"An avalanche of defeat and disaster had fallen upon the old age of Louis XIV.,"[270] and he was forced into a treaty which contained many humiliations. He must, however, have realised that England had once more lost her opportunity, and that it was still possible for France to assert her supremacy in the West. Canada, the goal of the New Englander, was still New France, and for the next thirty years chronic warfare, sometimes only flickering, but never extinct, smouldered along the frontier line of the English and French settlers. The Canadians had the distinct advantage of knowing what their great object was. It was far more magnificent than that which filled the minds of the English; it was perhaps too widely extended, but it was undoubtedly grand--North America for the Gaul. To the governors of Massachusetts and New York the dream of the total defeat of the French and their banishment from Canada may have occasionally appeared; but their general outlook upon the question was as circumscribed as that of the French was diffuse; and to them the safety of their colonies, the friendship of the Five Nations, and sound, steady trade were sufficiently difficult problems for solution. From the moment of the Treaty of Utrecht Acadia was the source of quarrels and intrigues which were entirely due to the interference of French Canadian priests. With these difficulties, however, the Thirteen Colonies had little or nothing to do, but found ample scope for their energies in resisting priestly plots elsewhere. The Canadian Government, owing to the preaching of the Jesuit priest Sebastian Rasle, succeeded in renewing their alliance with the Abenaki Indians on the New England frontier, although the chiefs of that tribe had made terms with the people of Massachusetts in 1717. Rasle was a man of zeal, of sturdy independent spirit, and fired with intense hatred of the English. The Massachusetts Government realised the danger of allowing this man, from his mission-station on the Kennebec River, to urge the Indians to acts of violence and cruelty. Letters are still preserved which prove that he was the agent of the Canadian Government, and exciting the Indians for French purposes. It seems a somewhat cowardly action, but it is evident that New France, concealing itself beneath the banner of ostensible peace, was fighting the New Englanders by means of savage allies. To crush this underhand scheme, in August 1724 a body of men under Captains Harmon, Moulton, and Brown, rowed up the Kennebec, took the Indian village, killed the Jesuit Rasle, and burnt the Indian wigwams. This blow, which was both daring and statesmanlike, had an excellent effect, and was hailed with joy by the border settlers, who saw in it the end of their troubles; and after a similar raid by Captain Heath on the tribes of the Penobscot in 1726, the Indians readily made terms of peace which lasted for many years. [Illustration: THE MARQUIS DE MONTCALM. _From a painting by J. B. Massé._]