Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. IV (of 8)

JACQUES CARTIER AND HIS SUCCESSORS.

BY THE REV. BENJAMIN F. DE COSTA, D.D.

JACQUES CARTIER, the Breton sailor, sometimes styled “the Corsair,” was born at St. Malo, probably in 1491. He began to follow the sea at an early age, and soon attained to prominence. In 1534 the discovery of a western route to the Indies being a subject that attracted great attention, Cartier undertook an expedition, for which preparations had been begun during the previous year.

The Treaty of Cambrai having given peace to France, the privateersmen, or “corsairs,” found that the best excuse for their occupation was gone; and they were ready to engage in the work of exploration opened by Francis I. in 1524, by sending out Verrazano. Accordingly the King appears to have accepted the plan of Cartier submitted by Chabot, Admiral of France, and the arrangements were perfected. Cartier’s commission for the voyage has not yet been produced, though in March, 1533, he was recognized by the Court of St. Malo as a person already authorized to undertake a voyage to the New Land.

Cartier sailed from the ancient port of St. Malo, April 20, 1534. With two ships of about sixty tons each, and a company, it would appear, of sixty-two chosen men, he laid his course in the track of the old navigators, with whom he must have been familiar. On May 10 he reached Cape Bonavista, one of the nearest headlands of Newfoundland. Forced by storms to seek refuge in the harbor of St. Catherine, about fifteen miles south-southeast of Bonavista, he spent ten days in making some needed repairs. With the return of favorable winds he resumed his voyage, and coasted northward to the Island of Birds, which he found surrounded by banks of broken ice and covered by an incredible number of fowl. With these the French loaded their boats in half an hour. There, also, they saw a large bear, “as white as any swan,” swimming thither “to eat of the said birds.” On May 27 the ships reached the entrance of the Straits of Belle Isle, but were obliged by the ice to enter the neighboring harbor of Carpunt, 51° N. From Carpunt, Cartier sailed to the Labrador coast, and, June 10, reached a harbor which he called Port Brest. The next day being the festival of St. Barnabas, divine service was said by the priest serving as chaplain, after which several boats went along the coast to explore, when they reached and named the harbors of St. Anthony, St. Servans, and Jacques Cartier. At St. Servans the explorers set up a cross, and near by, at a place called St. John’s River, they found a ship from Rochelle, which had touched at Port Brest the previous night.

The boats returned to the ships on the 13th, the leader reporting the appearance of Labrador as forbidding, saying that this must be the land that was allotted to Cain. In this region they found some savages who were “wild and unruly,” and who had come “from the mainland out of warmer regions” in bark canoes. They appear to have been the Red Indians, or Boeotics, of Newfoundland, who were renowned as hunters, and who excelled in the manufacture of instruments carved in ivory and bone. Professor Dawson says that the Breton sailor here stood in the presence of the precise equivalent of the Flint Folk of his own country.

From Port Brest the expedition crossed the Strait and “sailed toward the south, to view the lands that we had there seen, that appeared to us like two great islands; but when we were in the middle of the Gulf we knew it that it was terra firma, where there was a great double cape, one above the other, and on this account we called it Cape Double.” This was Point Rich, Newfoundland. Coasting the land, amid mists and storms, June 24 he reached a cape, which in honor of the day he called Cape St. John,—now known as Anguille. From Anguille Cartier sailed southwest into the Gulf, reaching the Isles aux Margoulx, the present Bird Rocks, two of which were “steep and upright as any wall,” where he was again impressed by the fowl, “innumerable as the flowers on a meadow.” Twenty-five miles westward was another island, about six miles long and as many wide, being fertile, and full of beautiful trees, meadows, and flowers. There were sea-monsters on the shores, which had tusks like elephants. This he called Brion Island, and the name still remains.

At this point both Ramusio’s narrative of the voyage and the Discovrs dv voyage (1598) make Cartier say: “I think that there may be some passage between Newfoundland and Brion Island;” but the text of the Relation originale[167] reads, “between the New Land and the land of the Bretons.” This has been accepted as teaching that Cartier at that time did not know of the strait between Newfoundland and Cape Breton; and it is argued that, as it afforded a shorter route from France to Canada, he would have followed it, if he had known of its existence; yet in 1541, when he certainly knew that strait, he took the route by Belle Isle, as twice before. Again, on his second voyage, while passing through the southern strait on his way to France, the narrative does not speak of any discovery. The inference may be drawn that the passage quoted misrepresents Cartier. Indeed, the portion of the narrative covering the movements around Brion and Alezay Island is so confused that one with difficulty takes in the situation. Dr. Kohl, in his Discovery of Maine (p. 326), represents Brion’s Island as the present Prince Edward; though no map seems to bear out the statement.

Next Cartier passed to an island “very high and pointed at one end, which was named Alezay.” Its first cape was called St. Peter’s, in honor of the day. This, as it would appear, is the present Prince Edward Island;[168] but the account admits of large latitude of interpretation.

Cartier reached the mainland on the evening of the last day of June, and named a headland Cape Orleans; next he found Miramichi Bay, or the Bay of Boats, which he called St. Lunario. Here he had some hope of finding a passage through the continent. On July 4 Cartier was surrounded by a great fleet of canoes, and was obliged to fire his cannon to drive the natives away. The next day, however, he met them on the shore, and propitiated their chief with the present of a red hat. These were the Micmacs, a coast tribe wandering from place to place, fishing in the summer, and hunting in the interior during the winter. By July 8 he reached the bay which, on account of the heat, he called the Bay Chaleur, known by the Indians as Mowebaktabāāk, or the Biggest Bay. Here the Micmac country ended, and the natives were of another tribe, visitors from Canada, who had descended the St. Lawrence to prosecute the summer fisheries.[169] They proved friendly, engaging in trade, and showing a disposition which Cartier thought would incline them to receive Christianity. The country was beautiful, but no passage was found extending through the land; and accordingly he sailed northward, reaching a place called St. Martin’s Creek, and saying that on this coast they have “figs, nuts, pears, and other fruits.” Leaving St. Martin’s Creek, the coast was followed to Cape Prato,—a name which appears like a reminiscence of Albert de Prato, who was at Newfoundland in 1527.[170] Forty natives were seen in canoes; but they were poor, and almost in a nude condition. They appeared to be catching mackerel in nets made of a kind of hemp. Reaching Gaspé, July 24, a large cross was set up, with a shield attached, bearing the fleur-de-lis and the motto: “Vive le Roi de France.” The natives, however, protested, understanding that by setting up this totem the strangers claimed a country to which they had no right. Afterward two of the natives, Taignoagny and Domagaya, were entrapped and made prisoners, while presents sent to the tribe seemingly afforded satisfaction. The next day the expedition left the land, and, sailing out once more into the Gulf, they saw the great Island of Anticosti, when, coasting its southern shore, they named its eastern cape St. Loys. Thence Cartier steered over to the coast of Labrador, searching for a passage to the west. On St. Peter’s day he was in the strait between Anticosti and Labrador, which forms one entrance to Canada. He called it St. Peter’s Channel; but he did not know whither it led, and accordingly called a council. As the result, the season being now far advanced, and the supplies running low, it was resolved to return to France, and defer the examination of the strait to some more favorable occasion. Cartier therefore left Anticosti, and reached White Sand Island, August 9; on the 15th, after hearing Mass, he passed through the Strait of Belle Isle into the ocean, and laid his course for France. He had a prosperous passage, and arrived at St. Malo early in September.

The main object of his voyage proved a failure, and a route to the Indies was not discovered. He had approached close to the mouth of the St. Lawrence, but was not aware of the fact. A correct knowledge of the situation would have filled him with chagrin. As it was, he determined to persevere; and upon reaching France he proceeded to prepare for another voyage.

The representations made by the intrepid sailor had the desired effect, and Admiral Chabot at once made known the condition of affairs to Francis I., who signed a commission for Cartier, Oct. 30, 1534, authorizing him to complete the exploration beyond Newfoundland. For this purpose the King gave Cartier three ships,—the “Great Hermina,” of about one hundred and twenty tons, to be commanded by Cartier; the “Little Hermina,” of sixty tons, under Macé Jalobert; and a small galley, the “Emerilon,” in charge of Jacques Maingart. The men for his first expedition had been obtained with difficulty, the sailors of St. Malo preferring voyages with more certain and solid results than any to be gained in Cartier’s romantic quest. Accordingly the King authorized him to impress criminals. In a letter to the Most Christian King, Cartier advocated the enterprise as one destined to open new fields for the activity of the Church, which was now beginning to suffer from the effects of the Protestant Reformation.

On Whit-Sunday, 1535, the members of the expedition—which does not appear to have carried a priest, but included a number of prominent gentlemen—went, by direction of Cartier, to confession, and afterward received the benediction of the bishop as they knelt in the choir of the cathedral church of St. Malo. Three days later Cartier sailed. Head-winds and violent storms opposed the little fleet, rendering progress slow, and entailing much hardship. June 25 the ships separated in a storm; but on July 7 the “Great Hermina,” after much tossing, reached the Isle of Birds, on the northern coast of Newfoundland,—one of the scenes of the previous year’s visit. The port of White Sand, however, had been appointed the rendezvous, and thither, July 26, Cartier went, being joined there by the rest of the fleet. Next, crossing the strait to the Labrador coast, Cartier sailed westward, reaching St. John’s River, August 10. He named it the Bay of St. Lawrence,—a name afterward applied to the Gulf. August 12, he consulted the two Indians captured the previous year, who diminished his hope of finding a passage to the Indies, by showing that the channel before him, named in honor of St. Peter, led to a river whose banks rapidly contracted; while far within the interior the water was shallow, navigation being obstructed by rapids. This, they likewise said, was the entrance to the country of Canada. On August 18, sick at heart by the failure to discover any passage through the continent, Cartier sailed back to the northern shore. Three days later he named the great island lying in the mouth of the Gulf, Assumption,[171] in honor of the festival; and finally, disbelieving the Indians, and hoping that the channel between Labrador and Anticosti opened to salt water, he ordered the course to be laid toward the west, being led to this determination by seeing many whales. Soon, however, the water began to freshen; yet hoping, as did Champlain long after, that even the fresh water might afford a highway to the Indies, he entered the river, viewing the banks on either side, and making his way upward. Erelong he saw the wonderful Saguenay pouring through its gloomy gorge, scooped out of solid rock by ancient glaciers, and was tempted to sail in between the lofty walls which flung down their solemn shadows upon the deep and resistless stream. Here he met some timid natives in canoes, engaged in hunting the seal. They fled, until they heard the voices of his two savages, Taignoagny and Domagaya, when they returned, and gave the French a hospitable reception. Without exploring the Saguenay, Cartier returned to the main river, passing up to the Isle aux Coudres, or Isle of Hazel-nuts, where he found the savages engaged in capturing a marine monster called the “adhothoys,”—in form, says the narrative, as shapely as a greyhound. This was the Beluga catadon, the well-known white whale, whose bones are found in the post-pliocene clay of the St. Lawrence. The manuscript of Allefonsce says: “In the Canadian Sea there is one sort of fish very much like a whale, almost as large, white as snow, and with a mouth like a horse.” Continuing his ascent, Cartier met more of the natives, and at last encountered the lord of the country, the well-known Donnacona, who dwelt at Stadaconna (Quebec). The chief addressed the French commander in a set oration, delivered in the native style with many gesticulations and contortions.

Finally Cartier reached a large island, which he called Bacchus Island, with reference to the abundance of vines; though afterward it was given the name it now bears, the Island of Orleans. Here he anchored his fleet, and went on in boats to find a convenient harbor. This he discovered near Stadaconna, at the mouth of the river now known as the St. Charles, calling it the harbor of the Holy Cross. On September 14 the ships were brought up. The French were received with great rejoicing by all except Donnacona and the two natives, Taignoagny and Domagaya; the latter had rejoined their old friends, and appeared “changed in mind and purpose,” refusing to come to the ships. Donnacona had discovered that Cartier wished to ascend the river to Hochelaga, and he regarded this step as opposed to his personal interests. Finally, however, a league of friendship was formed, when the two natives returned on board, attended by no less than five hundred of the inhabitants of Stadaconna. Still Donnacona persisted in his opposition to Cartier’s proposed exploration; and finally dressed several members of his tribe in the garb of devils, introducing them as delegates from the god Cudragny, supposed to dwell at Hochelaga. The antics of these performers did not intimidate Cartier, and accordingly, leaving a sufficient force to guard the ships, he started with a pinnace and two boats containing fifty men. It was now the middle of September, and the Canadian forests were putting on their robes of autumnal glory. The scenery was at its best, and the French were greatly impressed by the beauty of the country. On the 28th the river suddenly expanded, and it was called the Lake of Angoulême, in recognition of the birthplace of Francis I. In passing out of the lake, the strength of the rapids rendered it necessary to leave the pinnace behind; but with the two boats Cartier went on; and, October 2, after a journey of thirteen days, he landed on the alluvial ground close by the current now called St. Mary, about three miles from Hochelaga. He was received by throngs of the natives, who brought presents of corn-bread and fish, showing every sign of friendship and joy. The next day Cartier went with five gentlemen and twenty sailors to visit the people at their houses, and to view “a certain mountain that is near the city.” They met a chief, who received them with an address of welcome, and led them to the town, situated among cultivated fields, and “joined to a great mountain that is tilled round about and very fertile,” which Cartier called Mount Royal, now contracted into Montreal. The town itself is described in the narrative of Cartier’s voyage as circular and cunningly built of wood, having a single gate, being fortified with a gallery extending around the top of the wall. This was supplied with ammunition, consisting of “stones and pebbles for the defence of it.” With the Hochelagans it was the Age of Stone. Their mode of life is well described in the narrative which, in the Italian version of Ramusio, is accompanied by a plan of the town. Cartier and his companions were freely brought into the public square, where the women and maidens suddenly assembled with children in their arms, kissing their visitors heartily, and “weeping for joy,” while they requested Cartier to “touch” the children. Next appeared Agouhanna, the palsied lord of Hochelaga, a man of fifty years, borne upon the shoulders of nine or ten men. The chief welcomed Cartier, and desired him to touch his shrunken limbs, evidently believing him to be a superior being. Taking the wreath of royalty from his own head, he placed it upon Cartier. Then the sick, the blind, the impotent, and the aged were brought to be “touched;” for it seemed to them that “God was descended and come down from heaven to heal them.” Moved with compassion, Cartier recited a portion of the Gospel of St. John, made the sign of the Cross, with prayer; afterward, service-book in hand, he “read all the Passion of Christ, word by word,” ending with a distribution of hatchets, knives, and trinkets, and a flourish of trumpets. The latter made them all “very merry.” Next he ascended the Mount, and viewed the distant prospect, being told of the extent of the river, the character of distant tribes, and the resources of the country. This done, he prepared for his return, and, amid the regrets of the natives, started on the downward voyage.

In 1603, when Champlain reached the site of ancient Hochelaga, the fortified city and its inhabitants had disappeared.[172] With a narrative of Cartier in hand, he doubtless sought the imposing town and its warlike and superior inhabitants, as later, on the banks of the Penobscot, he inquired for the ancient Norumbega, celebrated by so many navigators and historians. But Hochelaga, like its contemporary capital on the great river of Maine, had disappeared, and the Hochelagans were extinct.

On October 11 Cartier reached the Harbor of Holy Cross, where, during his absence, the people had constructed a fort and had mounted artillery. Donnacona and the two natives reappeared, and Cartier visited the chief at Stadaconna, the people coming out in due form to receive him. He found the houses comfortable after their fashion, and well provided with food for the approaching winter. The scalps of five human heads were stretched upon boughs, and these, Cartier was told, were taken from their enemies, with whom they were in constant warfare, as it would appear from their defences and from other signs. The inhabitants of Stadaconna were nevertheless inclined to religion, and earnestly desired to be baptized; when Cartier, who appears to have been a good lay preacher, explained its importance,—though he could not accede to their request, as he had with him neither priest nor chrism. The next year he promised to provide both.

It would appear that at the outset Cartier had decided to winter in the country and upon his return from Hochelaga preparations were made. His experience, however, was somewhat sad, and nothing was gained by the decision to remain, except some traffic.

In the month of December a pestilence broke out among the natives, of whom finally the French came to see but little, as the Indians were charged not to come near the fort. Soon afterward the same disease attacked the French, proving to be a form of the scurvy, which at one time reduced all but ten of Cartier’s company to a frightful condition, while eventually no less than twenty-five died. In their distress an image of Christ was set up on the shore. They marched thither, and prostrated themselves upon the deep snow, chanting litanies and penitential psalms, while Cartier himself vowed a pilgrimage to Our Lady of Rocquemado. Nevertheless on that day Philip Rougemont died. Cartier, being determined to leave nothing undone, ordered a post-mortem examination of the remains of this young man from Amboise. This afforded no facts throwing light upon the disease, which continued its ravages with still greater virulence, until the French learned from the natives that they might be cured by a decoction made from a tree called ameda. The effect of this medicine proved so remarkable, that if “all the doctors of Montpelier and Louvain had been there with all the drugs of Alexandria, they would not have done so much in a year as that tree did in six days.” Winter finally wore away, and in May, on Holy-Rood Day, Cartier set up a fair cross and the arms of France, with the legend, “Franciscus Primus, Dei gratia Francorum Rex regnat,” concluding the act by entrapping the King Donnacona, and carrying him a prisoner on board his ship. The natives vainly offered a ransom, but were pacified on being told that Cartier would return the next year and bring back their king. Destroying one of his vessels, the “Little Hermina,” on May 6, Cartier bade the people adieu, and sailed down to a little port near the Isle of Orleans, going thence to the Island of Hazel-Nuts, where he remained until the 16th, on account of the swiftness of the stream. He was followed by the amazed savages, who were still unwilling to part with their king. Receiving, however, assurances from Donnacona himself that he would return in a year, they affected a degree of satisfaction, thanked Cartier, gave him bundles of beaver-skins, a chain of esurguy,[173] or wampum, and a red copper knife from the Saguenay, while they obtained some hatchets in return. He then set sail;[174] but bad weather forced him to return. He took his final departure May 21, and soon reached Gaspé, next passing Cape Prato, “the beginning of the Port of Chaleur.” On Ascension Day he was at Brion Island. He sailed thence towards the main, but was beaten back by head-winds. He finally reached the southern coast of Newfoundland, giving names to the places he visited. At St. Peter’s Island he met “many ships from France and Britain.” On June 16 he left Cape Race, the southern point of Newfoundland, having on this voyage nearly circumnavigated the coast of the island, and thus passed to sea, making a prosperous voyage, and reached St. Malo July 6, 1536. Though, according to the narrative, Cartier gave the name of St. Paul to the north coast of Cape Breton, this appellation was on the map of Maijolla, 1527, and that of Viegas, drawn in the year 1533. Manifestly the narrative does Cartier some injustice.

Several years passed before anything more was done officially respecting the exploration of the New Lands. Champlain assumes that Cartier made bad representations of the country, and discouraged effort. This view has been repeated without much examination. It is clear that all were disappointed by finding no mines of precious metals, as well as by the failure to discover a passage to the Indies; yet for all this Cartier has been maligned. This appears to be so from the statement found in the narrative of the third voyage, which opens in a cheerful strain, the writer saying that “King Francis I. having heard the report of Captain Jacques Cartier, his pilot-general, in his two former voyages of discovery, as well by writing as by word of mouth, respecting that which he had found and seen in the western parts discovered by him in the ports of Canada and Hochelaga; and having seen and talked with the people which the said Cartier had brought from those countries, of whom one was King of Canada,” resolved to “send Cartier, his pilot, thither again.” With the navigator he concluded to associate Jean François de la Roche, Lord of Roberval, invested with a commission as Lieutenant and Governor of Canada and Hochelaga. Roberval was a gentleman of Picardy, highly esteemed in his province; and, according to Charlevoix, he was sometimes styled by Francis I. the “petty King of Vimeu.” Roberval was commissioned by Francis I. at Fontainebleau, Jan. 15, 1540, and on February 6 took the oath in the presence of Cardinal de Tournon. His subordinate, Cartier, was not appointed until October 17 following, his papers being signed by Henry the Dauphin on the 20th.

The apparent object of this voyage is stated where the narrative recites that it was undertaken “that they might discover more than was done before in some voyages, and attain, if possible, to a knowledge of the country of the Saguenay, whereof the people brought by Cartier, as is declared, mentioned to the King that there were great riches and very good lands.” The first and second voyages of Cartier may not have attracted the attention of the Spaniards; but when the expedition of 1541 was in preparation Spain sought to interfere, as in the case of Verrazano in 1523.[175] Francis anticipated this, Alexander VI. having coolly given all America to Spain, as she eagerly claimed; and the explanation was that the fleet was simply going to the poor region of Baccalaos. The Spanish ambassador, knowing well that his master was too poor to support his pretensions by force of arms, finally came to the conclusion that the French could do no harm, while others prophesied a failure.[176]

To carry out the voyage, a sum of money was placed at the disposal of Roberval, who agreed with Cartier to build and equip five[177] vessels. Soon the shipyards of St. Malo resounded with the din of labor, and the Breton carpenters promptly fulfilled their task. Roberval, however, had not in the mean time completed his preparations, and yet, having express orders from the King not to delay, Cartier, with the approval of Roberval, set sail with three or more ships, May 23, 1541. He encountered a succession of storms for three months, having less than thirty hours of fair wind in all that time. One ship, under the Viscount of Beaupré, kept company with Cartier, but the rest were scattered. The fleet assembled at Carpunt, in Newfoundland, waiting in vain for Roberval. Cartier accordingly went on, and reached the Harbor of Holy Cross, August 23. The savages hailed him with joy, and inquired for their chief, Donnacona, and the other captives. They were informed that Donnacona had died in France, where he had received the faith and been baptized, while the rest had married, and stayed there as great lords, whereas in fact all except a little girl had died.[178] Agona, who had ruled during the interregnum, was not at all dissatisfied, as it left him invested with kingship; yet, as a compliment, he took the crown of tanned leather and esurguy from his own head, and placed it upon Cartier’s, whose wrists he also adorned with his bracelets, showing signs of joy. This, however, was mere dissimulation. Next, Cartier took his fleet to a harbor four leagues nearer Quebec, where he built a fort called Charlesbourg Royal. On the 2d of September Macé Jalobert, his brother-in-law, and Etienne Noel, his nephew, were sent back to France with two of his ships, to report the non-arrival of Roberval. Leaving Beaupré in command at Charlesbourg Royal, Cartier ascended the St. Lawrence, visiting on the way a lord of Hochelay. In his previous voyage this chief had proved sincere, informing him of the meditated treachery of Taignoagny and Domagaya. He now bestowed upon him “a cloak of Paris red,” with yellow facings and tin buttons and bells. Going on, Cartier passed Hochelaga, and attempted to ascend the rapids, two of which he actually stemmed. Arriving at Hochelaga, he found that the chief had gone to Quebec to plot against him with Agona. Returning to Charlesbourg, he passed the winter, seeing little of the natives. In the spring, having gathered a quantity of quartz crystals, which he fancied were diamonds, and some thin scales of metal supposed to be gold, he sailed for France. In the Harbor of St. John, Newfoundland, Hakluyt says, he met Roberval, then on his way to Canada. The “gold” was tried in a furnace, and “found to be good.” Cartier reported the country rich and fruitful; but when ordered by Roberval to return, he pleaded his inability to stand against the savages with so small a number of men; while in Hakluyt we read that “hee and his company, moued as it seemeth with ambition, because they would haue all the glory of the discouerie of those partes themselues, stole privately away the next night from us, and, without taking their leaues, departed home for Bretainye.”

