When Canada was restored to France, by the treaty of St. Germain, the Jesuits were given sole charge of the Indian missions, but it was 1634 before the Huron mission could be reopened. In September, Brébeuf, Antoine Daniel, and Davost returned to Brébeuf's old field, and commenced, in the large town of Ihonatiria, the greatest Jesuit mission in the history of New France. Others soon joined them. Additional missions were opened in neighboring towns, some of the strongest of these being each served by four fathers, who were assisted by laymen donnés, or given men; while in the cultivation of the soil, and the fashioning of implements and utensils both for the fathers and for the Indians, numerous hired laborers, from the French colonies on the St. Lawrence, were employed in and about the missions. Charles Garnier and Isaac Jogues, with their attendants, made a tour of the Petun villages; other Jesuits were sent among the Neutrals; and even the Algonkins as far northwestward as Sault Ste. Marie were visited (1641) by Raymbault and Jogues, and looked and listened with awe at the celebration of the mass. In 1639, there was built, on the River Wye, the fortified mission house of St. Mary's, to serve as a center for the wide-spread work, as a place for ecclesiastical retreat for the fathers, and a refuge when enemies pressed too closely upon them. The story of the hardships and sufferings of the devoted missionaries, as told us by Rochemonteix, Shea, and Parkman, and with rare modesty recorded in the documents to be contained in this series, is one of the most thrilling in the annals of humanity. Space forbids us here to dwell upon the theme. No men have, in the zealous exercise of their faith, performed hardier deeds than these Jesuits of the Huron mission; yet, after three years of unremitting toil, they could (1640) count but a hundred converts out of a population of 16,000, and these were for the most part sick infants or aged persons, who had died soon after baptism. The rugged braves scorned the approaches of the fathers, and unmercifully tormented their converts; the medicine-men waged continual warfare on their work; smallpox and the Iroquois were decimating the people.