that one of the historians of that time thus epitomizes a period of over a year: “During the rest of this year and all of the next nothing new happened except the arrival of some brigantines from Martinique, Rochelle, and Santo Domingo, which brought provisions and drinks which they found it easy to dispose of.” France was too deeply engaged in the struggle with England to forward many emigrants. Canada could furnish but a scant population for the scattered settlements from Cape Breton to the Mississippi. The hardy adventurers who had accompanied Iberville in his search for the mouth of the Mississippi, and the families which had drifted down from Illinois, were as many as could be procured from her, and more than she could spare. The unaccustomed heat of the climate and the fatal fevers which lurked in the Southern swamps told upon the health of the Canadians, and sickness thinned their ranks. In the midst of the pressure of impending disasters which threatened the declining years of the most Christian King, the tardy enthusiasm in behalf of the colony, which his belief in its pearls and its buffalo-wool had aroused, caused him to spare from the resources of a bankrupt kingdom the means to equip and forward to the colony a vessel laden with supplies and bearing seventy-five soldiers and four priests. The tax upon the kingdom for even so feeble a contribution was enough to be felt at such a time; but the result was hardly worth the effort. The vessel arrived in July, 1704, during a period of sickness. Half of her crew died. To assist in navigating her back to France twenty soldiers were furnished. During the month of September the prevailing epidemic carried off the brave Tonty and thirty of the newly arrived soldiers. Given seventy-five soldiers as an increase to the force of a colony, which in 1701 was reported to number only one hundred and fifty persons, deduct twenty required to work the ship back, and thirty more for death within six weeks after arrival, and the net result which we obtain is not favorable for the rapid growth of the settlement. The same ship, in addition to supplies, soldiers, and priests, brought other cargo; namely, two Gray Sisters, four families of artisans, and twenty-three poor girls. The “poor girls” were all married to the resident Canadians within thirty days. With the exception of the visit of a frigate in 1701, and the arrival of a store-ship in 1703, this vessel is the only arrival outside of Iberville’s expeditions which is recorded in the _Journal historique_ up to that date. The wars and rumors of wars between the Indians soon disclosed a state of things at the South which in some of its features resembled the situation at the North. The Cherokees and Chickasaws were so placed geographically that they came in contact with English traders from Carolina and Virginia. Penicaut, when on his way up the river with Le Sueur, met one of these enterprising merchants among the Arkansas, of whom he says, “We