This, however, appears to be wrong; as at the time he is represented as meeting Roberval at Newfoundland his chief must have been in Canada, he having left France Aug. 22, 1541. Hakluyt’s informant was confused, and the ships met by Roberval at Newfoundland may have been those two despatched by Cartier to France under Jallobert and Noel during the previous autumn, or else Cartier on his way home in June met Sainterre.[179]

Jean François de la Roche, Lord of Roberval, in connection with Cartier, was commissioned for his expedition by a royal patent, Jan. 15, 1540. His fleet consisted of three tall ships and a company of two hundred persons, including women and gentlemen of quality. Sainterre was his lieutenant, and Jean Allefonsce his pilot-general. According to Hakluyt, he sailed from Rochelle, April 14, 1542,—more than a year after the time originally appointed,—reaching St. John’s, Newfoundland, June 8, where he found seventeen fishing-vessels. While delayed here, Hakluyt says, Cartier appeared in the harbor, and afterward left secretly, as already stated, to return to France. As a matter of fact, however, Roberval sailed from Honfleur, Aug. 22, 1541. We must not be misled, therefore, where Hakluyt says that on the last day of June, 1542, having composed a quarrel between the French and Portuguese fishermen, he sailed on his voyage through the Gulf. This he must have done during the preceding autumn. Yet, whenever he may have ascended the St. Lawrence, Roberval reached the Isle of Orleans in safety, and found a good harbor. Hakluyt says that at the end of July he landed his stores, and began to fortify above Quebec at France Royal;[180] if it was in July, it must have been July, 1542. Roberval, possibly, reached his winter-quarters in 1541, when it was too late to fortify. Hakluyt, having been misinformed on the expedition, supposed that Cartier and Roberval were not together in Canada; but there is much uncertainty in any conclusion.

A strong, elevated, and beautiful situation was selected by Roberval, with “two courtes of buildings, a great toure, and another of fourtie or fiftie foote long; wherein there were diuers chambers, an hall, a kitchine, houses of office, sellers high and lowe, and neere vnto were an oven and milles, and a stoue to warme men in, and a well before the house.”

Hakluyt says that, September 14, Roberval sent back to France two ships under Sainterre and Guincourt, bearing tidings to the King, and requesting information respecting the value of Cartier’s “diamonds.” It would appear, however, that these vessels were sent late in 1541, for the reason that Jan. 26, 1542, Francis I. ordered Sainterre to go to the rescue of Roberval,—the language of the order indicating that he had already been out to Canada. On preparing for the winter, Roberval, according to Hakluyt, found his provisions scanty. Still, having fish and porpoises, he passed the season, though the bad food bred disease, and not less than fifty of the company died. The people were vicious and insubordinate; but the “Little King” was equal to the occasion, dealing out even and concise justice, laying John of Nantes in irons, whipping both men and women soundly, and hanging Michael Gaillon,—“by which means they lived in quiet.”

The account of Hakluyt ends abruptly; yet he states that June 5, 1543, Roberval went on an expedition to explore above Quebec, appointing July 1 as the time of his return. If he did not appear then, the thirty persons left behind were authorized to sail for France, while he would remain in the country. What followed is invested with more or less uncertainty, as we have no authority except Hakluyt, who says that in an expedition up the river eight men were drowned, and one “boate” lost; while, June 19, word came from Roberval to stay the departure from France Roy until July 22. To this statement Hakluyt adds, “the rest of the voyage is wanting.” His account of both Roberval and Cartier’s operations are hardly to be relied upon, since he was so badly informed. The circumstances under which Roberval returned to France may perhaps never be known; yet it is certain that Cartier went out to bring him home some time in the year 1543. He did not leave on this voyage until after March 25, as he was present at a baptism in St. Malo on that day, while he had returned before February 17, 1544, on which date, as Longrais has discovered recently among the documents, he was a witness in court at St. Malo. The subject will be referred to again.

At this point it will be proper to give some account of the personal operations of Jehan, or Jean, Allefonsce, the pilot of Roberval. He was born at Saintonge, a village of Cognac, and was mortally wounded in a naval combat which took place near the Harbor of Rochelle, having followed the sea during a period of forty-one years. He appears to have been engaged in two special explorations,—one carrying him to the north, and the other to the vicinity of Massachusetts Bay.

Of the first expedition—that connected with the Saguenay or vicinity—we have no account in the narrative which covers the voyage of Roberval. Father Le Clercq, however, says: “The Sire Roberval writes that he undertook some considerable voyages to the Saguenay and several other rivers. It was he who sent Allefonsce, a very expert pilot of Saintonge, to Labrador to find a passage to the Indies, as was hoped. But not being able to carry out his designs, on account of the heights of ice that stopped his passage, he was obliged to return to M. de Roberval with only this advantage, of having discovered the passage which is between the Isle of Newfoundland and the Great Land of the north by the fifty-second degree.”[181] Le Clercq gives no authority for his statement, and one writer[182] discredits it, for the reason that Allefonsce is made to “discover” the passage between Newfoundland and Labrador. It is probable, however, that Le Clercq, or his authority, meant no more by the term “discover” than to explore, as the Strait of Belle Isle was at that period as well known as Cape Breton. Allefonsce’s narrative and maps do not show that he explored the Saguenay.

It can hardly be questioned that a voyage was made by Allefonsce along the Atlantic coast. The precise date, however, cannot be fixed. His Cosmographie proves that he had a personal knowledge of the country. The voyage might have been made on some one of the ships which returned to France while Roberval was in the country. Failing to discover any passage to the Indies, Allefonsce may have run down the Atlantic coast, hoping to find some hitherto neglected opening. At all events, when he visited the coast he found a great bay in latitude forty-two, apparently Massachusetts Bay. The original notice is found in his Cosmographie, now preserved in the Bibliothèque nationale, Paris. It runs: “These lands reach to Tartary; and I think that it is the end of Asia,[183] according to the roundness of the world. And for this purpose it would be well to have a small vessel of seventy tons, in order to discover the coast of Florida; for I have been at a bay as far as forty-two degrees, between Norumbega and Florida, but I have not seen the end, and do not know whether it extends any farther.”[184] The belief in a western passage was after all very hard to give up, and Champlain, in the next century, was consumed by the idea.

In closing this part of the subject, we have to inquire concerning the outcome of the costly and laborious efforts of Cartier and Roberval under Francis I. Some popular writers would lead us to suppose that subsequent to the return of the expedition of 1543 the region of the Gulf and River of St. Lawrence were deserted.[185] Gosselin, in his Documents relating to the Marine of Normandy, shows that the explorations of Cartier were attended and followed by active operations conducted by private individuals. During the first years of the sixteenth century, inspired by the example of Bethencourt, in connection with the Canaries, the seaport towns of France showed great enterprise. After the return of Verrazano, however, much discouragement was felt, nor did the voyages of 1534-1536 stimulate so large a degree of activity as might have been expected; but in 1540 all the maritime towns were alive to the importance of the New Lands.[186] In that year, as we have already seen, such was the scarcity of sailors, owing to the prosecution of remunerative fisheries, that the authorities of St. Malo were obliged to order that no vessel should leave port until Cartier had secured a crew. In 1541 the prospect of the settlement of Canada under the French gave such a stimulus to merchants, that in the months of January and February, 1541, 1542, no less than sixty ships went “to fish for cod in the New Lands.”[187] Gosselin, who had examined a great number of the ancient records, says: “In 1543, 1544, and 1545, this ardor was sustained; and during the months of January and February, from Havre and Rouen, and from Dieppe and Honfleur, about two ships left every day.”[188]

In 1545 no ship of the King went to Canada, and a sense of insecurity prevailed, as the Spaniards and Portuguese at Newfoundland were ever ready to make trouble; but in 1560 no less than thirty ships left the little ports of Jumièges, Vatteville, and La Bouille, “to make the voyage to the New Lands;”[189] while at this period the tonnage of the vessels engaged rose from seventy to one hundred and fifty tons. In 1564 the French Government was engaged in New France, and April 18 of that year the King’s Receiver-General, Guillaume Le Beau, bought of Robert Gouel, as attested by the notaries of Rouen, a variety of material, “to be carried into New France, whither the King would presently send on his service.”[190]

On the seventh of the same month Le Beau paid four hundred livres for arms and accoutrements necessary for the “French infantry,” which “it pleased the King to send presently into his New France for its defence.”[191] This shows that the idea of colonization was not abandoned, and that the King asserted his rights there. He was no doubt accustomed to send cruisers to Canada to protect French interests, as the English at an early period sent ships of war to the coast of Iceland to protect fishermen and traders.[192]

In 1583 Stephen Bellinger, a friend of Hakluyt, being in the service of Cardinal Bourbon, of Rouen, visited Cape Breton and the coasts to the south.[193] In 1577 and 1578 commissions were issued by Henry III. to the Marquis de la Roche for a colony;[194] and Hakluyt says that in 1584 the Marquis was cast away in an attempt to carry out his scheme.[195] In 1587 the grandnephew of Cartier was in Canada, evidently engaged in regular trade.[196] Beyond question communication was maintained with Canada until official colonization was again taken up in 1597.[197] The efforts of Francis I. in sending out Verrazano, Cartier, and Roberval were by no means thrown away, and we must take for what it is worth the statement of Alexander in his Encouragement to Colonies, where (p. 36) he says that the French in America effected more “by making a needless ostentation, that the World should know they had beene there, then that they did continue still to inhabit there.”

LITTLE is known of the personal history of Jacques Cartier, though Cunat discovered several points relating to his ancestry. It appears that one Jehan Cartier married Guillemette Baudoin; and that of their six children, Jamet, or Jacques, was the oldest, having been born Dec. 4, 1458. Marrying in turn Jeffeline Jansart, he had by her a son, Dec. 31, 1494. This son, up to a recent day, was held to be the great navigator; but Longrais has rendered it almost certain that he was not.

Like Verrazano, Allefonsce, and others, he appears to have done something as a privateer; and the Spanish ambassador in France, reporting the expedition of Cartier and Roberval, Dec. 17, 1541, spoke of “el corsario Jacques Cartier.”[198]

At an early age Cartier was wedded to Catharine des Granches, daughter of Jacques des Granches, the constable of St. Malo, this being considered a brilliant marriage. After retiring from the sea, he lived in the winter at his house in St. Malo, adjoining the Hospital of St. Thomas, and in the summer at his manor on the outskirts of the town at Limoilou.[199] The name of Des Granches appears in connection with the mountains on the shores of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Cartier, so far as known, had no children. At least Cunat’s researches, supported by the local tradition, show that Manat had no authority now recognized for saying that in 1665 he had a lineal descendant in one Harvée Cartier.[200]

Following Verrazano, we have the earliest notice of French visitations to the coast in the statement of Herrera,[201] that in 1526 the Breton, Nicolas Don, pursued the fisheries at Baccalaos. In 1527 Rut, as reported in Purchas,[202] says that eleven sail of Normans and one of Bretons were at St. John, Newfoundland.[203] According to Lescarbot,[204] who gives no authority, the Baron de Léry landed cattle on the Isle of Sable in 1528.[205]

Next in the order of French voyages we reach those of Cartier. The narrative of his first voyage appeared originally in the Raccolta, etc., of Ramusio, printed at Venice in 1556.[206] It was translated from the Italian into English by John Florio, and appeared under the title, A Short and Briefe Narration of the Two Navigations and Discoveries to the Northweast Partes called Newe Fraunce, London, 1580.[207] This was adopted by Hakluyt, and printed in his Navigations, 1600.[208] Another account of this voyage appeared in French, printed at Rouen, 1598, having been written originally in a langue étrangere. It has been supposed very generally that the “strange language” was Italian, and that it was a translation from Ramusio;[209] but this opinion is questioned.[210] Another narrative of the voyage has been found and published as an original account by Cartier.[211] In the Preface to the volume the Editor sets forth his reasons for this opinion. It is noticeable that each of these three versions is characterized by an obscurity to which attention has been called.[212] Nearly all the facts of the first voyage, handled, like the rest of his voyages, by so many writers, come from one of these three versions.[213] The patent for the voyage, as in the case of the voyage of Verrazano, is not known.

The narrative of the second voyage was published at Paris in 1545.[214] Ramusio[215] accompanies the narrative of the first voyage with an account of the second, also in Italian. Three manuscript versions of the narrative are preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale, and are described by Harrisse in his Notes.[216] Hakluyt[217] appears to follow Ramusio.[218] The patents for the second voyage will be found in Lescarbot (Nouvelle France), who used in his account of Cartier what is known as the Roffet text, though he abridges and alters somewhat; and he in turn was followed by Charlevoix.

For the third voyage of Cartier, unfortunately, we have only a few facts in addition to the fragment preserved by Hakluyt,[219] which ends with events at the close of September, 1541. An account of the voyage of Roberval is added thereto.[220] The commission of Cartier is found in Lescarbot’s Nouvelle France.[221] All that was formerly known was taken from Hakluyt; but facts that somewhat recently have come to light, though few, are nevertheless important, proving that Hakluyt’s information respecting Roberval was poor, like that which he gives of the voyage of Rut (1527). Rut’s voyage was tolerably well understood by Purchas, who wrote after Hakluyt. Bancroft, in his History of the United States,[222] writes on the subject of Cartier as he wrote forty-nine years earlier;[223] while nearly all historical writers, whether famous or obscure, have written in a similar way. They have been misled by Hakluyt. The statement that Cartier, on his way home in June, 1542, encountered Roberval at Newfoundland, and deserted him in the night, is not in keeping with his character, and is rendered improbable by the fact that in the previous autumn Roberval sailed for Canada. All things, so far as known, indicate that a good understanding existed between the two commanders, and that circumstances alone prevented the accomplishment of larger results. Certainly, if Cartier had failed in his duty, history would have given some record of the fact. Francis I. would not have employed any halting, half-hearted man who was trying to discourage exploration. Let us here, then, endeavor to epitomize the operations of Roberval and Cartier:—

Jan. 15, 1540, Roberval was appointed lieutenant-general and commander.[224] February 6 he took the oath,[225] followed the next day by letters-patent confirming those of January 15.[226] February 27 Roberval appointed Paul d’Angilhou, known as Sainterre, his lieutenant.[227] March 9 the Parliament of Rouen authorized Roberval to take certain classes of criminals for the voyage.[228] October 17 Francis I. appointed Jacques Cartier captain-general and chief pilot.[229] October 28 Prince Henry, the Dauphin, ordered certain prisoners to be sent to Cartier for the voyage.[230] November 3 additional criminals, to the number of fifty, were ordered for the expedition.[231] December 12 the King complained that the expedition was delayed.[232] May 23, 1541, Cartier sailed with five ships.[233] July 10 Chancellor Paget informs the Parliament of Rouen that “the King considers it very strange that Roberval has not departed.”[234] August 18 Roberval writes from Honfleur that he will leave in four days.[235] Aug. 22, 1541, Roberval sailed from Honfleur.[236] In the autumn of 1541, Roberval, on his way to Canada, meets at St. John’s,[237] Newfoundland, Jallobert and Noel, sailing by order of Cartier to France. Immediately on his arrival at Quebec, autumn of 1541, Roberval sends Sainterre to France.[238] Jan. 26, 1542, Francis I. orders Sainterre, who has already “made the voyage,” to sail with two ships “to succour, support, and aid the said Lord Roberval with provisions and other things of which he has very great need and necessity.”[239] During the summer of 1542 Roberval explores and builds France Roy.[240] Sept. 9, 1542, Roberval pardons Sainterre at France Roy, in the presence of Jean Allefonsce, for mutiny.[241] Oct. 21, 1542, Cartier is in St. Malo and present at a baptism, having spent seventeen months on the voyage.[242] Roberval spends the winter of 1542-1543 at France Roy.[243] March 25, 1543, Cartier present at a baptism in St. Malo.[244] In the summer of 1543 Cartier sails on a voyage which occupies eight months,[245] and brings Roberval home, leaving Canada late in the season, and running unusual risk of his freight (péril de nauleaige).[246] April 3, 1544, Cartier and Roberval are summoned to appear before the King.[247]

This, so far as our present knowledge goes, formed the end of Cartier’s seafaring. Thereafter, without having derived any material financial benefit from his great undertakings, Cartier, as the Seigneur of Limoilou, dwelt at his plain manor-house on the outskirts of St. Malo, where he died, greatly honored and respected, about the year 1555.[248]

Charlevoix affirms that Roberval made another attempt to colonize Canada in 1549;[249] Thevet says that he was murdered in Paris: at all events he soon passed from sight.[250]

There is no evidence to prove that Cartier gave any name to the country which he explored. The statement found at the end of Hakluyt’s version of the second voyage,[251] to the effect that the Newfoundlands “were by him named New France,” originated with the translator. It is not given in connection with the text of Ramusio, nor in the French edition of 1545, though that Relation (p. 46) employs the language, “Appellée par nous la nouvelle France.” In the same folio we find the writer stating of Cape St. Paul, “Nous nommasmes le cap de Sainct Paul,” though the name had been given at an early period, appearing upon the Maijolla map of 1527.

“Canada” was the name which Cartier found attached to the land,[252] and there is no evidence that he attempted to displace it. It is indeed said, in Murphy’s Voyage of Verrazzano,[253] that the name “Francisca” was due to Cartier. He says, “This name Francisca, or the French Land,”—found on a map in the Ptolemy printed at Basle in 1540,—was “due to the French under Jacques Cartier, and which could properly belong to no other exploration of the French.” This statement was made in rebuttal of that by Brevoort in his Verrazano the Navigator (p. 141), where he says that “the first published map containing traces of Verrazano’s exploration is in the Ptolemy of Basle, 1530, which appeared four years before the French renewed their attempts at American exploration. It shows the western sea without a name, and the land north of it called Francisca.” As it appears, there is no edition of Ptolemy bearing date of 1530; yet the student is sufficiently correct in referring the name “Francisca” to the voyage of Verrazano, especially as the Maijollo map, 1527, applies “Francesca” to North America, this map having been made only three years after the voyage of Verrazano, performed in 1524. Evidently, however, Verrazano was not more anxious than Cartier about any name, since on the map of his brother Hieronymus da Verrazano (1529), this region is called “Nova Gallia, sive Yucatania.”

Nor did Roberval attempt to name the country, while the commission given him by the King does not associate the name of Francis or any new name therewith. The misunderstanding on this point is now cleared up.[254]

Cartier did not give any name to the Gulf, simply applying the name of St. Lawrence to what may have been the St. John’s River, on the Labrador coast, where he chanced to be on the festival of that saint in 1535. Gomara thus writes in 1555: “A great river, named San Lorenço, which some consider an arm of the sea. It has been navigated two hundred leagues up, on which account many call it the Straits of the Three Brothers (los tres hermanos). Here the water forms a square gulf, which extends from San Lorenço to the point of Baccallaos, more than two hundred leagues.”[255]

Little is known at present of the personal history of Jean Allefonsce. D’Avezac, in the Bulletin de géographie,[256] attempted to give an account of the man and his work; and Margry, in his Navigations Françaises, added substantial information. At one time he was claimed by the Portuguese as of their nation, because he voyaged to Brazil; but his French origin is now abundantly proved out of the book published by Jean de Marnef in 1559, entitled Les voyages avantureux du Capitaine du Alfonce Saintongeois. It is a small volume in quarto, numbering sixty-eight leaves, the verso of the last one bearing the epilogue: “End of the present book, composed and ordered [?] by Jan Alphonce, an experienced pilot in things narrated in this book, a native of the country of Xaintonge, near the city of Cognac. Done at the request of Vincent Aymard, merchant of the country of Piedmont, Maugis Vumenot, merchant of Honfleur, writing for him.”

Allefonsce appears to have been of a brave, adventurous, and somewhat haughty spirit. We are even told that he was once imprisoned at Poitiers by royal orders.[257] He was considered a man of ability, and was trusted on account of his great skill. In Hakluyt[258] it is said, “There is a pardon to be seene for the pardoning of Monsieur de saine terre, Lieutenant of the sayd Monsieur de Roberval, giuen in Canada in presence of the sayde Iohn Alphonse.”

The sailor of Saintonge met his death in a naval engagement, though most writers appear to have overlooked the fact. It is indicated in a sonnet written by his eulogist, Melin Saint-Gelais, and prefixed to the first edition of the Voyages avantureux, 1559. The allusion was pointed out by Harrisse in his Notes sur la Nouvelle France, Paris, 1872 (p. 8), indicating that this event must have taken place before March 7, 1557,—the date of the imprimatur of the edition of 1559.[259] Mr. Brevoort, in his Verrazano the Navigator, quoting Barcia’s Ensayo, etc., Madrid, 1723, fol. 58, shows that he fought Menendez, the Spaniard, near the reef of Rochelle, and was mortally wounded.[260]

There is no true connection between the manuscript of Allefonsce, now preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, catalogued under Secalart, and the volume of Voyages avantureux which bears his name. This latter work we owe, in some not understood sense, to the enterprise of a publisher who brought it out after the old mariner’s death. The erroneous character of certain of its statements excited the criticism of Lescarbot;[261] yet several descriptions of our coast are recognizable, and very interesting. In this printed book the matter relating to the North Atlantic coast occupies only about three pages,—the chief points for which were taken, it appears, from the manuscript of Allefonsce, though several particulars not found in his manuscript are given.

