A potent cause contributed to the lack of prosperity which marked Port Nelson under the French _régime_. It was the exploitation of the west by an army of traders and bushrangers. The new post of Michilimackinac had assumed all the importance as a fur-trading centre which had formerly belonged to Montreal. The French, too, were served by capable and zealous servants, none more so than Iberville himself, the new Governor of the Mississippi country.[38] His whole ambition continued to be centred upon driving out the English from the whole western and northern region, and destroying forever their trade and standing with the aborigines, and none more than he more ardently desired the suppression of the _coureur de bois_. "No Frenchmen," he declared, "should be allowed to follow the Indians in their hunts, as it tends to keep them hunters, as is seen in Canada; and when they are in the woods they do not desire to become tillers of the soil." At the same time the value of the bushrangers to the French _régime_ was considerable in damaging the English on the Bay. "It is certain," observed one of their defenders, "that if the articles required for the upper tribes be not sent to Michilimackinac, the Indians will go in search of them to Hudson's Bay, to whom they will convey all their peltries, and will detach themselves entirely from us." The bushrangers penetrated into the wilderness and intercepted the tribes, whose loyalty to the English was not proof against liquor and trinkets served on the spot, for which otherwise they would have to proceed many weary leagues to the Bay. The Company began to experience some alarm at the fashion the trade was sapped from their forts at Albany and Moose.[39] The Quebec Company was in the same plight with regard to Port Nelson. [Sidenote: The Western Company.] An association of French merchants, known as the Western Company, sprang up in the early days of the eighteenth century and many forts and factories were built in the Mississippi region. Its promoters expected great results from a new skin until now turned to little account, that of bison, great herds of which animal had been discovered roaming the western plains. M. de Juchereau, with thirty-four Canadians, established a post on the Wabash, in the name of the Western Company. Here, he writes, he collected in a short time fifteen thousand buffalo skins. From 1697 to 1708 a series of three commandants were appointed, one of whom now administered the affairs at Fort Bourbon, which however never assumed the importance which had attached to it under the English rule.