The things we do!

Peter the Great spent great treasure in clearing the
forests, draining the swamps, and raising embankments for this future
capital of an empire. Louis XIV had only to let certain Frenchmen settle
on these less forbidding coasts, that might soon have become the capital
of as fruitful a province as Peter the Great's; and the transformation
would have been made, as in New England, without any assistance from the
king except perhaps for defense.
It is due the memory of Iberville, often slandered as was La Salle before
him, not that the story of his all but hopeless struggles should be
repeated here but that the object toward which he so valiantly struggled
should be clearly seen. He had read Father Membre's account of the La
Salle voyage of discovery and Joutel's story of the last expedition. He
had even had a conversation with La Salle, and had heard his own lips
describe the river; and he had known Tonty of the Iron Hand, faithful to
the last. Iberville had a mind capable of entertaining the vision, and he
had a spirit capable of following it.


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