The manuscript itself must be judged leniently, as Secalart was concerned in the composition, and appears to have written some portions from the notes of Allefonsce.[262] The part of the Cosmographie applying to the North Atlantic coast begins with a description of the Island of St. John and Cape Breton. Three points south of Cape Breton, if not a fourth, are defined in connection with that cape. We read: “Turning to the Isle of St. John, called Cape Breton, the outermost part of which is in the ocean in 45° from the Arctic pole, I say Cape of St. John, called Cape Breton, and the Cape of the Franciscans, are northeast and southwest, and there is in the course one hundred and forty leagues; and here it makes a cape called the Cape of Norumbega. The said cape is by 41° from the height of the Arctic pole.” For the writer to call Cape Breton by another name is consistent with old usage.[263] Where, however, it is said, “here it makes a cape,” the language is obscure, as the writer seems to mean that on this coast there is a cape between the Franciscan Cape and Cape Breton, since on the map the Franciscan Cape is placed south of the Bay of the Isles, which the description places south of the Cape of Norumbega. The latter cape is not laid down on the map; but we have there the River of Norumbega, north of which is “Une partie de la Coste de la Norombegue,” while south of the river is “Terra de la Franciscaine.” The Cape of Norumbega should therefore have been marked on the map at the southern extremity of the Norumbega coast, near the Bay of the Isles. “Cap de la Franciscaine” would then stand for Cape Cod. If this interpretation is correct, the clause, “the said cape is by 41° from the height of the Arctic pole,” would denote the Franciscan cape.[264]

The next descriptive paragraph gives a clear idea of the region south of Cape Norumbega: “Beyond the Cape of Noroveregue descends the river of said Noroveregue, about twenty-five leagues from the cape. The said river is more than forty leagues wide at its entrance, and continues inwardly thus wide full thirty or forty leagues, and is all full of islands that extend quite ten or twelve leagues into the sea, and is very dangerous on account of rocks and shoals.”[265] Here we have a clear representation of the Penobscot region, the writer taking the bay for the entrance to the river, as others did in later times. He also says that “fifteen leagues within this river is a city called Norombergue.” According to the old notion, he thought the Norumbega River extended to Canada, as in the map of Ramusio, which is substantially true. Taking up his account of the coast, the writer says: “From the River of Norombergue the coast runs to the west-southwest quite two hundred leagues, to a large bay which enters the land about twenty leagues, and is full twenty-nine leagues wide; and within this gulf there are four islands joined the one to the other. The entrance to the Gulf is 38° from the height of the Arctic pole, and the said isles are in 39 and a half degrees. And I have not seen the end of this Gulf, and I do not know whether it passes beyond.” Here he does not appear to be making an allusion to the great bay in 42° N. (ante, p. 60), but he has now reached the vicinity of the Franciscan Cape, or Cape Cod, and speaks of the mouth of Long Island Sound and contiguous openings, in connection with the great islands that stretch along the coast southwest of Cape Cod. He does not here mention the Franciscan Cape, before alluded to, distant from the “Cape of St. John, called the Cape of the Franciscans,” one hundred and forty leagues, but he indicates its situation by the islands and the Sound lying to the southward; while in its place it will be observed that the printed Cosmographie also identifies the region by means of the islands, and shows that the Franciscan Cape at one point was high land,—evidently what is now known as the Highland of Cape Cod, which, as the geological formation indicates, was even higher in the time of Allefonsce. He continues: “From this gulf the coast turns west-northwest about forty-six leagues, and makes here a great river of Fresh water, and there is at its entrance an island of sand. The said island is 39° from the height of the Arctic pole.” He is now speaking of the region of the Hudson and Sandy Hook, though the latitudes are incorrect, as was usual with writers of that time; while the courses and distances are equally confused. Nevertheless we have a general and recognizable description of the main features of the coast between Cape Breton and Sandy Hook, though in the printed Cosmographie, which is very brief, the island of sand is not mentioned. Therefore, feeling certain of the correctness of our position, minor errors and omissions may be left to take care of themselves. The principal points, Cape Breton, Cape Sable, Cape Cod, and the Hudson, are unmistakably indicated in the routier, though in the maps of Allefonsce, as in most of the maps of the day, essential features are not delineated with any approach to accuracy, the great peninsula of Nova Scotia, terminating in Cape Sable, for instance, having no recognizable definition. Yet he dwells upon the fierceness of the tides, and says that when the strong northeast winds blow, the seas “roar horribly.” This is precisely the case on the shoals of Georges and Nantucket, where the meeting of waves and tides, even in a dead calm, produces an uproar that is sometimes deafening.

At this point we may obtain a confirmation of the manuscript description from the printed work. The account says: “Having passed the Isle of Saint Jehan, the coast turns to the west and west-southwest as far as the River Norombergue, newly discovered[266] by the Portuguese, which is in the thirtieth degree.” After describing the river and its inhabitants, he says: “Thence the coast turns south-southwest more than two hundred leagues, as far as a cape which is high land (un cap qui est haute terre), and has a great island of low land and three or four little islands;”[267] after which he drops the subject and hastens down the coast to the West Indies. Here, however, we have the same cape that we find in the manuscript, which is there called the Franciscan Cape, or our present Cape Cod, beyond which are the islands Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, and the Elizabeth group, joined one to the other almost like beads on a string, as we see them on the modern map.

Here, however, it should be pointed out that, apparently in the lifetime of Francis I., the portion of Voyages avantureux which describes the North American coast was turned into metrical form by Jehan Maillard, “poet royal;” and thus, long before Morrell wrote his poetical description of New England, our coast from Newfoundland to Sandy Hook was described in French verse, Maillard being the first writer to pay a tribute of the kind.[268] This person was a contemporary of Allefonsce and Cartier, and possibly he was connected with Roberval, as Parmenius, the learned Hungarian of Buda, was connected with Sir Humphrey Gilbert in his expedition of 1585, who went for the express purpose of singing the praise of Norumbega in Latin verse.[269] In his dedication he refers to Cartier. These verses, like the printed book, contain the points which are not made in the manuscript of Allefonsce.[270]

Again, in our manuscript we find the writer going down the coast from Sandy Hook to Florida, describing, in a somewhat confused way, Cape Henlopen and Delaware Bay, with its white cliff (fallaise blanche), so conspicuous at the entrance to-day. Thus both the printed book and the manuscript make three divisions of the coast between Cape Breton and Florida, and show a general knowledge of essential features.

Hakluyt[271] gives a section from the original work of Allefonsce, to which he appears to have had access. The heading runs: “Here followeth the course from Belle Isle, Carpont, and the Grand Bay in Newfoundland, vp the riuer of Canada for the space of 230 leagues, obserued by Iohn Alphonse of Xanctoigne, chiefe Pilot to Monsieur Roberual, 1542.” This piece was translated from the French, and in one place Hakluyt makes Allefonsce say: “By the nature of the climate the lands toward Hockelaga are still better and better, and more fruitful; and this land is fit for figges and peares. I think that gold and silver will be found here.” This, however, is a mistranslation, or at least it does not agree with the manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale, which may be rendered, “These lands, extending to Hochelaga, are much better and warmer than those of Canada, and this land of Hochelaga extends to Figuier and Peru, in which silver and gold abound.”[272] Under the direction of the Quebec Literary and Historical Society, the English version found in Hakluyt was turned back into French, as the existence of the Paris manuscript was not known to the editors; and in the Voyages des déscouvertes au Canada (p. 86) we read: “Et cette terre peut produire des Figuee et des Poires.” In this, however, they were encouraged by the statement found in all three versions of the first voyage of Cartier, which say that at Gaspé the land produced figs.

Allefonsce confines his description chiefly to the route pursued by him in his voyage with Roberval, though he speaks of the neighborhood of Gaspé and Chaleur; while he calls the Island of Assumption “L’Ascentyon.” He also says of the Saguenay, “Two or three leagues within the entrance it begins to grow wider and wider, and it seems to be an arm of the sea; and I think that the same runs into the Sea of Cathay.”[273]

We turn finally to the cartology of the voyages under consideration, which, however, it is not proposed to treat here at much length, the subject being well-nigh inexhaustible.[274]

In the order of the Court of St. Malo, already referred to,[275] made on the remonstrance of Cartier, we find that in March, 1533, he was charged with the responsibility of a voyage to the New Lands, the route selected being that of “the strait of the Bay of the Castle,” now the Strait of Belle Isle. The existence of the Bay of St. Lawrence was evidently known to Cartier. He must have learned something of the region through the contemporary fishing voyages of the French. He could have inferred nothing, however, from the map of Ruysch, 1508, which made Newfoundland a part of Asia; though the Reinel map, 1505, and the Portuguese map (1520), given by Kunstmann, show the Straits of Belle Isle and the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, between Cape Breton and Newfoundland. The anonymous map of 1527, published by Dr. Kohl, with the Ribero map (1529), show both straits; though when Ribero copied that map and made some additions, he substantially closed them up.[276] On the Verrazano map of 1529 the straits were indicated as open. The Maijolla map of 1527, though a Verrazano map, gives a deep indenture, but no indication of an opening beyond. It was, nevertheless, clear enough to Cartier at this time that the straits entering north and south of Newfoundland led either to another strait or to a large bay. Maps of the Gulf must have existed in Dieppe at the period of his voyage, though, owing to the desire of the various cities to gain a monopoly of the New World trade, he may not have obtained much information from that Norman port. Cartier seems to have made maps representing his explorations. There is a brief description of one map contained in the letter of Jacques Noel, his grandnephew, written from St. Malo in 1587 to Mr. John Grote, at Paris. In this map Canada was well delineated, but it has now disappeared.[277]

What may have been known popularly of Newfoundland at the time of Cartier’s first voyage is shown by the Maijolla map (1527), the map of Verrazano (1529), and the map of Gaspar Viegas (1534).[278] The latter shows a part of Newfoundland, and the Cape Breton entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence is simply the mouth of a cul-de-sac, into which empty two streams,—“R. dos Poblas” and “Rio pria,”—indicating that the Portuguese may have entered the Gulf. On the New Brunswick coast is “S. Paulo,”—a name that Cartier is erroneously represented as giving in 1535, at which time Cartier found the name in use, probably seeing it on some chart. The Island of Cape Breton is laid down distinctly, but we can hardly make “Rio pria” do duty for the St. Lawrence. The Maijolla map (1527) shows “C. Paulo.” A map now preserved in the Bodleian, given by Kohl,[279] and bearing date of “1536, die Martii,” shows a dotted line running from Europe to Cathay, and passing through an open strait north of Newfoundland. The map of Agnese (1536) makes no mention of Cartier.[280]

Oviedo,[281] in his description of the coast in 1537, shows no knowledge of the Gulf. He mentions an Island of St. John, but this lay out in the Atlantic near Cape Breton, close to the Straits of Canso. Nevertheless he gives a description of the four coasts of Cape Breton Island. Afterward describing Newfoundland out of Ribero, he puts an Island of St. John on the east coast near Belle Isle,[282] while in a corresponding position we see on Ribero’s map, as published by Kohl, the Island of “S. Juan.”[283] Mercator’s rare map of 1538[284] exhibits Newfoundland as circumnavigated, the southern part being composed of broken islands, named “Insule Corterealis.” Canada is “Baccalearum regio,” and North America is “Americæ,” or “Hispania major, capta anno 1530.” A strait, “Fretum arcticum,” runs north of Labrador to the Pacific.

The Ptolemy published at Basle in 1540 shows a knowledge of Cartier’s second voyage, Canada being called “Francisca;” while in the gulf behind Newfoundland, called “Cortereali,” is a broad river like the St. Lawrence, extending into the continent.

Nevertheless, at this period many of the maps and globes bore no recognition of Cartier. A Spanish globe, for instance, of about 1540 shows no trace of Cartier, though behind Newfoundland—reduced to a collection of small islands—is a great gulf indented with deep bays, one being marked “Rio de Penico,” which may stand for the St. Lawrence, and thus represent the alleged Portuguese exploration of the Gulf by Alvarez Fagundes anterior to Cartier.[285]

The map of Mercator published at Louvain in 1541 indicates no new discovery of the French. Newfoundland appears as in the sketch of 1538, but in the Gulf, represented by a broad strait, we find, “C. das paras,” “R. compredo,” and “R. da Baia.” The island of Cape Breton bears the legend, “C. de teenedus bretoys.”

Next in order, perhaps, come the sketches of Jean Allefonsce, pilot of Roberval, who sailed with him for Canada, Aug. 22, 1541. Of his maps we have four examples relating to the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the North. Like the rest of his sketches, they are intercalated in his manuscript. These particular sketches are found on folios 62, 179, 181, 183. Folio 62 represents Labrador and the regions to the north, with Iceland; folio 179 shows “La Terra Neufe,” the southern part being an island, and Labrador cut in two by a broad channel marked “La Bay d’au vennent les glaces,” which Allefonsce thought came out of a fresh-water sea. Folio 181 has the Gulf of St. Lawrence, with Assumption Island marked “L’Ascention.” He invariably makes this mistake.

The Gulf is called the Sea of Canada (Mer de Canada). There are three inlets without names, representing Miramichi, Chaleur, and Gaspé. The Gaspé region is called “Terre Unguedor.” The mouth of the St. Lawrence is shown; and near the entrance, on the Labrador side, we find “La Terre de Sept Isles.” There is an opening intended for Cartier’s Bay of St. Lawrence; and farther eastward is “Cap de Thienot,” so named by Cartier on his first voyage, after the Indian chief found there. Folio 183 indicates the Gulf again, as part of the Sea of Canada (Partie de la Mer de Canada), together with a portion of the St. Lawrence, marked “Riviere du Canada.” Where the sketch of folio 181 properly shows “Unguedor,” we find “La Terre Franciscaine.” The Saguenay is represented as a broad strait leading into a great sea, “La Mer du Saguenay,” in which are three islands. These sketches, though rude, possess considerable interest, as being the first known delineations of the region made on the spot by an actual navigator; but the Saguenay region is sketched fancifully from hearsay.

In this connection we may mention Allefonsce’s sketches of the Atlantic coast on folios 184, 186, 187 of his Cosmographie. The first includes the entrance to the Gulf and the southern part of Newfoundland. The entrance is marked “Entree des Bretons.” The Island of Cape Breton bears its proper name, with the Straits of Canso clearly defined. Near its true locality in the Gulf, but on too small a scale, we discover the “Isla de Saint-Jean,” the “Isle Gazeas” of the map of Du Testu. The New Brunswick section is styled, “One part of the Land of the Laborer” (Une partje de la Coaste du Laboureur).[286] Cape Race, Newfoundland, is called “Cap de Rat.” Folio 186 shows the New England coast proper, with the River of Norumbega, south of which is “Cap de la Franciscaine” and “Terre de la Franciscaine.” The next section (187) includes the coast to Florida, with the West Indies and part of South America.

It would prove interesting if one could establish the priority of Allefonsce in his application of the name “Saint-Jean” to our present Prince Edward Island.[287] The Cosmographie was finished in 1545, while the so-called Cabot map, which uses the same name, was published in 1544. Now did Allefonsce adopt the name from this map of 1544? Clearly the name was not given by Cartier, either on his first or second voyage. On his third voyage he does not appear to have sailed on that side of the Gulf, while we have no details of the fourth voyage. He, however, gave the name of St. John to a cape on the west coast of Newfoundland during his first voyage. Allefonsce called Prince Edward Island by that name. A full discussion of this subject might involve a fresh inquiry into the authenticity of the Cabot map, and expunge “Prima Vista.”

The globe of Ulpius, 1542, does not recognize the voyages of Cartier, showing Canada as the “Baccalearum Regio,” with openings in the coast north and south of Newfoundland, called “Terra Laboratores.” North America appears as a part of Asia.[288] The Nancy globe, which also shows North America as connected with Asia, indicates that the insular character of Newfoundland, called “Corterealis,” was well known at the time of its construction, about 1542. From the gulf behind the island—the southern part of which is much broken—two rivers extend some distance into the continent.[289] These globes are according to the prevailing French idea of the period, making New France, as Francis I. expressed it, a part of Asia. The map of Jean Rotz, 1542, shows the explorations of Cartier, but omits the names that belong on the Gulf and River of St. Lawrence.[290]

The Vallard map 1544 (?) shows very fully the discoveries of Cartier, his French names being corrupted by the Portuguese map-makers, who promptly obtained a report of all that Cartier had done. The Gulf and River of St. Lawrence appear simply as “Rio de Canada.”[291]

In 1544 we reach the famous Cabot map,[292] drawn from French material, fully illustrating the French discoveries in Canada, and practically ignoring the claims of Spain, though the alleged author was in the service of that country. This appears to be the first publication, and in fact the first recognition in a printed form, of the voyages of Cartier and Roberval, the narrative of Cartier’s second voyage not appearing until the following year.

Next, we find in the map of the Dauphin, or Henri II. (1546), that Roberval is recognized standing with his soldiers in martial array on the bank of the Saguenay. Newfoundland is represented as a mass of islands,—an idea not dissipated by the voyages of Cartier; but the Gulf and River of St. Lawrence are well depicted, and show the explorations of the sailor of St. Malo. We see the Island of Assumption (our Anticosti), the Island of St. John (Alezay), Brion’s Island, and the Bird Rocks, with many of the names actually given to points of the coast by Cartier, which shows that he did his work with care, yet without attempting to affix names to either the gulf or the river, giving to the latter in his narrative the Indian name “Hochelaga.” On this map[293] the name of “St. Laurens” stands where Cartier put it on his first voyage, at the St. John’s River, though the name very soon—we cannot say when—was applied to the Gulf, as to-day. Gomara styles it San Lorenço in 1553. The Isolario of Bordone (1549) has no recognition of Roberval or Cartier, repeating the map found in the edition of 1527.

In this connection the map of Gastaldi (1550) is somewhat remarkable. Publishing it in 1556, in the third volume of his Raccolta in connection with the “Discorso d’vn Gran Capitano,” supposed to have been written in 1539, Ramusio says that he is aware of its deficiencies. This map, as well as the “Discorso,” makes no reference to Cartier, though the country is called “La Nvova Francia.” The map gives a lively picture of the region. Norumbega appears as an island, and Newfoundland as a collection of large islands, with evidences of what may stand for explorations in the Gulf lying behind; but, unlike the globe just mentioned, it shows no names on the coast of the Gulf.[294] The insular character of the Norumbega region is not purely imaginary, but is based upon the fact that the Penobscot region affords almost a continued watercourse to the St. Lawrence, which was travelled by the Maine Indians.

A map of Guillaume le Testu (1555),[295] preserved in the Department of the Marine at Paris, exhibits very fully the work of Cartier. He uses both the names “Francica” and “Le Canada.” To the Island of Prince Edward, one cape of which Cartier called “Alezay,” he calls “Isle Gazees.” The map marked xi. in Kunstmann’s Atlas appears to apply “I: allezai” to the same island.

Diego Homem’s map (1558), in the British Museum, also shows the explorations of Cartier, though, in a poor and disjointed way, representing the Northern Ocean as extending down to the region of the St. Lawrence, and as being connected therewith by several broad passages. Mercator (given by Jomard) reveals the discoveries of Cartier in a more sober way, though he puts “Honguedo” at the Saguenay instead of at Gaspé.

Here some notice should perhaps be taken of a map drawn in the year 1559,—the year 967 of the Hegira,—by the Tunisian, Hagi Ahmed, who was addicted to the study of geography in his youth, and who, while temporarily a slave among Christians, acquired much knowledge which afterwards proved very serviceable. This map is cordiform, and engraved on wood. It is described in the Bulletin de la Société de Géographie (1865, pp. 686-757). A delineation in outline is also given, though this representation affords only a faint idea of its contents. It was found in the archives of the Council of Ten, and was discussed by the Abbé Assemani in 1795. He was awarded a gold medal by the Prince of Venice, who caused it to be struck in his honor. His treatise was limited to twenty-four copies, which were accompanied by an equal number of copies of the map. The name “Hagi” indicates that Ahmed had made the holy pilgrimage to Mecca. The photograph[296] of it measures 16½ × 16 inches, the representation of the earth’s surface being bordered by descriptive text inclosed in scroll work. Only two and one half inches are devoted to the coast from Labrador to Florida; the work, accordingly, being very minute, is difficult to examine even under a lens. The coast is depicted according to Ribero; the Gulf of St. Lawrence not being shown, though deep indentations mark the two entrances. He does not appear to have had access to any good charts, and shows a poor knowledge of what Cartier had done.

The map of Nicholas des Liens, of Dieppe (1566), which is a map of the world, preserved under glass in the Geographical Department of the Bibliothèque Nationale, gives on a small scale a curious representation of Cartier’s exploration; the St. Lawrence as far as Quebec being a broad gulf, one arm of which extends southwest, nearly to what represents the New England coast. Along Lower Canada is spread out the name “Jacques Cartier.”

Mercator’s map of 1569 makes some improvement upon the Dauphin’s map of 1546, showing Cape Breton more in its true relation to the continent; while Newfoundland is comprised in fewer fragments. North America and the lands to the north are dominated by imagination; and in this map we find the source of much of that confusion which the power of Mercator’s name extended far into the seventeenth century.[297] Mercator does not give any additional facts respecting the explorations of Cartier.

The general map in the Ptolemy of 1574, by Ruscelli, shows North America connected with both Asia and Europe, Greenland being joined with the latter. Another map in this volume, showing the coast from Florida to Labrador, presents Newfoundland in the old way as a collection of islands, with three unnamed rivers extending into the main at the westward.[298]

Ortelius, in 1575, fashioned his map of the world after Mercator, and shows “Juan” out in the sea off Cape Breton; while in his special map of America, farther out, we find “Juan de Sump^o” in the place of Mercator’s “Juan Estevan.”[299]

The map of Thevet, given in his Cosmographie Universelle, 1575, adds little to the interest of the discussion, as for the most part he follows Mercator, the master of the period. On reaching the year 1584, the map of Jacques de Vaulx is found to show no improvement over its immediate predecessors. The Gulf of St. Lawrence appears under its present name, and the river, which is very wide, extends to Chilaga. The Penobscot River runs through to the St. Lawrence, while a large island, called “L’Isle St. Jehan,” lies in the sea along the coast which occupies the region where we should look for a definition of the peninsula of Nova Scotia.[300] On Lower Canada we read, “Terre Neufe.” Newfoundland appears almost as a single island.

