Here remote from the world, with the joyous sparkling of the great river at their feet, the luxuriance of the forest about them, the cottages of the settlers peeping out from the green foliage in which they were half hidden, these simple colonists lived uneventful lives, surrounded by the beauty and the bounties of nature. The forests teemed with game, the marshes with wild fowl, and the rivers with fish. The long winters were seasons of enjoyment. In summer and autumn traders, voyageurs, _coureurs des bois_, and half-breeds gathered from the distant Northwest, and the settlement was boisterous with rude frolic and gaiety. This was Detroit and Michigan in 1765.[3] Between the French surrender and American occupancy, little was done toward the development of the peninsulas. In 1796 there were a few straggling settlements on the Detroit river, as also on Otter creek and on the rivers Rouge, Pointe aux Tremble, and other small streams flowing into Lake Erie. The French Canadians had extended their farms to a considerable distance along the banks of the St. Clair. Detroit was a small cluster of rude wooden houses, defended by a fort, and surrounded by pickets. Villages of the Ottawas and Pottawatamies stood on the present site of the city of Monroe, and near them were a few primitive cabins constructed of logs, erected by the French on either bank of the river Raisin; this was called Frenchtown, and is now part of Monroe. On the upper lakes there were the posts on the island of Mackinac, at St. Marie, and at St. Joseph (on the St. Joseph river). The transition from France to England had given the monopoly of the fur trade to the Hudson Bay Company, thus changing the direction of its profits; otherwise the effect upon Michigan had been a change of masters, flag and garrison, and little else. And the shifting from England to the United States also meant only new faces and new colors in the fort; otherwise it was for the time effectless.