Morton, in the work already referred to, protested against allowing "the Great Lake of the Erocoise" (Champlain) to the Dutch, saying that it is excellent for the fur trade, and that the Dutch have gained by beaver 20,000 pounds a year. Exaggerated though the statement is, it is true that the energies of the Dutch were devoted to this trade, rather than to agricultural settlement. As in the case of New France the settlers dispersed themselves in the Indian trade; so general did this become that laws had to be passed to compel the raising of crops.[32] New York City (New Amsterdam) was founded and for a time sustained by the fur trade. In their search for peltries the Dutch were drawn up the Hudson, up the Connecticut, and down the Delaware, where they had Swedes for their rivals. By way of the Hudson the Dutch traders had access to Lake Champlain, and to the Mohawk, the headwaters of which connected through the lakes of western New York with Lake Ontario. This region, which was supplied by the trading post of Orange (Albany), was the seat of the Iroquois confederacy. The results of the trade upon Indian society became apparent in a short time in the most decisive way. Furnished with arms by the Dutch, the Iroquois turned upon the neighboring Indians, whom the French had at first refrained from supplying with guns.[33] In 1649 they completely ruined the Hurons,[34] a part of whom fled to the woods of northern Wisconsin. In the years immediately following, the Neutral Nation and the Eries fell under their power; they overawed the New England Indians and the Southern tribes, and their hunting and war parties visited Illinois and drove Indians of those plains into Wisconsin. Thus by priority in securing firearms, as well as by their remarkable civil organization,[35] the Iroquois secured possession of the St. Lawrence and Lakes Ontario and Erie. The French had accepted the alliance of the Algonquins and the Hurons, as the Dutch, and afterward the English, had that of the Iroquois; so these victories of the Iroquois cut the French off from the entrance to the Great Lakes by way of the upper St. Lawrence. As early as 1629 the Dutch trade was estimated at 50,000 guilders per annum, and the Delaware trade alone produced 10,000 skins yearly in 1663.[36] The English succeeded to this trade, and under Governor Dongan they made particular efforts to extend their operations to the Northwest, using the Iroquois as middlemen. Although the French were in possession of the trade with the Algonquins of the Northwest, the English had an economic advantage in competing for this trade in the fact that Albany traders, whose situation enabled them to import their goods more easily than Montreal traders could, and who were burdened with fewer governmental restrictions, were able to pay fifty per cent more for beaver and give better goods. French traders frequently received their supplies from Albany, a practice against which