Porcacchi’s work, L’Isole piv Famose del Mondo of 1590 (p. 161), goes backward in a hopeless manner. A river extends from the region of Nova Scotia into a great lake (Lago) near “Ochelaga,” the latter being nearly the only word on the map distinctly recalling the voyages of Cartier.[301]

The map of De Bry, 1596, gives no light; though out at sea, off Cape Breton, is the island “Fagundas.”[302] Wytfliet’s Descriptionis Ptolemaicæ, etc., of 1597, contains the same representations of the Gulf and River of St. Lawrence found in other editions, including the Douay edition of 1611.[303] This author is also dominated by Mercator.

The Molyneux map of 1600, among other points, shows Allefonsce’s Sea of Saguenay, saying, “The Lake of Tadenac [Tadousac?], the boundes whereof are unknown.”[304] On this map Newfoundland appears as one solid island, while the Penobscot extends through to the St. Lawrence, which itself flows westward into the great “Lake of Tadenac, the boundes whereof are unknoune.”[305]

Here we close our brief notice of a few of the representative maps produced prior to the opening of the seventeenth century. A careful examination of these maps would show, that, from the period of the Dauphin Map down to the first voyage of Champlain to Canada, in 1603, no substantial improvement was made by the cartographers of any nation in the geographical delineation of the region opened to France by the enterprise of Cartier and those who followed him. As we have shown (ante, p. 61), the connection with New France was maintained, vast profits being derived from the fisheries and from trade; but scientific exploration appears to have been neglected, while the maps in many cases became hopelessly confused. It was the work of Champlain to bring order out of confusion; and by his well-directed explorations to restore the knowledge which to the world at large had been lost, carrying out at the same time upon a larger scale the arduous enterprises projected by Jacques Cartier.

OF THE

NORTHEAST COAST OF NORTH AMERICA.

1535-1600.

BY THE EDITOR.

ALONZO DE CHAVES, who was made a royal cosmographer April 4, 1528, and still retained that title, at the age of ninety-two, in 1584,[306] is known to have made in 1536 a chart of the coast from Newfoundland south; and though it is no longer extant, Harrisse[307] thinks its essential parts are given in all probability in a chart of Diego Gutierrez, preserved in the French archives.[308] It is known that Oviedo based his description of the coast upon it; his full text was not generally accessible till the Academy of History at Madrid published its edition of the Historia general de las Indias[309] in 1852.

During the few years immediately following the explorations of Cartier we find little or no trace of his discoveries. There is scarcely any significance, for instance, in the Agnese map of 1536,[310] the Apianus map of 1540,[311] the Münster of the same year,[312] or in other maps mentioned in connection with the Sea of Verrazano on an earlier page.[313] A little more precision comes with the group of islands standing for the Newfoundland region, which appears in the early Mercator map of 1538 and in the gores of Mercator’s globe of 1541,[314] and in the Nancy globe of about the same date; but the Ulpius globe (1542) is uncertain enough, and has the names confused.

We first begin to trace a sensible effect of Cartier’s voyage in a manuscript in the British Museum[315] indorsed, This Boke of Idrography is made by me, Johne Rotz, Sarvant to the Kinges Mooste Excellent Majestie. The author was a Frenchman of Flemish name, and his treatise is dated 1542. Harrisse[316] thinks that he used the Portuguese-Dieppe authorities; and Kohl thinks that he must have had access to the maps, now lost, which Cartier brought home from his first voyage, while along the Gulf of Maine he depended upon the Spanish accounts.[317] Both of the sketches from Rotz here given follow copies in the Kohl Collection; one is a section from his map of the east coast of North America, and the other is from his Western Hemisphere,—which seems to indicate that he had in the interim between making the two maps got tidings of Cartier’s later voyage.[318]

Baptista Agnese at Venice seems not to have been as fortunate in getting knowledge of Cartier’s voyages as Rotz in London was; and two or three of his charts, dated 1543, showing this region, are preserved. They give a pretty clear notion of the eastern coast of Newfoundland, with “C. Raso” and “Terra de los Bretones” to the west of it.[319] These Agnese maps are in London,[320] Paris, Florence,[321] and Coburg.[322] Other maps by Agnese of a year or two later date, but preserving much the same characteristics, are in the Royal Library at Dresden,[323] dated 1544, and in the Marciana Collection at Venice, dated 1545.[324]

We get at last, as has been said in the previous chapter, the first recognition in a printed map of the Cartier voyages in the great Cabot map of 1544, of which a section is here reproduced,[325] and a similar section is given by Harrisse in his Cabots, preserving the colors of the original. Harrisse, by collating the references and early descriptions, reaches the conclusion that there may have been three, and perhaps four, editions of this map, of which a single copy of one edition is now known. Of the maps accompanying the manuscript Cosmographie of Allefonsce, in the Paris Library, sufficient has been said in the preceding text.[326]

None of these explorations prevented Münster, however, from neglecting, if he was aware of, the newer views which the Cabot map had made public; and his eagerness for the western passage dictated easily a way to the Moluccas in the “Typus universalis” of his edition of Ptolemy in 1545.

In the same year (1545) a map of America appeared in the well-known nautical handbook of the Spaniards, the Arte de navegar of Pedro de Medina, which was repeated in his Libro de grandezas y cosas memorables de España of 1549. A sketch of this part of the coast is annexed, and it will be seen that it betrays no adequate conception of what Cartier had accomplished.

To 1546 we may now assign the French map sometimes cited as that of the Dauphin, and sometimes as of Henri II. It is but a few years since Mr. Major first deciphered the legend: “Faictes a Arques par Pierre Desceliers, presb^r, 1546.” Jomard, who gives a fac-simile of it, places it about the middle of the century;[327] D’Avezac put it under 1542;[328] Kohl thought it was finished in 1543.[329]

The annexed sketch will show that the Cartier discoveries are clearly recognized. The Spanish names along the coast seem to indicate that the maker used Spanish charts; and probably in part such as are not now known to exist.[330]

This sketch is reduced from a copy in Harvard College Library. This map was re-engraved in the edition of Ptolemy (1552), and on this last plate the names of “Islandia” and “Bacalhos” are omitted, and “Thyle” becomes “Island.”

A different engraving is also found in Münster’s Cosmographia (1554).

Harrisse (nos. 188, 189) refers to unpublished maps of this coast of about this date, which are preserved in the Musée Correr, and in the Biblioteca Marciana at Venice, and to accounts of these and others in Matkovic’s Schiffer-Karten in den Bibliotheken zu Venedig, 1863, and in Berchet’s Portolani esistenti nelle principali biblioteche di Venetia, 1866.]

A map preserved in the British Museum belongs to this period. That library acquired it in 1790, and its Catalogue fixes it before 1536; but Harrisse, because it does not give the Saguenay, which Cartier explored in his third voyage, places it after October, 1546. Harrisse thinks it is based on Portuguese sources, with knowledge also of Cartier’s discoveries.[331]

Dr. Kohl, in his Washington Collection, has included a map by Joannes Freire, of which a sketch is annexed. It belonged to a manuscript portolano when Kohl copied it, in the possession of Santarem, which is described by Harrisse in his Cabots (p. 220). Freire was a Portuguese map-maker, who seems to have used Spanish and French sources, besides those of his own countrymen.

The New England coast belongs to a type well known at this time, and earlier; and if the position of the legend about Cortereal has any significance, it places his exploration farther south than is usually supposed. The names along the St. Lawrence are French, with a trace of Portuguese,—“Angoulesme,” for instance, becoming “Golesma.”

Kohl placed in the same Collection another map of this region from an undated portolano in the British Museum (no. 9,814), which in some parts closely resembles this of Freire; but it is in others so curious as to deserve record in the annexed sketch. Kohl argues, from the absence of the St. Lawrence Gulf, that it records the observations of Denys, of Honfleur, and the early fishermen.

The precise date of the so-called Nicolas Vallard map is not certain; for that name and the date, 1547, may be the designation and time of ownership, rather than of its making. The atlas containing it was once owned by Prince Talleyrand, and belongs to the Sir Thomas Phillipps Collection. Kohl has conjectured that it is of Portuguese origin,[332] and includes it in his Collection, now in the State Department at Washington.

Cesáreo Fernandez Duro, in his Arca de Noé; libro sexto de las disquisiciones náuticas, Madrid, 1881, gives a map of the St. Lawrence Gulf and River of the sixteenth century. It was found in a volume relating to the Jesuits in the Library of the Royal Academy of History at Madrid, and was produced in fac-simile in connection with Duro’s paper on the discovery of Newfoundland and the early whale and cod fisheries,—particularly by the Basques. The date of the chart is too indefinitely fixed to be of much use in reference to the progress of discovery. Harrisse[333] is inclined to put its date after the close of the century, even so late as 1603.

Intelligence of Cartier’s tracks had hardly spread as yet into Italy, judging from the map of Gastaldi in the Italian Ptolemy of 1548. Mr. Brevoort[334] says of the sketch,—which is annexed,—that it is a “draught entirely different from any previously published. The materials for it were probably derived from Ramusio, who had collected original maps to illustrate his Collection of Voyages, but who published very few of them. In this particular map we find indications of Portuguese and French tracings, with but little from Spanish ones.”

Gastaldi is thought to have made the general map which appears in Ramusio’s third volume (1556), five or six years earlier, or in 1550. All that it shows for the geography of the St. Lawrence Gulf and River is a depression in the coast nearly filled by a large island. In 1550, and again in 1553, the Abbé Desceliers, who has already been shown to be the author of the Henri II. map, made portolanos which are of the same size, and bear similar inscriptions: (1) “Faicte a Arques par Pierres Desceliers, P. Bre: lan 1550; and (2) Faicte a Arques par Pierre Desceliers, Prebstre, 1553.”

No. 1 was in the possession of Professor Negri at Padua, when it was described in the Bulletin de la Société de Géographie, September, 1852, p. 235. It is now in the British Museum.[335] Harrisse[336] describes it, and says its names are essentially Portuguese. On Labrador we read: Terre de Jhan vaaz and G. de manuel pinho. The St. Lawrence is not named, but the Bay of Chaleur bears its present name.

No. 2, which is less richly adorned than the other, was intended for Henri II., as would appear from its bearing that monarch’s arms. Some inquiry into the life of its maker is given in the Bulletin de la Société de Géographie, September, 1876, p. 295, by Malte-Brun. It is owned by the Abbé Sigismond de Bubics, of Vienna. Desceliers was born at Dieppe, and his services to hydrography have been much studied of late.[337]

Harrisse[338] thinks that the praise bestowed upon Desceliers as the creator of French hydrography is undeserved, as the excellence of the maps of his time presupposes a long line of tentative, and even good, work in cartography; and he holds that Portuguese influence is apparent from the early part of the sixteenth century.

Wuttke, in his “Geschichte der Erdkunde,”[339] describes and figures several manuscript American maps from the Collection in the Palazzo Riccardi at Florence, dated 1550 or thereabout; but they add nothing to our knowledge respecting the region we are considering. One makes a large gulf in the northeast of North America, and puts “Terra di la S. Berton” on its east side, and “Ispagna Nova” on the west. This gulf has a different shape in two other of the maps, and disappears in some. In one there is a gulf prolonged to the west in the far north.

At about this date we may place a curious French map, communicated by Jomard to Kohl, and included by the latter in his Washington Collection. A sketch of it is annexed.[340] It is manuscript, and bears neither name nor date. The extreme northeastern part resembles Rotz’s map of 1542, and the explorations of Cartier and Roberval seem to be embodied. The breaking-up of Newfoundland would connect it with Gastaldi’s maps, or the information upon which Gastaldi worked, while the names on its outer coast are of Portuguese origin, with now a Spanish and now a French guise. Farther south the coast seems borrowed from the Spanish maps. The large river emptying into the St. Lawrence from the south is something unusual on maps of a date previous to Champlain. If it is the Sorel, Champlain’s discovery of the lake known by his name was nearly anticipated. If it is the Chaudière, it would seem to indicate at an early day the possibilities of the passage by the portage made famous by Arnold in 1775, and of which some inkling seems to have been had in the union of the St. Lawrence and the Gulf of Maine not infrequently shown in the early maps. The most marked feature of the map, however, is the insularity of the continent, with a connection of the Western Ocean somewhere apparently in the latitude of South Carolina, similar to that shown in John White’s map, as depicted in the preceding chapter. It may, of course, have grown out of a belief in the Sea of Verrazano; or it may have simply been a geographical gloss put upon Indian reports of great waters west of the limit of Cartier’s expedition.

Harrisse[341] puts circa 1553 a fine parchment planisphere, neither signed nor dated, which is preserved in the Archives of the Marine in Paris. It shows the English standard on Labrador (Greenland), the Portuguese on Nova Scotia, and the Spanish at Florida.

Another popular American map by Bellero was used in the Antwerp Gomara of 1554, and in several other publications issuing from that city.[342] It was not more satisfactory, as the annexed sketch shows,—which indicates that even in Antwerp the full extent of Cartier’s explorations was not suspected. Nor had Baptista Agnese divined it in his atlas of the same year, preserved in the Biblioteca Marciana at Venice. Our sketch is taken from the fifth sheet as given in a photographic fac-simile[343] issued at Venice in 1881, under the editing of Professor Theodor Fischer, of Kiel.

An elaborate portolano Cosmographie universelle, par Guillaume Le Testu, and dated in 1555, is described by Harrisse[344] as an adaptation of a Portuguese atlas, with the addition of some French names. The northern regions of North America are called Francia.

In 1556, in the third volume of Ramusio’s Navigationi et viaggi,[345] Gastaldi, excelling a little his Ptolemy map of 1548,—a sketch of which is given on p. 88,—produced his Terra de Labrador et Nova Francia; while for the accounts which Ramusio now printed of Cartier’s voyage, Gastaldi added the Terra de Hochelaga nella Nova Francia,—which was simply a bird’s-eye view of an Indian camp.[346]

In the same year (1556) the map of Volpellio was not less deceptive. Two years later (1558) we find an atlas in the British Museum, the work of Diego Homem, a Portuguese cartographer, which seems to indicate other information than that afforded by Cartier’s voyages. It is not so accurate as regards the St. Lawrence as earlier maps are, but shows additional knowledge of the Bay of Fundy, which comes out for the first time, and is not again so correctly drawn till we get down to Lescarbot, half a century later.

Girolamo Ruscelli, in the Venice edition of Ptolemy, 1561, gave a map which was evidently derived from the same sources as the Gastaldi, as the annexed sketch will show.

A mere passing mention may be made of a large engraved map of America, of Spanish origin, “Auctore Diego Gutierro, Phillipi regis cosmographo,” dated 1562, because of its curious confusion of names and localities in its Canadian parts.[347]

The atlas of Baptista Agnese of 1564, preserved in the British Museum,[348] and another of his of the same date in the Biblioteca Marciana, still retain some of the features of his earlier portolanos. He always identifies Greenland with Baccalaos, and still represents Newfoundland as a part of the main. Harrisse holds that he had not advanced beyond the Toreno (Venice) map of 1534, and in 1564 knew little more of the Newfoundland region than was known to Ribero and Chaves thirty-five years earlier.

The Catalogue of the King’s maps in the British Museum puts under 1562 a map entitled, Universale descrittione di tutta la terra cognosciuta da Paulo di Forlani.

Thomassy,[349] however, cites it as published in Venice in 1565, and says it strongly resembles Gastaldi’s map, and is, perhaps, the same one credited to Forlani under 1570, as showing the recent discoveries in Canada. It is contained in the so-called Roman atlas of Lafreri, Tavole moderne di geografia, Rome and Venice, 1554-1572.[350]

Next in chronological order comes an engraved map (15½ × 10½) with the following title: Il disegno del discoperto della Nova Franza ... Venetijs aeneis formis Bolognini Zalterij, Anno M.D. LXVI.[351] It gives the whole breadth of the continent, and is very erroneous in the eastern parts. The “R. S. Lorenzo” runs southeast from a large lake into the ocean between Lacadia and Baccalaos, while Ochelaga and Stadaconi[352] are on a river running east farther to the north, whose headwaters are in a region called “Canada.” The island C. Berton, as well as Sable Island (Y. Darena), would seem to indicate that the coast to the north of them is intended for the modern Nova Scotia, which would make the river running from the lake the Penobscot, and the group of islands east of Baccalaos a disjointed Newfoundland, compelling the river rising near Canada to do duty for the St. Lawrence. The large island, “Gamas,” is perhaps a reminiscence of Gomez.[353] The map in these parts is so confused, however, that its chief interest is to illustrate the strange commingling of error and truth, “which we have received lately,” as the inscription reads, “from the latest explorations of the French,”—which must, if it means anything, refer to Roberval. The map has signs neither of latitude nor longitude. In general contour it resembles other Italian maps of this time, like those of Forlani, Porcacchi, etc. Zaltieri differs from Forlani, however, in separating America from Asia.

The great mappemonde of Gerard Mercator, introducing his well-known projection, followed in 1569. The annexed sketch indicates its important bearing on a portion of North American cartography. The St. Lawrence is extended much farther inland than ever before, with no signs of the Great Lakes, and it is made to rise in the southerly part of the region, put in modern maps west of the Mississippi, among mountains which also form a watershed westerly to the Gulf of California and southerly to the Gulf of Mexico.

Kohl[354] sums up his essay on this map as follows: “It is a remarkable fact, that while the icy seas and coasts of Greenland, Labrador, Newfoundland, and Canada were depicted on the maps of the sixteenth century with a high degree of truth, our coasts of New England and New York were badly drawn so late as 1569; and their cartography remained very defective through nearly the whole of the sixteenth century.”

A close resemblance to Mercator is seen in the rendering of Ortelius in the first (1570) edition of his Theatrum orbis terrarum.[355] The contour and general details of North America, as established by Mercator and Ortelius, became a type much copied in the later years of the sixteenth century. The woodcut map in Thevet’s Cosmographie universelle (1575), for instance, is chiefly based on Ortelius, though Thevet claimed to have based it on personal observation in 1556.[356]

The maps in De la Popellinière’s Les trois mondes (1582), that of Cornelius Judæus (1589), those in Maffeius’s Historiarum Indicarum libri xvi. (1593), in Magninus’s Geographia (1597), and in Münster’s Cosmographia (1598),—all follow this type. Reference may also be made to a Spanish mappemonde of 1573 which is figured in Lelewel,[357] an engraved Spanish map in the British Museum, evidently based on Ortelius, and assigned by the Museum authorities to 1600; but Kohl, who has a copy in his Washington Collection, thinks it is probably earlier. A similar westward prolongation of the St. Lawrence River is found in a “Typus orbis terrarum,” dated 1574, which, with a smaller map of similar character, appeared in the Enchiridion Philippi Gallæi, per Hugonem Favolium, Antwerp, 1585. Quite another view prevailed at the same time with other geographers, and also became a type, as seen in the map given by Porcacchi as “Mondo nuovo” in his L’ isole piu famose del mondo, published at Venice in 1572, in which he mixes geographical traits and names in a curious manner. It is not easy to trace the origin of some of this cartographer’s points.

A theory of connecting the Atlantic and the St. Lawrence on the line of what is apparently the Hudson River, which had been advanced by Ruscelli in the general map of the world in the 1561 edition of Ptolemy, was developed in 1578 by Martines in his map of the world in the British Museum, from a copy of which in the Kohl Collection the accompanied sketch is taken.[358]

What is known as Dr. Dee’s map was presented by him to Queen Elizabeth in 1580, and was made for him, if not by him. It is preserved in the British Museum, and the sketch here given follows Dr. Kohl’s copy in his Washington Collection. Dee used mainly Spanish authorities, as many of his names signify; and though he was a little too early to recognize Drake’s New Albion, he was able to depict Frobisher’s Straits.[359]

The peculiarities of three engraved English maps of about this time are not easy to trace. The first map is that in Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s Discourse;[360] the second is the rude drawing which accompanied Beste’s True Discourse relating to Frobisher;[361] the third, that of Michael Lok,[362] in Hakluyt’s Divers Voyages. Hakluyt, in the map which he added to the edition of Peter Martyr published in Paris in 1587, conformed much more nearly to the latest knowledge.[363]

We find what is perhaps the latest instance of New France being made to constitute the eastern part of Asia, in the map (1587) given in Myritius’s Opusculum geographicum rarum, published at Ingoldstadt in 1590.[364] A group of small islands stands in a depression of the coast, and they are marked “Insulæ Corterealis.” It carries back the geographical views more than half a century.

In the Molineaux globe of 1592,[365] preserved in London, we find a small rudimentary lake, which seems to be the beginning of the cartographical history of the great inland seas,—a germ expanded in his map of 1600[366] into his large “Lacke of Tadenac.” Meanwhile Peter Plancius embodied current knowledge in his well-known map of the world. So far as the St. Lawrence Valley goes, it was not much different from the type which Ortelius had established in 1570. Blundeville, in his Exercises (1622, p. 523), describing Plancius’ map, speaks of it as “lately put forth in the yeere of our Lord 1592;” but in the Dutch edition of Linschoten in 1596 it is inscribed: Orbis terrarum ... auctore Petro Plancio, 1594.

It appeared re-engraved in the Latin Linschoten of 1599; but in this plate it is not credited to Plancius. The map which took its place in the English Linschoten, edited by Wolfe, in 1598, was the same recut Ortelius map which Hakluyt had used in his 1589 edition. This was the work of Arnoldus Florentius à Langren, though Wolfe omits the author’s name.[367]

In the map, “Americæ pars borealis, Florida, Baccalaos, Canada, Corterealis, a Cornelio de Judæis in lucem edita, 1593,” which appeared in that year in his Speculum orbis terrarum, Mercator and Ortelius seem to be the source of much of its Arctic geography; but its Lake Conibas, with its fresh water, records very likely some Indian story of the Great Lakes lying away up the Ottawa,—which is presumably the river rising in the Saguenay country. A legend on the map says that its fresh water is of an extent unknown to the Canadians, who are, as another legend says, the nations filling up the country from Baccalaos to Florida.

It will be observed that to the northwest the Zeno map[368] has been made tributary, while one name, “Golfo quarré,” is not in the place usually given to it, since it is generally the alternative name of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The nomenclature of the coast from Cape Breton south follows the Spanish names; and though Virginia is recognized by name, there is no indication of the new geography of that region.[369]

De Bry in 1596 added little that was new; and much the same may be said of the maps in the edition of Ptolemy published at Cologne in 1597, and numbered 2, 29, 34, and 35.[370]

New France is also shown in the “Nova Francia et Canada, 1597,” which is no. 18 of the series of maps in Wytfliet’s Continuation of Ptolemy. Others in the same work show contiguous regions:—

No. 15. “Conibas regio cum vicinis gentibus,”—Hudson’s Bay and the region south of it.

