They desired the governor to carry on
the policy of encouraging agriculture which Talon had begun, thus
solidifying the colony and making its borders less difficult to
defend. Frontenac's instructions on this point could hardly have been
more explicit. "His Majesty considers it more consistent with the good
of his service," wrote Colbert, "that you apply yourself to clearing
and settling the most fertile places that are nearest the seacoast and
the communication with France than to think afar of explorations
in the interior of the country, so distant that they can never be
inhabited by Frenchmen." This was discouraging counsel, showing
neither breadth of vision nor familiarity with the urgent needs of the
colony. Frontenac courageously set these instructions aside, and in
doing so he was wise. Had he held to the letter of his instructions,
New France would never have been more than a strip of territory
fringing the Lower St. Lawrence. More than any other Frenchman he
helped to plan the great empire of the West.
Notwithstanding the narrow views of his superiors at Versailles,
Frontenac was convinced that the colony could best secure its own
defense by controlling the chief line of water communications between
the Iroquois country and Montreal. To this end he prepared to build a
fort at Cataraqui where the St. Lawrence debouches from Lake Ontario.
He was not, however, the first to recognize the strategic value of
this point.
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