conference of Bellomont with the Indians, 26 August, 1700._ [13] _Journal of Bleeker and Schuyler on their visit to Onondaga, August, September, 1701._ [14] The foregoing chapter rests on numerous documents in the Public Record Office, Archives de la Marine, Archives Nationales, _N. Y. Colonial Documents_, vols. iv. v. ix., and the _Second and Third Series of the Correspondance Officielle_ at Ottawa. CHAPTER II. 1694-1704. DETROIT. Michilimackinac.--La Mothe-Cadillac: his Disputes with the Jesuits.--Opposing Views.--Plans of Cadillac: his Memorial to the Court; his Opponents.--Detroit founded. The New Company.--Detroit changes Hands.--Strange Act of the Five Nations. In the few years of doubtful peace that preceded Queen Anne's War, an enterprise was begun, which, nowise in accord with the wishes and expectations of those engaged in it, was destined to produce as its last result an American city.