No. 17. “Norumbega et Virginia,”—from 37° to 47° north latitude.

No. 19. “Estotilandia et Laboratoris,”—Labrador and Greenland, mixed with the Zeni geography.

The map by Mathias Quaden, or Quadus, in the Geographisches Handbuch, was published at Cologne in 1600, bearing the title, “Novi orbis pars borealis.” The northeastern parts seem to be based on Mercator and Ortelius. A marginal note at “Corterealis” defines that navigator’s explorations as extending north to the point of what is called Estotilant. In its Lake Conibas it follows the 1593 map of Judæis.

In this enumeration of the maps showing the Gulf and River St. Lawrence down to the close of the seventeenth century, by no means all of the reduplications have been mentioned; but enough has been indicated to trace the somewhat unstable development of hydrographical knowledge in this part of North America. Most interesting, among the maps of the latter part of the century which have been omitted, are, perhaps, the Erdglobus of Philip Apian (1576), given in Wieser, Magalhâes-Strasse, p. 72; the mappemonde in Cellarius’ Speculum orbis terrarum (Antwerp, 1578); the map of the world in Apian’s Cosmographie augmentée, par Gemma Frison (Antwerp, 1581, 1584, and the Dutch edition of 1598); the map of the world by A. Millo (1582), as noted in the British Museum Manuscripts, no. 27,470; that in the Relationi universali di Giovanni Botero, Venice (1595, 1597, 1598, 1603); the earliest English copperplate map in Broughton’s Concent of Scripture (1596); the Caert-Thresoor of Langennes, Amsterdam, 1598; and, in addition, the early editions of the atlases of Mercator, Hondius, Jannsen, and Conrad Loew, with the globes of Blaeuw.

The maps in Langenes were engraved by Kærius, and they were repeated in the French editions of 1602 and 1610 (?). They were also reproduced in the Tabularum geographicarum contractarum libri of Bertius, Amsterdam, 1606, whose text was used, with the same maps, in Langenes’ Handboek van alle landen, edited by Viverius, published at Amsterdam in 1609. In 1618 a French edition of Bertius was issued by Hondius at Amsterdam with an entirely new set of maps, including a general map of America and one of “Nova Francia et Virginia.”

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CHAMPLAIN.

BY THE REV. EDMUND F. SLAFTER.

FROM 1603 to 1635 the ruling spirit and prominent figure in French exploration and colonization in America was Samuel de Champlain. His temperament and character, as well as his education and early associations, fitted him for his destined career. His home in the little town of Brouage, in Saintonge, offered to his early years more or less acquaintance with military and commercial life. He acquired a mastery of the science of navigation and cartography according to the best methods of that period. His knowledge of the art of pictorial representation was imperfect, but nevertheless useful to him in the construction of his numerous maps and topographical illustrations. He wrote the French language with clearness, and without provincial disfigurement. Several years in the army as quartermaster gave him valuable lessons and rich experience in many departments of business. Two years in the West Indies, visiting not only its numerous Spanish settlements, including the City of Mexico on the northern and New Grenada on the southern continent, gave him an intimate and thorough knowledge of Spanish colonization.

With such a preparation as this, at the age of thirty-five or thirty-six, Champlain entered, in a subordinate position, upon his earliest voyage to the Atlantic coast of North America. During the preceding sixty years the French had taken little interest in discovery, and had made no progress in colonization, though their trade on the coast may have been kept up.[371]

In 1603, Amyar de Chastes, a venerable governor of Dieppe, conceived the idea of planting a colony in the New World, of removing thither his family, and of finishing there his earthly career. He accordingly obtained from Henry IV. a commission; and, associating with himself in the enterprise several merchants, he sent out an expedition to make a general survey, to fix upon a suitable place for a settlement, and to determine what provision would be necessary for the accommodation of his colony. De Chastes invited Champlain to accompany this expedition. No proposition could have been more agreeable to his tastes. He accepted it with alacrity, provided, however, the assent of the King should first be obtained. This permission was readily accorded by Henry IV., but was coupled with the command that he should bring back a careful and detailed report of his explorations. Champlain was thus made the geographer of the King. It is doubtless from this appointment, unsought, unexpected, and almost accidental, that we are favored with Champlain’s unparalleled journals, which have come down to us rich in incident, prolific in important information, and covering nearly the whole period of his subsequent career.

The expedition set on foot by Amyar de Chastes left Honfleur on the 15th of March, 1603. It consisted of two vessels, one commanded by Pont Gravé, a distinguished fur-trader and merchant, who had previously made several voyages to the New World, and the other by Sieur Prevert, both of them from the city of St. Malo. Two Indians, who had been brought to France by Pont Gravé on a former voyage, accompanied the expedition, and made themselves useful in the investigation which ensued. Delayed by gales lasting many days, and by floating fields of ice sometimes fifteen or twenty miles in extent, the company were forty days in reaching the harbor of Tadoussac. Here, a short distance from their anchorage, they found encamped a large number of savages, estimated at a thousand, who were celebrating a recent victory. These savages were representatives from the three great allied northern families or tribes,—the Etechemins of New Brunswick and Maine, the Montagnais of the northern banks of the St. Lawrence about Tadoussac, and the Algonquins, coming from the vast region watered by the Ottawa and its tributaries. They had just returned from a conflict with the Iroquois near the mouth of the Richelieu. War between these tribes was of long standing. All traditions as to its beginning are shadowy and obscure; but it had clearly been in progress several generations, and probably several centuries, renewing its horrors in unceasing revenge and in constantly recurring cruelties. For the thirty years which Champlain was yet to spend as the neighbor of these tribes such hostile encounters were, as we shall see, a continual obstacle to his plans and a steady source of anxiety.

On the arrival at Tadoussac, preparations were at once made for an exploration of the St. Lawrence. While these were in progress, Champlain explored the Saguenay for the distance of thirty or forty miles, noting its extraordinary character, its profound depth, its rapid current, and impressed with the lofty and sterile mountains between whose perpendicular walls its pent-up waters had forced their way, moving down to the ocean with a heavy and irresistible flood. This survey of the Saguenay was probably the first ever made by a European explorer. At all events, Champlain’s description is the earliest which has come down to us.

On the 18th of June, leaving Tadoussac in a barque, and taking with them a skiff made expressly for ascending rapids and penetrating shallow streams, Champlain, Pont Gravé, and a complement of sailors, with several Indians as guides and assistants, proceeded up the St. Lawrence. From Tadoussac to Montreal they explored the bays and tributary rivers, observing the character of the soil, the forests, the animal and vegetable products, including all the elements of present and prospective wealth. On reaching the Lachine Rapids above Montreal, their progress was abruptly terminated. Neither their barque nor their skiff could stem the current. They continued on foot along the shore for several miles, but soon found it inexpedient with their present equipment to proceed farther. Having obtained from the Indians important, if not very definite, information concerning the country, rivers, and lakes above the falls, and having likewise learned from them that in the lake region far to the north native copper existed and had been fabricated into articles of ornament, they returned to Tadoussac.

Champlain immediately organized another party to examine the southern shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Skirting along the coast, they touched at Gaspé, Mal-Bay, and Isle Percée, which were at that time (1603) important stations, annually visited by fishermen of different nations. Soon after reaching the southern coast they met a troop of savages who were transporting arrows and moose-meat to exchange for the skins of the beaver and marten with the more northern tribes whom they expected to find at Tadoussac. Having obtained such information as they desired of the country still farther south, and of the copper mines in the region about the Bay of Fundy, Champlain’s party passed directly from Gaspé to the northern side of the Gulf, touching somewhere near the Seven Islands, and thence coasted along the inhospitable shores of the northern side till they reached the harbor of Tadoussac. Having completed their explorations and secured a valuable cargo of furs, which was a subordinate purpose of the expedition, they returned to France, arriving at Havre de Grâce on the 20th of September, 1603.

On their arrival Champlain received the painful news of the death of Amyar de Chastes, under whose auspices the expedition had been sent out. This put an end to the present scheme of a colonial plantation.

Champlain applied himself immediately to the preparation of an elaborate report of his explorations, and in a few months it was printed under the sanction of the King and given to the public. This book proved of importance at that early stage of French colonization in America; it covered, indeed, nearly the same ground which had been gone over by Cartier sixty years before. But the survey had been more exact and thorough; for he had observed more of the harbors and penetrated more of the tributaries both of the river and of the gulf. The pictures which he presented were more completely drawn, and detailed more accurately the sources of wealth, while they conveyed the practical information which was needed by those who were about to embark in the colonization of the New World. This fresh statement of Champlain, virtually with the royal commendation, awakened in the public mind, as might well be expected, a new interest, and enterprising merchants in different cities of France were not wanting who were ready to invest their means in the new undertaking.

This union of colonization and mercantile adventure was incongruous in itself, and proved a constant impediment to settlements. The merchant made his investments for no reason but to obtain immediate returns in large dividends. On such conditions of profit, money for the necessary outlays could be obtained, but upon no other. This put into the hand of the merchant or adventurer a power which he exercised almost entirely for his own advantage. What was necessary for the prosperity of the colony which he seemed to be founding, he absorbed in frequent and excessive dividends. The avarice of the merchant thus hampered the true colonial spirit, and his demands consumed the profits which should have given solid strength and expansion to the colony. This condition was a constant source of annoyance and discouragement to Champlain, and against it he found it necessary to contend throughout his whole career, but with not very satisfactory results.[372]

It was two months after the return of this first Canadian voyage of Champlain when the commission was granted to the Sieur de Monts of which an account is given in the following chapter. De Monts had succeeded in forming an association of merchants, who were lured by the prospects of the profits of the fur-trade. Taking himself the charge of one of his vessels, of one hundred and fifty tons, and putting Pont Gravé over the other, of one hundred and twenty tons, accompanied by several noblemen, among whom was Poutrincourt, and with Champlain still in the capacity of geographer of the King, they led forth their company of one hundred and twenty men,—laborers, artisans, and soldiers,—of whom about two thirds were to remain as colonists.

De Monts, who had been in the Gulf of St. Lawrence with De Chauvin several years before, decided to seek out a suitable location for his colony in a milder climate, which he could well do without going beyond the limits of his grant. The expedition reached the shores of Nova Scotia early in May, where they captured and confiscated several vessels engaged in a contraband fur-trade. Pont Gravé proceeded through the Strait of Canseau to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in order to prosecute more successfully the fur-trade, by which the expenses of the outfit were to be met.

Champlain’s duties as an explorer and geographer began at once. He proceeded in a barque of about eight tons, accompanied by several gentlemen, sailing in advance of the vessel, exploring the southern coast of the peninsula of Nova Scotia, touching at numerous points, visiting the harbors and headlands, giving them names, and making drawings, until he reached St. Mary’s Bay, within the opening of the Bay of Fundy, where he discovered several mines of silver and iron. Subsequently having been joined by De Monts, continuing his examinations, he entered Annapolis Harbor, crept along the western shore of Nova Scotia, and passing over to New Brunswick, skirted the whole of its southern coast, and entered the Harbor of St. John; then exploring Passamaquoddy Bay as far as the mouth of the River St. Croix, he finally reached the island which the patentee selected as the seat of his new colony.

Champlain—undoubtedly the best engineer in the party—was immediately directed to lay out the grounds and fix upon the situation and arrangement of the buildings, which were forthwith erected.[373]

This settlement, here and at Port Royal,[374] under the charter of De Monts, continued for three years, making, as might well be expected, but little progress as a colony, the principal achievement being the cultivation of some small patches of ground, the raising of a few specimens of European grains, and of garden vegetables for its own use. It has consequently very little historical significance in itself. But it served in the mean time a very important purpose as a base, necessary and convenient, for the extensive explorations made by Champlain on the Atlantic coast, stretching from Canseau, at the eastern extremity of Nova Scotia, to the Vineyard Sound, on the southern shores of Massachusetts. These geographical surveys occupied him three summers, while the intervening winters were employed in executing a general chart of the whole region, together with many local maps of the numerous bays, harbors, and rivers along the coast.[375]

The first of these surveys was made during the month of September, 1604. This expedition was under the sole direction of Champlain, and was made in a barque of seventeen or eighteen tons, manned by twelve sailors, and with two Indians as guides. He examined the coast from the mouth of the St. Croix to the Penobscot. He was especially interested in the beautiful islands which fringe the coast, particularly in Mount Desert and Isle Haute, to which he gave the names which they still bear. Sailing up the Penobscot, called by the Indians the Pentegöet, and by Europeans who had passed along the coast the Norumbegue, he explored this river to the head of tide-water, at the site of the present city of Bangor, where a fall in the river intercepted his progress. In the interior, along the shores of the river, he saw scarcely any inhabitants; and by a very careful examination he was satisfied beyond a doubt that the story, which had gained currency from a period as far back as the time of Alfonse, about a large native town in the vicinity, whose inhabitants had attained to some of the higher arts of civilization, was wholly without foundation. He not only saw no such town, but could find no remains or other evidence that one had ever existed. Having spent nearly a month in his explorations, he obtained a good knowledge of the country and much information as to the inhabitants, when having exhausted his provisions, he returned to his winter quarters at De Monts’ Island.

The next expedition was made early in the following summer, after it had been decided to abandon the island. Accordingly, on the 18th of June, 1605, De Monts himself, with Champlain as geographer, several gentlemen and twenty sailors, together with an Indian and his wife, necessary guides and interpreters, set sail for the purpose of finding a more eligible situation somewhere on the shores of the present New England. Passing along the coast which had been explored the preceding autumn, they soon came to the mouth of the Kennebec. Entering this river, and bearing to the easterly side, they sailed through a tidal creek, now called Back River, into the waters of the Sheepscot, and passing round the southern point of Westport Island, skirting its eastern shore, they came to the site of the present town of Wiscasset. Lingering a short time, exchanging courtesies with a band of Indians assembled there, and entering into a friendly alliance with them, they proceeded down the western shores of Westport, and passing through the Sasanoa, again entered the Kennebec, and sailed up as far as Merrymeeting Bay, where, by their conference with the Indians whom they met in the Sheepscot, they were led to believe they should meet Marchin and Sasinou, two famous chiefs of that region, whose friendship it was good policy to secure. Failing of this interview, they returned by a direct course to the mouth of the Kennebec.

Champlain having made a sketch of the mouth of the river, the islands and sandbars, with the course and depth of the main channel, the party moved on towards the west. Examining the coast as they proceeded, they passed without observing the excellent harbor of Portland, concealed as it is by the beautiful islands clustering about it, and next entered the bay of the Saco, which stretches from Cape Elizabeth to Fletcher’s Neck. Here they observed strong contrasts between the natives and those of the coast farther east. Their habits, mode of life, and language were all different. Hitherto the Indians whom they had seen were nomadic, living wholly by fishing and the chase. Here they were sedentary, and subsisted mainly on the products of the soil. Their settlement was surrounded by fine fields of Indian corn, gardens of squashes, beans, and pumpkins, and ample patches of tobacco. They observed also on the bank of the river a fort, which was made of lofty palisades. After tarrying two days in this bay, making ample sketches of the whole, including the islands, the place now known as Old Orchard Beach, and the dwellings on the shore, and having bestowed on the natives some small presents as tokens of gratitude for cordial and friendly entertainment, the French, on the 12th July, once more weighed anchor. Keeping close in, following the sinuosities of the shore, and lingering here and there, they observed everything as they passed, and on the morning of the 16th arrived at Cape Anne.

Their stay here was brief, its chief feature being an interview with the natives, whom they found cordial and highly intelligent. The Indians made an accurate drawing, with a crayon furnished by Champlain, of the outline of Massachusetts Bay, and indicated correctly their six tribes and chiefs by as many pebbles, which they skilfully arranged for the purpose.

Holding short interviews with the natives at different points, threading their way among the islands which besprinkle the bay, many of which, as well as ample fields on the mainland, were covered with waving corn, they sailed into Boston Harbor. The next day they proceeded along the south shore, and on the 19th entered and made such survey as they could of the little bay of Plymouth, destined a few years later to become the seat of the first permanent English settlement in New England. Besides a description of the Indian methods and implements of fishing, in which vocation he found them engaged, and of the harbor and its surroundings, Champlain has left us a sketch of the bay, to which he gave the name of Port St. Louis. This sketch is certainly creditable, when we bear in mind that it was made without surveys or measurements of any kind, and during a hasty visit of a few hours. Leaving Plymouth Harbor, and keeping along the coast, they made the complete circuit of the bay, and rounding the point of Cape Cod they sailed in a southerly direction, and entered an insignificant tidal inlet now known as Nauset Harbor. Here they lingered several days, making inland excursions, gathering much valuable information relating to the Indians, their mode of dress, ornamentation, the structure of their dwellings, the preparation of their food, and the cultivation of the soil. These particulars did not differ essentially from what they had observed at Saco, on the coast of Maine, and indicated clearly that the people belonged to the same great family.

Their provisions being nearly exhausted, it now became necessary to turn back. On reaching the mouth of the Kennebec, they learned that an English ship had been anchored at the island of Monhegan, which proved to be the “Archangel,” in command of Captain George Weymouth, who was making an exploration on the coast at that time, under the patronage of the Earl of Southampton. The conflicting claims of the French and English to the territory which Champlain was now exploring will come into prominence later in our story. On arriving at De Monts Island, it became necessary to hasten arrangements for the removal of the colony to a situation less exposed; but in all the explorations thus far made they had found no location which was in all respects satisfactory for a permanent settlement. They determined, therefore, to transfer the colony at once to Annapolis Basin, where the climate was milder and the situation better protected. The buildings were forthwith taken down and transported to the new site. De Monts, the governor, soon after departed for France, in order to obtain from the King assistance in establishing and enlarging the domain of his colony. The command in his absence was placed in the hands of Pont Gravé. Champlain determined also to remain, in the hope of “making new explorations towards Florida.”

During the early autumn Champlain made an excursion across the bay to St. John, whence, piloted by an Indian chief of that place, he visited Advocate’s Harbor, near the head of the Bay of Fundy, in search of a copper mine. A few small bits of that metal, which was all he found, offered little inducement for further search.

The colony, in their new quarters at Port Royal, suffered less from the severity of the climate during the winter than they had done on the preceding one at De Monts Island. Nevertheless the dreaded mal de la terre, or scurvy, made its appearance, and twelve out of the forty-five settlers died of that disease. Early in the spring several attempts were made to continue their explorations along the southern coast; but, much to their disappointment, they were as often driven back by disastrous storms. The supplies needed for the succeeding winter were much delayed, and did not come till late in July, when De Poutrincourt arrived as lieutenant of De Monts, and took command at Port Royal.

On the 5th of September an expedition under De Poutrincourt, together with Champlain as geographer, departed to continue their explorations.[376] It was Champlain’s opinion that they should sail directly for Nauset Harbor, where their previous examinations had terminated, and from that point make a careful survey of the coast farther south. Had his counsels prevailed, they might, during the season, have completed the exploration of the whole New England coast. But De Poutrincourt desired to examine personally what had already been explored by previous expeditions. In this re-survey they discovered Gloucester Harbor, which they had not seen before. They found it spacious, well protected, with good depth of water, surrounded by attractive scenery, and therefore named it Le Beauport, the beautiful harbor. It was fringed with the dwellings and gardens of two hundred natives. In their mode of life they were sedentary, like those at Saco and at Boston, and they gave their guests a friendly welcome, offering them the products of the soil,—grapes just from the vines, squashes of different varieties, the trailing-bean which is still cultivated in New England, and the Jerusalem artichoke, fresh and crisp, the product of their industry and care. After several days at Gloucester, the voyagers proceeded on their course, and finally rounded Cape Cod, touched again at Nauset, and after infinite trouble and no less danger crept round Monomoy Point and entered Chatham Harbor, where they found it necessary to remain some days for the repair of their disabled barque. From Chatham as a base they made numerous inland excursions, and also sailed along the shore as far as the Vineyard Sound, which was the southern terminus of Champlain’s explorations on the coast of New England. The work of exploration having thus been completed, spreading their sails for the homeward voyage, touching at many points on their way, they reached Annapolis Harbor on the 14th of November.

The winter that followed was employed by the colonists in such minor enterprises as might seem to bear on their future prospects. Near the end of the following May a ship arrived from France bringing a letter from De Monts, the patentee, stating that by order of the King his monopoly of the fur-trade had been abolished, and directing the immediate return of the colony to France. The cause of this sudden reverse of fortune to De Monts, of this withdrawal of his exclusive right to the fur-trade, is easily explained. The seizure and confiscation of several ships and their valuable cargoes on the coast of Nova Scotia had awakened a personal hostility in influential circles, and they easily represented that the monopoly of De Monts was destroying an important branch of national commerce, and diverting to the emolument of a private gentleman revenues which belonged to the State.

Preparations for the return to France were undertaken without delay. Meanwhile two excursions were made, one, accompanied by Lescarbot the historian, to St. John and to the seat of the first settlement at De Monts Island; another, under De Poutrincourt, accompanied by Champlain, to the head of the Bay of Fundy. The bulk of the colonists left near the end of July, in several barques, to rendezvous at Canseau, while De Poutrincourt and Champlain remained till the 11th of August, when they followed in a shallop, keeping close to the shore, which gave Champlain an opportunity to examine the coast from La Hève to Canseau,—the last of his explorations on the Atlantic coast.

As the geographer of the King, Champlain had been engaged in his specific duties three years and nearly four months. His was altogether pioneer work. At this time there was not a European settlement of any kind on the eastern borders of North America, from Newfoundland on the north to Mexico on the south. No exploration of any significance of the vast region traversed by him had then been made. Gosnold and Pring had touched the coast; but their brief stay and imperfect and shadowy notes are to the historian tantalizing and only faintly instructive.[377] Other navigators had indeed passed along the shore, sighting the headlands of Cape Anne and Cape Cod, and had observed some of the wide-stretching bays and the outflow of the larger rivers;[378] but none of them had attempted even a hasty exploration. Champlain’s surveys, stretching over more than a thousand miles of sea-coast, are ample, and approximately accurate. It would seem that his local as well as his general maps depended simply on the observations of a careful eye; of necessity they lacked the measurements of an elaborate survey. Of their kind they are creditable examples, and evince a certain ready skill. The nature and products of the soil, the wild, teeming life of forest and field, are pictured in his text with minuteness and conscientious care. His descriptions of the natives, their mode of life, their dress, their occupations, their homes, their intercourse with each other, their domestic and civil institutions as far as they had any, are clear and well defined, and as the earliest on record, having been made before Indian life became modified by intercourse with Europeans, will always be regarded by the historian as of the highest importance.

On the 3d of September, 1607, the colonists, having assembled by agreement at Canseau, embarked for France, and arrived at St. Malo early in October. Champlain hastened to lay before De Monts the results of his explorations, together with his maps and drawings. The zeal of De Monts was rekindled by the recital, notwithstanding the losses he had sustained and the disappointments he had encountered. Specimens of grain, corn, wheat, rye, barley, and oats, together with two or three braces of the beautiful brant goose, which had been bred from the shell, were presented to the King as products of New France and as an earnest of its future wealth. Henry IV. was not insensible to the merits of the faithful De Monts, and he granted him a renewal of his monopoly of the fur-trade, but only for a single year. With this limitation of his privilege, stimulated by the futile hope of getting it extended at its expiration, De Monts fitted out two vessels,—one to be commanded by Pont Gravé, and devoted exclusively to the fur-trade, while the other was to be employed in transporting men and material for a settlement or plantation on the River St. Lawrence. Of this expedition Champlain was constituted lieutenant-governor,—an office which he subsequently continued to hold in New France, with little interruption, till his death in 1635.

On the 13th of April, 1608, he left Honfleur, and arrived at Tadoussac on the 3d of June. Here he found Pont Gravé, who had preceded him, in serious trouble. A Basque fur-trader and whale-fisherman, who did not choose to be restrained in his trade, had attacked him, killed one of his men, severely wounded Pont Gravé himself, and taken possession of his armament. The illegal character of this proceeding and its utter disregard of the King’s commission clearly merited immediate and severe punishment. While the Governor was greatly annoyed, he did not, however, allow passion to warp his judgment or overcome the dictates of reason. The punishment, so richly deserved, could not be administered without the sacrifice of all his plans for the present year. With a characteristic prudence he therefore decided, “in order not to make a bad cause out of a just one,” to use his own expression, upon a compromise, by referring the final settlement to the authorities in France, with the assurance, in the mean time, that there should be no further interference by either party with the other.

Having constructed a small barque of about fourteen tons, and taken on board a complement of men and such material as was needed for his settlement, he proceeded up the River St. Lawrence. On the fourth day the French approached the lofty headland jutting out upon the river and forcing it into a narrow channel, to which, on account of this narrowing, the Algonquins had given the significant name of Quebec.[379] Here on a belt of land at the base of a lofty precipice, along the water’s edge, on the 3d day of July, 1608, Champlain laid the foundations of the city which still bears the name of Quebec.

The remaining part of the season was employed in establishing his colony, in felling the forest trees, in excavating cellars, erecting buildings, in laying out and preparing gardens, and in the necessary preparations for the coming winter. Among the events to occupy the attention of the Governor early after their arrival was the suppression of a conspiracy among his men which aimed at his assassination, the seizure of the property of the settlement, and the conversion of it to their own use. Proceeding cautiously in eliciting all the facts, Champlain got the approbation of the officers of the vessels and others, and condemned four of the men to be hanged. The sentence was executed upon the leader at once, while the other three were sent back to France for a review and confirmation of their sentence in the courts. This prompt exercise of authority had a salutary effect, and good order was permanently established. The winter was severe and trying, especially to the constitutions of men unaccustomed to the intense cold of that region, and disease setting in, twenty of the twenty-eight which comprised their whole number died before the middle of April. The suffering of the sick, the mortality which followed, the starving savages who dragged their famishing and feeble bodies about the settlement, and whose wants could be but partially supplied, produced a depression and gloom which can hardly be adequately pictured.

Early in June, 1609, Pont Gravé returned from France with supplies and men for the settlement. The colony, even thus augmented, was small; and under the system on which it was established and was to be maintained, there was little assurance that it would be greatly enlarged. During the first twenty-five years its whole number did not probably at any time much exceed one hundred persons. While there was a constant struggle to enlarge its borders and increase its numbers, it was in fact only a respectable trading-post, maintained at a limited expense for the economical and successful conduct of the fur-trade. The responsibility of the Lieutenant-Governor was mostly confined to maintaining order in this little community, and in giving the men occupation in the gardens and small fields which were put under cultivation, and in packing and shipping peltry during the season of trade. For a man of the character, capacity, and practical sense of Champlain, this was a mere bagatelle. He naturally and properly looked forward to the time when New France should become a strong and populous nation. Its territorial extent was at present unknown. The channel only of the St. Lawrence, including the narrow margin that could be seen from the prow of the barque as it sailed along its shore from Tadoussac to the Lachine Rapids, had been explored. A vast continent stretched away in the distance, shrouded in dark forests, diversified with deep rivers and broad lakes, concerning which nothing whatever was known, except that which might be gathered from the shadowy representations of the wild men roaming in its solitudes. To know the capabilities of this mysterious, unmeasured domain; to learn the history, character, and relations of the differing tribes by whom it was inhabited,—was the day-dream of Champlain’s vigorous and active mind. But to attain this was not an easy task. It required patience, discretion, endurance of hardship and danger, a brave spirit, and an indomitable will. With these qualities Champlain was richly endowed, and from his natural love of useful adventure, and his experience in exploration, he was at all times ready and eager to push his investigations into these new regions and among these pre-historic tribes.

During the winter Champlain had learned from the Indians who came to the settlement that far to the southwest there existed a large lake, whose waters were dotted with beautiful islands, and whose shores were surrounded by lofty mountains and fertile valleys. An opportunity to explore this lake and the river by which its waters were drained into the St. Lawrence was eagerly coveted by Champlain. This region occupied a peculiar relation to the hostile tribes on the north and those on the south of the St. Lawrence. It was the battle-field, or war-path, where they had for many generations, on each returning summer, met in bloody conflict. The territory between these contending tribes was neutral ground. Mutual fear had kept it open and uninhabited. The Montagnais in the neighborhood of Quebec were quite ready to conduct Champlain on this exploration, but it was nevertheless on the condition that he should assist them in an attack upon these enemies if encountered on the lake. To this he acceded without hesitation. It is possible that he did not appreciate the consequences of assuming such a hostile attitude toward the Iroquois; but it is probable that he was influenced by a broad national policy, to which we shall revert in the sequel.

On the 18th day of June Champlain left Quebec for this exploration. His escort of Montagnais was subsequently augmented by delegations from their allies, the Hurons and the Algonquins.

After numerous delays and adjustments and readjustments of plans, when the expedition was fairly afloat on the River Richelieu it consisted of sixty warriors in bark canoes, clad in their usual armor, accompanied by Champlain and two French arquebusiers. Proceeding up the river, they entered the lake, coursed its western shore, and moved tardily along. At the expiration of nearly three weeks,—on the 29th of July, 1609,—in the shade of the evening, they discovered a flotilla of bark canoes containing about two hundred Iroquois warriors of the Mohawk tribe, who were searching for their enemies, the tribes of the north, whom they hoped to find on this old war-path. Early the next morning, on the present site of Ticonderoga, near where the French subsequently erected Fort Carillon, whose ruins are still visible, the two parties met.[380]

It was the first exhibition of firearms which the savages had ever witnessed. Champlain, moving at the head of his allies, discharged his arquebus, and by it two chiefs were instantly killed, and another savage fell mortally wounded. The two French arquebusiers, attacking in flank, poured also a deadly fire upon the astonished Mohawks. The strange noise of the musketry, their comrades falling dead or wounded, and the deafening shout of the victors, carried dismay into the Mohawk ranks. In utter consternation they fled into the forest, abandoning their canoes, arms, provisions, and implements of every sort. The joy of the victors was unbounded. In three hours after the fight they had gathered up their booty, placed the ten captives whom they had taken in their canoes, performed the customary dance of victory, and were sailing down the lake on their homeward voyage. They soon reached their destination, having lingered here and there to inflict the usual inhuman punishments upon their poor prisoners of war. The cruelties which they practised in the presence of Champlain were abhorrent to his generous nature, and he used his utmost influence to mitigate and soften the sufferings which he could not wholly avert.

The exploration which Champlain had thus conducted was interesting and geographically important. He had made a hurried survey of the lake extending nearly its whole length, and had observed its beautiful islands, with its wooded shores flanked by the Adirondacks on the west and by the Green Mountains on the east. From the mouth of the Richelieu he had penetrated inland a hundred and fifty miles, and as the discoverer he might justly claim that the whole domain, of which this line was the radius, had by him been added to French dominion. To this exquisitely fine expanse of water he gave his own name; and now, after the lapse of two hundred and seventy-five years, it still bears the appellation of Lake Champlain.

Soon after arriving at Quebec, Champlain made preparations to return to France. Leaving the settlement in charge of a deputy, he arrived at Honfleur on the 13th of October. He immediately laid before De Monts and the King a full report of his discoveries and observations during the past year, and to both of them it was gratifying and satisfactory. The monopoly of the fur-trade which had been granted to De Monts had expired by limitation, and he now sought for its renewal. The opposition, however, was too powerful, and his efforts were fruitless. Nevertheless, De Monts did not abandon his undertaking, but with a commendable resolution and courage he renewed his contracts with the merchants of Rouen, and in the spring of 1610 sent out two vessels to transport artisans and supplies for the settlement, and to carry on the fur-trade. Champlain was again appointed lieutenant for the government of the colony at Quebec.

During this summer he was unable to undertake any explorations, although two important ones had been projected the year before. One of them was in the direction of Lake St. John and the headwaters of the Saguenay, the other up the Ottawa and to the region of Lake Superior. The importance of an early survey of these distant regions was obvious; but the Indians were not ready for the undertaking, and without their friendly guidance and assistance it was plainly impracticable. Early in the season the Montagnais were on their way to the mouth of the Richelieu, where they were to meet their allies, the Hurons and Algonquins, and proceed up the river to Lake Champlain, and engage in their usual summer’s entertainment of war with the Mohawks. Sending forward several barques for trading purposes, Champlain repaired to the rendezvous, where he learned that the Iroquois or Mohawks, nothing daunted by the experiences of the previous year, had already arrived, and had thrown up a hasty intrenchment on the shore, and were impatiently awaiting the fight. There was no delay; the conflict was terrific. By the aid and advice of Champlain the rude fort was demolished. Fifteen of the Mohawks were taken prisoners, others plunged into the river and were drowned, and the rest perished by the arquebus and the savage implements of war. Not one of the Mohawks escaped to tell the story of their disaster.

Before the Algonquins from the Ottawa returned to their homes, Champlain began a practice which proved of great value in after years. He placed in the custody of the Indians a young man to accompany them to their homes, pass the winter, learn their language, their mode of life, and the numberless other things which can only be fully understood and appreciated by an actual residence. On the other hand, a young savage was taken to France and made familiar with the forms of civilized life. These delegates of both parties became interpreters, and thus intercourse between the French and Indians became easy and intelligent.

During the summer information was received of the assassination of Henry IV. This was regarded as a great calamity. He had from the first been friendly to those engaged in colonial enterprise, and they could fully rely upon his sympathy, although his impoverished treasury did not permit him to give that substantial aid which was really needed.

Champlain returned to France in the autumn of 1610, but again visited Quebec in 1611, though only for the summer, which was devoted almost exclusively to the management of the fur-trade. This trade was at best limited and desultory. The French did not obtain their peltry by trapping, snaring, or the chase, but by traffic with the savage tribes, who every summer visited the St. Lawrence for this purpose. A small number of them appeared each spring at Tadoussac, and a much larger number at Montreal, with their bark canoes loaded with skins of the beaver and of other valuable fur-bearing animals. Having no use for money or for such fabrics as are useful and necessary in civilized life, the savages gladly exchanged the accumulations of the winter, sometimes not reserving enough for their own clothing, for such glittering trifles as were offered to their choice. To facilitate these exchanges a rendezvous was established at Montreal, and when the flotilla of canoes appeared in the river, the trade was completed in an incredibly short time. As it was absolutely free and unrestricted, the competition became excessive, and the balance-sheet of the merchants usually presented an exceedingly small net profit, if not a considerable loss. This competition was so disastrous, that the associates of De Monts decided to withdraw from the enterprise, and sold to him their interest in the establishment at Quebec. The formation of a new company was forthwith committed to Champlain. He accordingly drew up a scheme, embracing, besides others, these two important features: First, that the association should be presided over by a viceroy of high position and commanding influence; this was supposed to be important in settling any complications that might arise in France. Second, that membership should be open to all merchants who might desire to engage in trade in New France, sharing equally all profits and losses. This was supposed to remove all objections to the association as a monopoly, since membership was free to all. The Count de Soissons was appointed viceroy. He died, however, a few weeks later, in the autumn of 1612, and the Prince de Condé, Henry de Bourbon II., was chosen his successor. The organization of the Company, under many embarrassments, notwithstanding the precautions which had been taken by Champlain, occupied him during the whole of the year 1612. Having been appointed lieutenant, he returned to New France in 1613, arriving at Quebec on the 7th of May of that year.

It had been from the beginning an ulterior object of the French in making a settlement in North America to discover a northwest passage by water to the Pacific Ocean. Whoever should make this discovery would, by diminishing the distance to the markets of the East Indies, confer a boon of untold commercial value upon his country, and earn for himself an imperishable fame. This day-dream of all the old navigators had haunted the mind of Champlain from the first. Every indication which pointed in that direction was carefully considered. Nicholas de Vignau, one of the interpreters who had passed a winter with the Algonquins on the upper waters of the Ottawa, returned to France in 1613. Having heard doubtless something of the disastrous voyage of Henry Hudson to the bay which bears his name, he manufactured a fine story, all of which was spun from his own brain, but was nevertheless well adapted to make a strong impression on the mind of Champlain and others interested in this question. This bold impostor stated that while with the Algonquins he had made an excursion to the north, and had discovered a sea of salt water; that he had seen on its shores the wreck of an English ship from which eighty men had been taken and slain by the savages, and that the Indians had retained an English boy to present to Champlain when he should visit them. Although the story was plausible, Vignau was cross-examined, and put to various tests, and finally made to certify to the truth of his statement before notaries at La Rochelle. Champlain laid the statement before the Chancellor de Sillery, the President Jeannin, and the Marshal de Brissac, and by them was strongly advised to ascertain the truth of the story by a personal exploration. He therefore resolved to make this a prominent feature of the summer’s work.

Accordingly, with two bark canoes, provisions and arms, an Indian guide and four Frenchmen, including De Vignau, Champlain proceeded up the Ottawa. This river is distinguished by its numerous rapids and falls, many of them impassable even by the light canoe;[381] and at that time the shores were lined with dense and tangled forests, which could only be penetrated with the utmost difficulty. After incredible fatigue and hunger, the party at length arrived at Alumet Island, where they were kindly received by the chief of the Indian settlement. Here De Vignau had passed a previous winter, and was now obliged to confess his base and shameless falsehood. The indignation of Champlain, as well as his disappointment, can well be comprehended. He bore himself, however, with calmness, and restrained the savages from taking the life of De Vignau, which they were anxious to do for his audacious mendacity.

Although Champlain did not attain the object for which the journey was undertaken, he had nevertheless explored an important river for more than two hundred miles, and had made a favorable impression upon the savages. On his return he was accompanied by a large number of them, with eighty canoes loaded with valuable peltry for exchanges at the rendezvous near Montreal. Having placed everything in order at Quebec, he returned to France, where he remained during the whole of the year 1614, occupied largely in adding new members to his company of associates, and in perfecting such plans as were necessary for the success of the colony. Among the rest he secured several missionaries to accompany him to New France, with the purpose of converting the Indians to the Christian faith. These were Denis Jamay, Jean d’Olbeau, Joseph le Caron, and the lay brother Pacifique du Plessis, Recollects of the Franciscan order.

On his return in 1615, Champlain immediately erected a chapel at Quebec, which was placed in charge of Denis Jamay and Pacifique du Plessis, while Jean d’Olbeau assumed the mission of the Montagnais, and Joseph le Caron that of the Hurons. Hastening to the rendezvous for trade at Montreal, Champlain found the allied tribes awaiting him, and anxious to engage him in a grand campaign against the Iroquois. It was to be on a much more comprehensive scale than anything that had preceded it, and was to be an attack on a large fort situated in the heart of the present State of New York. This was distant not less than eight hundred or a thousand miles by the circuitous journey which it was necessary to make in reaching it. The warriors were to be collected and marshalled from the various tribes whose homes were along the route. The undertaking was not a small one. A journey, including the return, of fifteen hundred or two thousand miles, by river and lake, through swamps and tangled forests, with the incumbrance of necessary baggage and a motley crowd of several hundred savages to be daily fed by the chance of fishing and hunting, demanded a brave heart and a strong will.

But it offered an opportunity for exploring unknown regions which Champlain could not bring himself to decline. Accordingly, on the 9th of July, 1615, Champlain embarked with an interpreter, a French servant, and ten savages, in two birch-bark canoes. They ascended the Ottawa, entered the Mattawan, and by other waters reached Lake Nipissing. Crossing this lake and following the channel of French River, they entered Lake Huron, or the Georgian Bay, and coasted along until they reached the present county of Simcoe. Here they found the missionary Le Caron, who had preceded them. Eight Frenchmen belonging to his company joined that of Champlain. The mustering hosts of the savage warriors came in from every direction. At length, crossing Lake Simcoe, by rivers and lakes and frequent portages they reached Lake Ontario just as it merges into the River St. Lawrence, and passing over to the New York side, they concealed their canoes in a thicket near the shore, and proceeded by land; striking inland, crossing the stream now known as Oneida River, they finally, on the 10th of October, reached the great Iroquois fortress, situated a few miles south of the eastern end of Oneida Lake. This fort was hexagonal in form, constructed of four rows of palisades thirty feet in height, with a gallery near the top, and water-spouts for the extinguishing of fire. It inclosed several acres, and was a strong work of its kind. The attack of the allies was fierce and desultory, without plan or system, notwithstanding Champlain’s efforts to direct it. A considerable number of the Iroquois were killed by the French firearms, and many were wounded; but no effective impression was made upon the fortress. After lingering before the fort some days, the allies began their retreat. Champlain, having been wounded, was transported in a basket made for the purpose. Returning to the other side of Lake Ontario, to a famous hunting-ground,—probably north of the present town of Kingston,—they remained several weeks, capturing a large number of deer. When the frosts of December had sealed up the ground, the streams, and lakes, they returned to the home of the Hurons in Simcoe, dragging with incredible labor their stores of venison through bog and fen and pathless forest. Here Champlain passed the winter, making excursions to neighboring Indian tribes, and studying their habits and character from his personal observation, and writing out the results with great minuteness and detail. As soon as the season was sufficiently advanced, Champlain began his journey homeward by the circuitous route of his advance, and arrived safely after an absence of nearly a year. Having put in execution plans for the repair and enlargement of the buildings at Quebec, he returned to France.

For several years the trade in furs was conducted as usual, with occasional changes both in the Company in France and in local management. These, however, were of no very essential importance, and the details must be passed by in this brief narrative. The ceaseless struggle for large dividends and small expenditures on the part of the company of merchants did not permit any considerable enlargement of the colony, or any improvements which did not promise immediate returns. Repairs upon the buildings and a new fort constructed on the brow of the precipice in the rear of the settlement were carried forward tardily and grudgingly.[382] As a mere trading-post it had undoubtedly been successful. The average number of beaver skins annually purchased of the Indians and transported to France was probably not far from fifteen or twenty thousand, and it sometimes reached twenty-two thousand. The annual dividend of forty per cent on the investment, as intimated by Champlain, must have been highly satisfactory to the Company. The settlement maintained the character of a trading-post, but hardly that of a colonial plantation. After the lapse of nearly twenty years, the average number of colonists did not exceed much more than fifty. This progress was not satisfactory to Champlain, to the Viceroy, or to the Council of State. In 1627 a change became inevitable. Cardinal de Richelieu had become grand master and chief of the navigation and commerce of France. He saw the importance of rendering this colony worthy of the fame and greatness of the nation under whose authority it had been planted. Acting with characteristic promptness and decision, he dissolved the old Company and instituted a new one, denominated La Compagnie de la Nouvelle France, consisting of a hundred or more members, and commonly known as the Company of the Hundred Associates. The constitution of this society possessed several important features, which seemed to assure the solid growth of the colony. Richelieu was its constituted head. Its authority was to extend over the whole territory of New France and Florida. Its capital was three hundred thousand livres. It proposed to send to Canada in 1628 from two hundred to three hundred artisans of all classes, and within the space of fifteen years to transport four thousand colonists to New France. These were to be wholly supported by the Company for three years, and after that they were to have assigned to them as much land as was needed for cultivation. The settlers were to be natives of France and exclusively of the Catholic faith, and no Huguenot was to be allowed to enter the country. The Company was to have exclusive control of trade, and all goods manufactured in New France were to be free of imposts on exportation. Such were the more general and prominent features of the association. In the spring of 1628 the Company, thus organized, despatched four armed vessels to convoy a fleet of eighteen transports, laden with emigrants and stores, together with one hundred and thirty-five pieces of ordnance to fortify the settlement at Quebec.

War existing at that time between England and France, an English fleet was already on its way to destroy the French colony at Quebec. The transports and convoy sent out by the Company of the Hundred Associates were intercepted on their way, carried into England, and confiscated. On the arrival of the English at Tadoussac, David Kirke, the commander, sent up a summons to Champlain at Quebec, demanding the surrender of the town; this Champlain declined to do with such an air of assurance that the English commander did not attempt to enforce his demand. The supplies for the settlement having thus been cut off by the English, before the next spring the colony was on the point of perishing by starvation. Half of them had been billeted on Indian tribes to escape impending death. On the 19th of July, 1629, three English vessels appeared before Quebec, and again demanded its surrender. Destitute of provisions and of all means of defence, with only a handful of famishing men, Champlain delivered up the post without hesitation. All the movable property belonging to the Company at Quebec was surrendered. The whole colony, with the exception of such as preferred to remain, were transported to France by way of England. On their arrival at Plymouth, it was ascertained that the war between the two countries had come to an end, and that the articles of peace provided that all conquests made subsequent to the 24th of April, 1629, were to be restored; and consequently Quebec, and the peltry and other property taken after that date, must be remanded to their former owners. Notwithstanding this, Champlain was taken to London and held as a prisoner of war for several weeks, during which time the base attempt was made to compel him to pay a ransom for his freedom. Such illegal and unjust artifices practised upon a man like Champlain of course came to nothing, except to place upon the pages of history a fresh example of what the avarice of men will lead them to do. After having been detained a month, Champlain was permitted to depart for France.

The breaking-up of the settlement at Quebec just on the eve of the new arrangement under the administration of the Hundred Associates, and with greater prospect of success than had existed at any former period, involved a loss which can hardly be estimated, and retarded for several years the progress of the colony. The return of the property which had been illegally seized and carried away gave infinite trouble and anxiety to Champlain; and it was not until 1633 that he left France again, with a large number of colonists, re-commissioned as governor, to join his little colony at Quebec.[383] He was accompanied by the Jesuit Fathers Enemond Massé and Jean de Brébeuf. The Governor and his associates received at Quebec from the remnant of the colony a most hearty welcome. The memory of what good he had done in the past awakened in them fresh gratitude and a new zeal in his service. He addressed himself with his old energy, but nevertheless with declining strength, to the duties of the hour,—to the renovation and improvement of the habitation and fort, to the holding of numerous councils with the Indians in the neighborhood, and to the execution of plans for winning back the traffic of allied tribes. The building of a chapel, named, in memory of the recovery of Quebec, Notre Dame de Recouvrance, and such other kindred duties as sprang out of the responsibilities of his charge, engaged his attention. In these occupations two years soon passed.

During the summer of 1635 Champlain addressed a letter to Cardinal de Richelieu, soliciting the means, and setting forth the importance of subduing the hostile tribes known as the Five Nations, and bringing them into sympathy and friendship with the French.[384] This in his opinion was necessary for the proper enlargement of the French domain and for the opening of the whole continent to the influence of the Christian faith,—two objects which seemed to him of paramount importance. This was probably the last letter written by Champlain, and contains the key to the motives which had influenced him from the beginning in joining the northern tribes in their wars with the Iroquois.[385] On Christmas Day, the 25th of December, 1635, Champlain died in the little fort which he had erected on the rocky promontory at Quebec, amid the tears and sorrows of the colony to which for twenty-seven years he had devoted his strength and thought with rare generosity and devotion.[386] In the following June, Montmagny, a Knight of Malta, arrived as the successor of Champlain.

THE richest source of information relating to Champlain’s achievements as a navigator, explorer, and the founder of the French settlement in Canada is found in his own writings. It was his habit to keep a journal of his observations, which he began even on his voyage to the West Indies in 1599. Of his first voyage to Canada, in 1603, his Journal appears to have been put to press in the last part of the same year. This little book of eighty pages is entitled: Des Savvages; ov, Voyage de Samvel Champlain, de Brovage, faict en la France Nouuelle, l’an mil six cens trois. A Paris, chez Clavde de Monstr’oeil, tenant sa boutique en la Cour du Palais, au nom de Jesus, 1604. Auec priuilege du Roy. This Journal contains a valuable narrative of the incidents of the voyage across the Atlantic, and likewise a description of the Gulf and River St. Lawrence, and enters fully into details touching the tributaries of the great river, the bays, harbors, forests, and scenery along the shore, as well as the animals and birds with which the islands and borders of the river were swarming at that period. It contains a discriminating account of the character and habits of the savages as he saw them.[387]

In 1613 Champlain published a second volume, embracing the events which had occurred from 1603 to that date. The following is its title: Les Voyages dv Sievr de Champlain Xaintongeois, Capitaine ordinaire pour le Roy, en la marine, divisez en devx livres; ou, jovrnal tres-fidele des observations faites és descouuertures de la Nouuelle France: tant en la descriptiô des terres, costes, riuieres, ports, haures, leurs hauteurs, et plusieurs delinaisons de la guide-aymant; qu’en la creâce des peuples, leur superstition, façon de viure et de guerroyer: enrichi de quantité de figures. A Paris, chez Jean Berjon, rue S. Jean de Beauuais, au Cheual volant, et en sa boutique au Palais, à la gallerie des prisonniers, M.DC.XIII. Avec privilege dv Roy. 4to.[388] It contains a full description of the coast-line westerly from Canseau, including Nova Scotia, the Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick, and New England as far as the Vineyard Sound. It deals not only with the natural history, the fauna and flora, but with the character of the soil, its numerous products, as well as the sinuosities and conformation of the shore, and is unusually minute in details touching the natives. In this last respect it is especially valuable, as at that period neither their manners, customs, nor mode of life had been modified by intercourse with Europeans. The volume is illustrated by twenty-two local maps and drawings, and a large map representing the territory which he had personally surveyed, and concerning which he had obtained information from the natives and from other sources. This is the first map to delineate the coast-line of New England with approximate correctness. The volume contains likewise what he calls a “geographical map,” constructed with the degrees of latitude and longitude numerically indicated. In this respect it is, of course, inexact, as the instruments then in use were very imperfect, and it is doubtful whether his surveys had been sufficiently extensive to furnish the proper and adequate data for these complicated calculations. It was the first attempt to lay down the latitude and longitude on any map of the coast.[389]

In 1619 Champlain published a third work, describing the events from 1615 to that date. It was reissued in 1620 and in 1627. The following is its title, as given in the issue of 1627:[390] Voyages et Descovvertvres faites en la Novvelle France, depuis l’année 1615 iusques à la fin de l’année 1618. Par le Sieur de Champlain, Cappitaine ordinaire pour le Roy en la Mer du Ponant. Seconde Edition. A Paris, chez Clavde Collet, au Palais, en la gallerie des Prisonniers, M.D.C. XXVII. Avec privilege dv Roy. The previous issue contained the occurrences of 1613. The year 1614 he passed in France. The present volume continues his observations in New France from his return in 1615. It describes his introduction of the Recollect Fathers as missionaries to the Indians, his exploration of the Ottawa, Lake Nipissing, Lake Huron, and Ontario; the attack on the Iroquois fort in the State of New York; his winter among the Hurons; and it contains his incomparable essay on the Hurons and other neighboring tribes. It has Brûlé’s narrative of his experiences among the savages on the southern borders of the State of New York, near the Pennsylvania line, and that of the events which occurred in the settlement at Quebec; it contains illustrations of the dress of the savages in their wars and feasts, of their monuments for the dead, their funeral processions, of the famous fort of the Iroquois in the State of New York, and of the deer-trap.

In 1632 Champlain published his last work, under the following title: Les Voyages de la Novvelle France occidentale, dicte Canada, faits par le S^r de Champlain Xainctongeois, Capitaine pour le Roy en la Marine du Ponant, et toutes les Descouuertes qu’il a faites en ce pais depuis l’an 1603 iusques en l’an 1629. Où se voit comme ce pays a esté premierement descouuert par les François, sous l’authorité de nos Roys tres-Chrestiens, iusques au regne de sa Majesté à present regnante Lovis XIII. Roy de France et de Navarre. A Paris, chez Clavde Collet, au Palais, en la Gallerie des Prisonniers, à l’ Estoille d’Or, M.DC.XXXII. Auec Priuilege du Roy.[391] A sub-title accompanies this and the other works, which we have omitted as unnecessary for our present purpose. This volume is divided into two parts. The first part is an abridgment of what had already been published up to this date, and omits much that is valuable in the preceding publications. It preserves the general outline and narrative, but drops many personal details and descriptions which are of great historical importance, and can be supplied only by reference to his earlier publications. The second part is a continuation of his journals from 1620 to 1631 inclusive. Champlain’s personal explorations were completed in 1615-1616, and consequently this second part relates mostly to affairs transacted at Quebec and on the River St. Lawrence. It contains an ample and authentic account of the taking of Quebec by the English in 1629. The volume is supplemented by Champlain’s treatise on navigation, a brief work on Christian doctrine translated into the language of the Montagnais by Brebeuf, and the Lord’s Prayer, Apostles’ Creed, etc., rendered into the same language by Masse.

Reprints.—In 1830 the first reprint of any of Champlain’s works was made at Paris, where the issue of 1632 was printed in two volumes. It was done by order of the French Government, to give work to the printers thrown out of employment by the Revolution of July, and is without note or comment.[392] In 1870 a complete edition of Champlain’s works was issued at Quebec, under the editorial supervision of the Abbé Laverdière, who gave a summary of Champlain’s career with luminous annotations. It was called Œuvres de Champlain, publiées sous le Patronage de l’Université Laval. Par l’Abbé C. H. Laverdière, M. A. Seconde Édition.[393] 6 tomes, 4to. Québec: Imprimé au Séminaire par Geo. E. Desbarats, 1870. This edition includes the Brief Discourse or Voyage to the West Indies in 1599, which had never before been printed in the original French. The manuscript had been almost miraculously preserved, and at the time it was used by Laverdière it belonged to M. Féret of Dieppe.[394] The edition of Laverdière is an exact reprint, most carefully done, and entirely trustworthy, while its notes are full and exceedingly accurate.[395]

Translations.—The “Savages” was printed in an English translation by Samuel Purchas in his Pilgrimes, London, 1625, vol. iv. pp. 1605-1619.

In 1859 the Brief Discourse, or Voyage to the West Indies, translated by Alice Wilmere and edited by Norton Shaw, was published at London by the Hakluyt Society.

In 1878, 1880, and 1882, an English translation of the Voyages was printed by the Prince Society, in three volumes, comprising the Journals issued in 1604, 1613, and 1619, as Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, translated from the French by Charles Pomeroy Otis, Ph.D., with Historical Illustrations, and a Memoir by the Rev. Edmund F. Slafter, A. M. The Memoir occupies the greater part of vol. i., and both the Memoir and the Voyages are heavily annotated. It contains heliotype copies of all the local and general maps and drawings in the early French editions,—in all thirty-one illustrations; besides a new outline map showing the explorations and journeyings of Champlain, together with two portraits,—one engraved by Ronjat after an old engraving by Moncornet; the other is from a painting by Th. Hamel, likewise after the engraving by Moncornet.[396]

The Mercure François, a journal of current events, contains several narratives relating to New France during the administration of Champlain.[397]

In vol. xiii. pp. 12-34, is a letter of Charles Lalemant, a Jesuit missionary (Aug. 1, 1626), about the extent of the country, method of travelling, character, manners, and customs of the natives, and the work of the mission.[398] In vol. xiv. pp. 232-267, for 1628, is a full narrative of the Compagnie de la Nouvelle France, or the Company of the Hundred Associates, which was under the direction of Cardinal Richelieu, setting forth its origin, design, and constitution.[399] In vol. xviii., for 1632, pp. 56-74, there is again much about the Indians, and the delivery in that year of Quebec to the French by the English. In vol. xix., for 1633, pp. 771-867, are further accounts of the savages, and of the return of Champlain as governor in 1633, with the events which followed, particularly his dealings with the Indian tribes.

---

ACADIA.

BY CHARLES C. SMITH,

Treasurer of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

ACADIA is the designation of a territory of uncertain and disputed extent. Though its sovereignty passed more than once from France to England, and from England to France, its limits were never exactly defined. But in this chapter it will be used to denote that part of America claimed by Great Britain under the Treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, as bounded on the south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by a line drawn due north from the mouth of the Penobscot River, on the north by the River St. Lawrence, and on the east by the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Strait of Canso. Within these bounds were minor divisions vaguely designated by French or Indian names; and the larger part of this region was also called by the English Nova Scotia, or New Scotland.

So large a tract of country naturally presents great varieties of soil and climate and of other physical characteristics; but for the most part it is fertile, and it abounds in mineral resources, the extent and value of which were long unsuspected even by such eager seekers for mines as the early voyagers. It was often the theatre of sanguinary conflicts on a small scale, and its early history, which is closely connected with that of the New England colonies, includes more than one episode of tragic interest. Yet it has never filled an important place in the history of civilization in America, and it was a mere make-weight in adjusting the balance of losses and acquisitions by the two great European powers which for a century and a half contended here for colonial supremacy.

Acadia seems to have been known to the French very soon after the voyages of Cabot, and to have been visited occasionally by Breton fishermen almost from the beginning of the sixteenth century. For nearly a hundred years these adventurous toilers of the sea prosecuted their dangerous calling on the Banks of Newfoundland and the near shores before any effective attempt at colonization was made. It was not until 1540 that a Picard gentleman, Jean François de Roberval, was appointed viceroy of Canada, and attempted to establish a colony within the St. Lawrence.[400]

Owing to the unexpected severity of the climate and the want of support from France, the enterprise failed, and, with the exception of the abortive efforts of De la Roche in 1584 and in 1598,[401] no new attempt at French colonization was made for more than half a century afterward, when the accession of Henry IV. gave a new impulse to the latent spirit of adventure. In 1603 Pierre de Guast, Sieur de Monts, was named lieutenant-general of Acadia, with powers extending over all the inhabitable shores of America north of the latitude of Philadelphia.[402] Vast as was this domain, his real authority was confined to very narrow limits. Setting sail from France in the early part of April, 1604, De Monts, accompanied by Champlain, came in sight of Sable Island on the 1st of May, and a week later made the mainland at Cape La Hêve.

Subsequently he doubled the southwestern point of the peninsula of Nova Scotia, and coasting along the shore of what is now known as the Bay of Fundy, he finally determined to effect a settlement on a little island[403] just within the mouth of the St. Croix River. Here several small buildings were erected, and the little company of seventy-nine in all prepared to pass the winter. Before spring nearly one half of their number died; and in the following summer, after the arrival of a small reinforcement, it was decided to abandon the place. The coast was carefully explored as far south as Cape Cod, but without finding any spot which satisfied their fastidious tastes;[404] and the settlement was then transferred to the other side of the bay, to what is now called Annapolis Basin, but which De Monts had designated the year before as Port Royal. Here a portion of the company was left to pass a second winter, while De Monts returned to France, to prevent, if possible, the withdrawal of any part of the monopoly granted him by the Crown.

Nearly a year elapsed before he again reached his settlement,—only to find it reduced to two individuals. After a winter of great suffering, Pontgravé, who had been left in command during the absence of De Monts, weary with waiting for succor, had determined to sail for France, leaving these two brave men to guard the buildings and other property. He had but just sailed when Jean de Poutrincourt, the lieutenant of De Monts, arrived with the long-expected help. Measures were immediately taken to recall Pontgravé, if he could be found on the coast, and these were fortunately successful. He was discovered at Cape Sable, and at once returned; but soon afterward he sailed again for France.[405] Another winter was passed at Port Royal, pleasantly enough according to the accounts of Champlain and Lescarbot; but in the early summer, orders to abandon the settlement were received from De Monts, whose monopoly of the trade with the Indians had been rescinded. The settlers reluctantly left their new home, and the greater part of them reached St. Malo, in Brittany, in October, 1607. The first attempt at French colonization in Acadia was as abortive as Popham’s English colony at the mouth of the Sagadahock in the following year.[406]

Three years later, Poutrincourt, to whom De Monts had granted Port Royal, set sail from Dieppe to found a new colony on the site of the abandoned settlement. The deserted houses were again occupied, and a brighter future seemed to await the new enterprise. But this expectation was doomed to a speedy disappointment.

After a few years of struggling existence, the English colonists determined to expel the French as intruders on the territory belonging to them. In 1613 an English ship, under the command of Captain Samuel Argall, appeared off Mount Desert, where a little company of the French, under the patronage of the Comtesse de Guercheville,[407] had established themselves for the conversion of the Indians.

The French were too few to offer even a show of resistance, and the landing of the English was not disputed. By an unworthy trick, and without the knowledge of the French, Argall obtained possession of the royal commission; and then, dismissing half of his prisoners to seek in an open boat for succor from any fishing vessel of their own country they might chance to meet, he carried the others with him to Virginia. The same year Argall was sent back by the governor of Virginia, Sir Thomas Dale, to finish the work of expelling the French. With three vessels he visited successively Mount Desert and St. Croix, where he destroyed the French buildings, and then, crossing to Port Royal, seized whatever he could carry away, killed the cattle, and burned the houses to the ground. Having done this, he sailed for Virginia, leaving the colonists to support themselves as they best could. Port Royal was not, however, abandoned by them, and it continued to drag out a precarious existence. Seventy-five years later, its entire population did not exceed six hundred, and in the whole peninsula there were not more than nine hundred inhabitants.[408]

Meanwhile, in 1621, Sir William Alexander, a Scotchman of some literary pretensions, had obtained from King James a charter (dated Sept. 10, 1621) for the lordship and barony of New Scotland, comprising the territory now known as the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Under this grant he made several unsuccessful attempts at colonization; and in 1625 he undertook to infuse fresh life into his enterprise by parcelling out the territory into baronetcies.[409] Nothing came of the scheme, and by the treaty of St. Germains, in 1632, Great Britain surrendered to France all the places occupied by the English within these limits. Two years before this, however, Alexander’s rights in a part of the territory had been purchased by Claude and Charles de la Tour;[410] and shortly after the peace, the Chevalier Razilly was appointed by Louis XIII. governor of the whole of Acadia.[411] He designated as his lieutenants Charles de la Tour for the portion east of the St. Croix, and Charles de Menou, Sieur d’Aulnay-Charnisé, for the portion west of that river.

The former established himself on the River St. John where the city of St. John now stands, and the latter at Castine, on the eastern shore of Penobscot Bay. Shortly after his appointment, La Tour attacked and drove away a small party of Plymouth men who had set up a trading-post at Machias; and in 1635 D’Aulnay treated another party of the Plymouth colonists in a similar way.[412]

In retaliation for this attack, Plymouth hired and despatched a vessel commanded by one Girling, in company with their own barque, with twenty men under Miles Standish, to dispossess the French; but the expedition failed to accomplish anything.

Subsequently the two French commanders quarrelled, and, engaging in active hostilities, made efforts (not altogether unsuccessful) to enlist Massachusetts in their quarrel. For this purpose La Tour visited Boston in person in the summer of 1643, and was hospitably entertained.[413] He was not able to secure the direct co-operation of Massachusetts, but he was permitted to hire four vessels and a pinnace to aid him in his attack on D’Aulnay.[414] The expedition was so far successful as to destroy a mill and some standing corn, belonging to his rival. In the following year La Tour made a second visit to Boston for further help; but he was able only to procure the writing of threatening letters from the Massachusetts authorities to D’Aulnay. Not long after La Tour’s departure from Boston, envoys from D’Aulnay arrived here; and after considerable delay a treaty was signed pledging the colonists to neutrality, which was ratified by the Commissioners of the United Colonies in the following year; but it was not until two years later that it was ratified by new envoys from the crafty Frenchman.[415]

In this interval D’Aulnay captured by assault La Tour’s fort at St. John, securing booty to a large amount; and a few weeks afterward Madame la Tour, who seems to have been of a not less warlike turn than her husband, and who had bravely defended the fort, died of shame and mortification. La Tour was reduced to the last extremities; but he finally made good his losses, and in 1653 he married the widow of his rival, who had died two or three years before.[416]

In 1654, in accordance with secret instructions from Cromwell, the whole of Acadia was subjugated by an English force from Boston under the command of Major Robert Sedgwick, of Charlestown, and Captain John Leverett, of Boston. To the latter the temporary government of the country was intrusted. Ineffectual complaints of this aggression were made to the British Government; but by the treaty of Westminster in the following year England was left in possession, and the question of title was referred to commissioners. In 1656 it was made a province by Cromwell, who appointed Sir Thomas Temple governor, and granted the whole territory to Temple and to one William Crown and Stephen de la Tour, son of the late governor. The rights of the latter were purchased by the other two proprietors, and Acadia remained in possession of the English until the treaty of Breda, in 1667, when it was ceded to France with undefined limits.[417]

Very little was done by the French to settle and improve the country; and on the breaking out of war between France and England after the accession of William III., it was again conquered by an expedition fitted out at Boston under Sir William Phips. He sailed from Boston on the 28th of April, 1690, with a frigate of forty guns, two sloops, one of sixteen guns and the other of eight guns, and with four smaller vessels; and after reducing St. John, Port Royal, and other French settlements, and appointing an English governor, he returned, with a booty sufficient, it was thought, to defray the whole cost of the expedition.[418]

This result was a signal triumph for the New England colonies, and when Phips became, in 1692, the first royal governor of Massachusetts under the provincial charter, Acadia was made a part of the domain included in it. At a later day it was with no little indignation and mortification that New England saw the conquered territory relinquished to the French by the Treaty of Ryswick, in 1697; but the story of the later period belongs to a subsequent volume.

Acadia had been the home of civilized men for nearly a hundred years; but there was almost nothing to show as the fruits of this long occupation of a virgin soil. It had produced no men of marked character, and its history was little more than the record of feuds between petty chiefs, and of feeble resistance to the attacks of more powerful neighbors. Madame la Tour alone exhibits the courage and energy naturally to be looked for under the circumstances in which three generations of settlers were placed. At the end of a century there were only a few scattered settlements spread along the coast, passing tranquilly from allegiance to one European sovereign to allegiance to another of different speech and religion. A few hundred miles away, another colony founded sixteen years after the first venture of De Monts, and with scarcely a larger number of settlers, waged a successful war with sickness, poverty, and neglect, and made a slow and steady progress, until, with its own consent, it was united with a still more prosperous colony founded twenty-three years after the first settlement at Port Royal. There are few more suggestive contrasts than that which the history of Acadia presents when set side by side with the history of Plymouth and Massachusetts; and what is true of its early is not less true of its later history.

THE original authorities for the early history of the French settlements in Acadia[419] are the contemporaneous narratives of Samuel de Champlain and Marc Lescarbot. Though Champlain comes within our observation as a companion of De Monts, a separate chapter in this volume is given to his personal history and his writings.

Of the personal history of Marc Lescarbot we know much less than of that of Champlain. He was born at Vervins, probably between 1580 and 1590, and was a lawyer in Paris, where he had an extensive practice, and was the author of several works; only one, or rather a part of one, concerns our present inquiry.[420]

This was an account of the settlement of De Monts in Acadia, which was translated into English by a Protestant clergyman named Pierre Erondelle, and which gives a very vivid picture of the life at Port Royal.[421] He appears to have been a man of more than ordinary ability, with not a little of the French vivacity, and altogether well suited to be a pioneer in Western civilization. His narrative covers only a brief period, and after the failure of the colony under De Monts, he ceased to have any relations with Acadia. He is supposed to have died about 1630.

The advent of the Jesuits in 1611 introduces the Relations of their order as a source of the first importance; but a detailed account of these documents belongs to another chapter.[422] From the first of the series, by Father Biard, and from his letters in Carayon’s Première Mission des Jésuites au Canada, a collection published in Paris in 1864, and drawn from the archives of the Order at Rome, we have the sufferers’ side of the story of Argall’s incursion; while from the English marauder’s letters, published in Purchas, vol. iv., we get the other side.[423]

Another of these early adventurers who has left a personal account of his long-continued but fruitless attempts at American colonization is Nicolas Denys, a native of Tours. So early as 1632 he was appointed by the French king governor of the territory between Cape Canso and Cape Rosier. Forty years later, when he must have been well advanced in life, though he had lost none of his early enthusiasm, he published an historical and geographical description of this part of North America.[424] The work shows that he was a careful and observant navigator; but in its historical part it is confused and perplexing. The second volume is largely devoted to an account of the cod-fishery, and treats generally of the natural history of the places with which he was familiar, and of the manners and life of the Indians. It has a different titlepage from the first volume.

Abundant details as to the quarrels of D’Aulnay and La Tour are in Winthrop’s History of New England; and many of the original documents, most of them in contemporaneous translations, are in the seventh volume of the third series of the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. From the first of these sources Hutchinson, in his History of Massachusetts Bay, drew largely, as did Williamson in his History of Maine, both of whom devoted considerable space to Acadian affairs. For some of the later transactions Hutchinson is an original authority of unimpeachable weight.[425] The Massachusetts writers are also naturally the sources of most of our information regarding the expedition of 1654, though Denys and Charlevoix touch upon it, and the modern historians of Nova Scotia treat it in an episodical way. The articles of capitulation of Port Royal are in Massachusetts Archives; Documents Collected in France, ii. 107.

Among the later French writers the pre-eminence belongs to the Jesuit Father, Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix, who had access to contemporaneous materials, of which he made careful use; and his statements have great weight, though he wrote many years after the events he describes. His Histoire de la Nouvelle France follows the course of the French throughout the continent, and scattered through it are many notices of the course of events in Acadia, but its more particular characterization belongs to another chapter.

The papers drawn up by the French and English commissioners to determine the intent of the treaty of Utrecht have a controversial purpose, and on each side are colored and distorted to make out a case. In them are many statements of facts which need only to be disentangled from the arguments by which they are obscured to have a high value. No one, indeed, can have a thorough and accurate knowledge of Acadian history who does not make constant reference to these memorials and to the justificatory pieces cited on the one side or the other. They stand, when properly sifted and weighed, among the most important sources for tracing the history of the province.[426]

The episode of Sir William Alexander and his futile schemes of colonization is treated exhaustively by Mr. Slafter in a monograph on Sir William Alexander and American Colonization, which reproduces all the original charters and other documents bearing on his inquiry, and apparently leaves nothing for any future gleaner in that field.[427] But, like many other persons who have conducted similar investigations, it must be conceded that Mr. Slafter attaches more importance to Sir William Alexander’s somewhat visionary plans than they really merit. They were ill adapted to promote the great object of western colonization, and they left no permanent trace behind them.

Whipple’s brief account of Nova Scotia in his Geographical View of the District of Maine should not be overlooked; but it was written at a time when historical students were less exacting than they now are, and its details are meagre and unsatisfactory.[428]

Haliburton’s History of Nova Scotia is a work of conscientious and faithful labor, but in its preparation the author was under serious disadvantages from his inability to consult many of the books on which such a history must be based; and as he was not able to correct the proofs, his volumes are disfigured by the grossest typographical blunders. No one without some previous familiarity with the subject can safely read it; but such a reader will find in it much of value.[429]

A work of far higher authority, much fuller on the earlier periods, and one which is generally marked by great thoroughness and accuracy, is Murdoch’s History of Nova Scotia. Written in the form of annals, it lacks every grace of style; and in a few instances the author has overlooked important sources of information,—such as Winthrop’s History of New England,[430] which is not named in his list of authorities (p. 533), and which he seems to have known only at second-hand through the citations of Hutchinson and of Ferland; and the original papers connected with La Tour and D’Aulnay in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. On the other hand, he had access for the first time to very valuable manuscript materials, which greatly enlarge our knowledge on not a few points previously obscure.[431]

The Cours d’Histoire du Canada of the Abbé Ferland is mainly devoted to what is now known as Canada; but there are several chapters in it on Acadian affairs. By birth and choice a Canadian, “and above all a Catholic,” as he himself avows, his statements and inferences need to be scrutinized carefully. He had, however, gathered considerable new material, his narrative is clearly and compactly written, and his work must rank among the best of the modern compilations.[432]

The same, or nearly the same, may be said of Garneau’s Histoire du Canada. The chapters on Acadia are based on materials easily accessible, and they add no new facts to those given by the earlier writers; but his narrative is clear and exact, and not much colored by the writer’s point of view. He had not, however, so firm a grasp of his subject as had Ferland; and for the period covered by this inquiry the latter may be read with much greater pleasure and profit.[433]

An English translation of Garneau’s work was published some years after its first appearance, with omissions and alterations by the translator, who regarded the subject from an entirely different point of view, and who did not hesitate to modify occasionally the statements of the author, besides adding a great body of valuable notes.[434]

Another recent work which may be profitably consulted on the early history of Acadia is Henry Kirke’s First English Conquest of Canada.[435] This work deals mainly with the lives of Sir David Kirke and his brothers, and its chief value is biographical; but it comprises some hitherto unpublished documents from the Record Office, and throws considerable light on obscure portions of the early history of Canada and Acadia.

Among these more recent writers the highest place belongs to Francis Parkman. In his Pioneers of France in the New World[436] he has given an account of the first settlement of the French in Acadia which is not less accurate in its minutest details than it is picturesque in style and comprehensive in its grasp of the subject. Mr. Parkman needed only a story of wider relations and more continuous influence to secure for his book a foremost place among American histories. In his Frontenac[437] he has told with equal vividness the story of the marauding warfare which devastated the coast of Acadia and the contiguous English settlements from 1689 to 1697. No one of our historians has been more unwearied in research, as no one has been more skilful in handling his materials. Based in great part on original manuscripts from the French archives and on contemporaneous narratives, his volumes leave nothing to be desired for the period which they cover.

A. A Commissioner of Public Records of Nova Scotia was appointed in 1857, and by his list, printed in 1864, it appears that but one of the two hundred and four volumes in which the archives were arranged had papers of a date earlier than 1700, and that this volume contained copies of copies from the archives in Paris made for the Canadian Government, and covered the years 1632-1699. The Library of Parliament Catalogue, p. 1538, shows that vol. i. of the third series of manuscripts (1654-1699) is devoted to Acadia. A Nova Scotia Historical Society, instituted a few years ago, has as yet published but one volume of Reports and Collections for 1878, but it contains contributions to a later period in the history of Acadia than that now under consideration.

B. The War in Maine and Acadia.—The revolution which deposed Andros in Boston was also the occasion of withdrawing the garrisons from the English posts toward Acadia; and this invited in turn the onsets of the enemy. It was calculated in 1690 that there were between Boston and Canso four thousand two hundred and ten Indians,—a census destined to be diminished, indeed, so that in 1726 the savages were only rated for the same territory at five hundred and six (N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., 1866, p. 9). But this diminution meant a process of appalling war. In the spring of 1689 came the catastrophe at Choceco (now Dover). Belknap, in his New Hampshire, gives a sufficient narrative; and Dr. Quint, in his notes to Pike’s Journal (Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., xiv. 124), indicates the manuscript sources. For the capture of the stockade at Pemaquid, which quickly followed, we have the French side in the Relation of Father Thury, the priest of the mission to the Penobscot Indians, who was in the action, and La Motte-Cadillac’s Mémoire sur l’Acadie, 1692. Cf. the references in Shea’s Charlevoix, iv. 42. The English side can be gathered from Mather’s Magnalia; Andros Tracts, vol. iii.; 3 Mass. Hist. Coll. vol. i.; Hough’s “Pemaquid Papers,” in Maine Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. v.; Hubbard’s Indian Wars, and John Gyles’s Memoirs, Boston, 1736 (see Mem. Hist. Boston, ii. 336). The story, more or less colored, under new lights or local associations, is told in Hutchinson’s Massachusetts, Thornton’s Ancient Pemaquid, Johnston’s Bristol, Bremen, and Pemaquid (p. 170), and of course in Williamson and Parkman.

The Relation of Monseignat (N. Y. Col. Doc., vol. ix.) and La Potherie are the chief French accounts on the surprise at Salmon Falls, in March, 1690, and according to Parkman, “Charlevoix adds various embellishments not to be found in the original sources.” On the English side, it is still Mather’s Magnalia upon which we must depend, and, as a secondary authority, upon Belknap’s New Hampshire and Williamson’s Maine. Parkman points out the help which sundry papers in the Massachusetts Archives afford; and Dr. Quint, in his notes to Pike’s Journal (Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., xiv. 125), has indicated other similar sources.

The attack on Fort Loyal (Portland), in May, 1690, is studied likewise from Monseignat, La Potherie, Mather, with some fresh light out of the “Declaration” of Sylvanus Davis, in 3 Mass. Hist. Coll., i. 101, and Bradstreet’s letter to Governor Leisler, in Doc. Hist. N. Y., ii. 259. Le Clercq gives the French view; cf. Shea’s Charlevoix, iv. 133, and Le Clercq, ii. 295; Willis’s Portland, p. 284, and N. Y. Col. Doc., ix. 472.

Meanwhile Phips had sailed from Boston in April to attack Port Royal. He anchored before its defences on the 10th of May. The place was quickly surrendered to Phips, on the 11th of May, by De Meneval, its governor, who did not escape the imputation of treachery at the time. Parkman (Frontenac, pp. 237,) and Shea (Charlevoix, iv. 155) give the authorities. Parkman says Charlevoix’s own narrative is erroneous; but on the French side we still have Monseignat and Potherie, though both are brief; the Relation de la prise du Port Royal par les Anglois de Baston, May 27, 1690; the official Lettre au Ministre of Meneval, and the Rapport de Champigny, of October, 1690. Cf. N. Y. Col. Doc., iii. 720; ix. 474, 475.

On the English side we have Governor Bradstreet’s instructions to Phips and an invoice of the plunder, in the Mass. Archives; a Journal of the Expedition from Boston to Port Royal, among George Chalmers’ papers in the Sparks Manuscripts at Harvard College, perhaps the document referred to by Hutchinson, in speaking of Phips, as “his Journal;” the unhistoric overflow of Cotton Mather’s Life of Phips, and sundry extracts embodied in Bowen’s Life of Phips. Murdoch, in his Nova Scotia, ch. xxii., gives a summarized account.

During Phips’s ill-starred expedition to Quebec in the autumn of the same year, Colonel Benjamin Church was ineffectually employed in creating diversions in Phips’s favor in this lower region. See Dr. Henry M. Dexter’s edition of Church’s History of the Expedition to the East, and additional letters of Church in Drake’s additions to Baylies’ Old Colony, pt. v.; and in 4 Mass. Hist. Coll., v. 271. Williamson (Maine, i. 624) summarizes the authorities.

Two years later the rapine began afresh. York in Maine was captured and burned in 1692 by the Abenakis, one of whose chiefs gave to Champigny the narrative which he sent to the Minister, Oct. 5, 1692, which Parkman calls the best French account. The Indians also gave Villebon the exaggerated story which he gives in his Journal de ce qui s’est passé à l’Acadie, 1691-1692. On the English side, we have the account in Mather’s Magnalia, and the later summaries of Williamson and of the general historians.

In June, Portneuf and St. Castin, with their savage followers, left Pentagöet to attack the frontier post of Wells, but they were foiled, and retreated. Villebon is here the principal French authority; and on the English side, to the more general accounts of Mather, Hutchinson, Williamson, and to the eclectic summary of Niles’s Indian and French Wars, we must add the local historian Bourne’s History of Wells.

The reader can best follow Parkman (Frontenac, p. 357, etc.), who carefully notes the authorities for the way in which Frontenac was foiled in 1693 in an attempt to capture the English post at Pemaquid; and for the attack on Oyster River the next year (1694), Parkman’s references may be collated with Shea’s (Charlevoix, iv. 256). The expedition was under the conduct of Villieu and the Jesuit Thury, and what was then known as Oyster River is now Durham, about twenty miles from Portsmouth. Villieu’s own Journal is preserved: Relation du Voyage fait par le Sieur de Villieu ... pour faire la Guerre aux Anglois au printemps de l’an 1694, and Parkman says Champigny, Frontenac, and Callières in their reports adopt Villieu’s statements. Belknap’s New Hampshire has the best English account, which may be supplemented by various papers in the Provincial Records of New Hampshire, and the Journal of Pike in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., xiv. 128, with Dr. Quint’s notes. The Mass. Archives have depositions and letters.

In 1696 Iberville, in charge of two war-ships which had come from France, uniting with such forces and savage allies as Villebon, Villieu, St. Castin, and Thury could gather, appeared on the 14th of August before the English fort at Pemaquid, which quickly surrendered. Pemaquid is a peninsula on the Maine coast between the mouths of the Kennebec and Penobscot, and the fort was situated as shown in the accompanying sketch. It was the most easterly of the English posts in this debatable territory, as the French fort at Biguyduce (Pentagöet or Castine) was the most westerly of the enemy’s. The fort at Pemaquid had been rebuilt of stone by Phips in 1692. (Mather’s Magnalia, Johnston’s Bristol and Bremen.) Baudoin, an Acadian priest, accompanied the expedition, and wrote a Journal d’une voyage fait avec M. d’Iberville, and Parkman also cites as contemporary French authorities the Relation de ce qui s’est passé, etc., of 1695-1696, and Des Goutin’s letter to the Minister of Sept. 23, 1696; cf. N. Y. Col. Docs., vol. ix.

Mather and Hutchinson are still the chief writers on the English side, while everything of local interest is gathered in Johnston’s History of Bristol and Bremen, in Maine, including Pemaquid, Albany, 1873.

The immediate result of the capture of Pemaquid was to release D’Iberville for an attempt to drive the English from the east coast of Newfoundland in 1697. Parkman tells the story in his Frontenac, p. 391, and by him and by Shea in his Charlevoix, v. 46, the original sources are traced.

Mr. Parkman (Frontenac, p. 408) has an important note on the military insufficiency of the English colonies at this time.

C. Threatened French Attacks upon Boston.—Ever after the surrender of the region east of the Penobscot to the French in 1670, there were recurrent hopes of the French to make reprisals on the English by an attack on Boston, and emissaries of the French occasionally reported upon the condition of that town. Grandfontaine, on being empowered to receive the posts of Acadia from the English (Massachusetts Archives: Documents Collected in France, ii. 209, 211), had been instructed, March 5, 1670, to make Pentagöet his seat of government; and it was at Boston, July 7, 1670, that he and Temple concluded terms of peace; and we have (Ibid., ii. 227) a statement of the condition of the fort at Pentagöet when it was turned over. Talon (Ibid., ii. 247) shortly after informed the King of his intention to go to Acadia (Nov. 2, 1671), hoping for a conference with Temple, whom he reports as disgusted with the government at Boston, “which is more republican than monarchical;” and the Minister, in response, June 4, 1672 (Ibid., ii. 265), intimates that it might do to give naturalization papers and other favors to Temple, if he could be induced to come over to the French side. In 1678 new hopes were entertained, and under date of March 21, we find (Ibid., ii. 359) the French had procured a description of Boston and its shipping. Frontenac and Duchesneau were each representing to the Court the disadvantages Canada was under in relation to the trade of the eastern Indians, with Boston offering such rivalry (Ibid., ii. 363; iii. 12); and Duchesneau, Nov. 14, 1679, enlarges upon a description of Boston and its defenceless condition (Ibid., ii. 371). When the English made peace with the Abenakis in 1681, Frontenac reported it to the Court, with his grievances at the aggressions of the Boston people, to whom he had sent De la Vallière to demand redress (Ibid., iii. 29, 31); and to end the matter, Duchesneau, Nov. 13, 1681, proposed to the Minister the purchase of the English colonies. “It is true,” he says, “that Boston, which is an English town, does not acknowledge the sovereignty of the Duke of York at all, and very little the authority of the English King” (Ibid., iii. 35). The French meanwhile had assumed a right to Pemaquid, and Governor Dongan of New York had ordered them to withdraw (Ibid., iii. 81), while complications with the “Bastonnais” increased rapidly (Ibid., iii. 49). De Grosellier sent to the Minister new accounts of the Puritan town and its situation (Ibid., iii. 450); and the Bishop of Quebec remonstrated with the King for his permitting Huguenots to settle in Acadie, since they held communication with the people of Boston, and increased the danger (Ibid., iii. 95). The King in turn addressed himself rather to demanding of the Duke of York that he should see the English at Boston did not aid the savages of Acadia. In 1690 more active measures were proposed. On the day before Phips anchored at Port Royal, a “Projet” was drawn up at Versailles for an attack on Boston, in which its defenceless state was described:—

“La costé de Baston est peuplée, mais il n’y à aucun poste qui veille. Baston mesme est sans palissades à moins qu’on n’en ait mis depuis six mois. Il y a bien du peuple en cette colonie, mais assez difficile à rassembler. Monsieur Perrot connoist cette coste, et le Sieur de Villebon qui est à la Rochelle à present, avec le nommé La Motte,—tous le trois ont souvent esté à Baston et à Manat.... Par la carte suivante, on peut voir comme ce pays se trouve situé,” etc.

The capture of Pemaquid in 1696 revived hopes in the French of making a successful descent upon Boston, and even upon New York.

Several documents in reference to the scheme, and respecting in part Franquelin’s map of Boston, are in the Mass. Archives; Documents Collected in France, iv. 467, etc. This map is given in the Memorial History of Boston, vol. ii. p. li, from a copy made by Mr. Poore, and in Mr. Parkman’s manuscript collections. In the same place will be found accounts of earlier French maps of Boston (1692-1693), one of them by Franquelin, but both very inexact. The references on this projected inroad of the French are given by Parkman (Frontenac, p. 384), Shea (Charlevoix, v. 70), and Barry (Massachusetts, ii. 89, etc.).

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DISCOVERY ALONG THE GREAT LAKES.

BY THE REV. EDWARD D. NEILL, A.B., ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA.

Corresponding Member Massachusetts Historical Society; Hon. Vice-President New England Historic Genealogical Society.

PURCHAS in his Pilgrimage quaintly writes, that “the great river Canada hath, like an insatiable merchant, engrossed all these water commodities, so that other streames are in a manner but meere pedlers.”[438]

This river of Canada, the Hochelaga of the natives, now known as the St. Lawrence, is the most wonderful of all the streams of North America which find their way into the Atlantic Ocean. Its extreme headwaters are on the elevated plateau of the continent, near the birthplace of the Mississippi, which flows into the Gulf of Mexico, and the Red River of the North, which empties into Hudson’s Bay. Expanding into the interior sea, Lake Superior, after rippling and foaming over the rocks at Sault Ste. Marie it divides into Lake Michigan and Lake Huron; and passing through the latter and Lake St. Claire[439] and Lake Erie, with the energy of an infuriated Titan it dashes itself into foam and mist at Niagara. After recovering composure, it becomes Ontario, the “beautiful lake,”[440] and then, hedged in by scenery varied, sublime, and picturesque, and winding through a thousand isles, it becomes the wide and noble river which admits vessels of large burden to the wharves of the cities of Montreal and Quebec; and until lost in the Atlantic, “many islands are before it, offering their good-nature to be mediators between this haughty stream and the angry ocean.”[441] The aborigines, who dwelt in rude lodges near its banks, chiefly belonged to the Huron or Algonquin family; and although there were variations in dialect, they found no difficulty in understanding one another, and in their light canoes they made long journeys, on which they exchanged the copper implements and agate arrow-heads of the far West for the shells and commodities of the sea-shore.[442]

Cartier, born at the time that the discoveries of Columbus were being discussed throughout Europe, who had toughened into a daring navigator, sailed in 1535 up the St. Lawrence, giving the river its present name, and on the 2d of October he reached the site now occupied by the city of Montreal. Escorted by wondering and excited savages, he went to the top of the hill behind the Indian village, and listened to descriptions of the country from whence they obtained caignetdaze, or red copper, which was reached by the River Utawas, which then glittered like a silver thread amid the scarlet leaves of the autumnal forest.[443] The explorations of the French and English in the western world led the merchants of both countries to seek for its furs, and to hope for a shorter passage through it to “the wealth of Ormus and of Ind.” Apsley, a London dealer in beads, playing-cards, and gewgaws in the days of Queen Elizabeth, wrote that he expected to live long enough to see a letter in three months carried to China by a route that would be discovered across the American continent, between the forty-third and forty-sixth parallel of north latitude.[444] The explorations of Champlain have been sketched in an earlier chapter.[445] To the incentive of the fur-trade a new impulse was added when, in the spring of 1609, some Algonquins visited the trading-post, and one of the chiefs brought from his sack a piece of copper a foot in length, a fine and pure specimen. He said that it came from the banks of a tributary of a great lake, and that it was their custom to melt the copper lumps which they found, and roll them into sheets with stones.

It was in 1611, when returning from one of his visits to France, where he had become betrothed to a twelve-year-old maiden, Helen, the daughter of a Huguenot, Nicholas Boullé, secretary of the King’s Chamber, that Champlain pushed forward his western occupation by establishing a frontier trading-post where now is the city of Montreal, and arranging for trade with the distant Hurons, who were assembled at Sault St. Louis.

Again in 1615, as we have seen, he extended his observations to Lake Huron, while on his expedition against the Iroquois. With the Hurons he passed the following winter, and visited neighboring tribes, but in the spring of 1616 returned to Quebec; and although nearly twenty years elapsed before his remains were placed in a grave in that city, he appears to have been contented as the discoverer of Lakes Champlain, Huron, and Ontario, and relinquished farther westward exploration to his subordinates.

The fur-trade of Canada produced a class of men hardy, agile, fearless, and in habits approximating to the savage.[446] Inured to toil, the voyageurs arose in the morning, “when it was yet dark,” and pushing their birch-bark canoes into the water, swiftly glided away, “like the shade of a cloud on the prairie,” and often did not break fast until the sun had been for hours above the horizon. Halting for a short period, they partook of their coarse fare, then re-embarking they pursued their voyage to the land of the beaver and buffalo, the woods echoing their chansons until the “shades of night began to fall,” when,

“Worn with the long day’s march and the chase of the deer and the bison,
Stretched themselves on the ground, and slept where the quivering firelight
Flashed on their swarthy cheeks, and their forms wrapped up in their blankets.”

Among the pioneers of these wanderers in the American forests was Étienne (Anglicized, Stephen) Brulé, of Champigny.[447] It has been mentioned that he went with Champlain to the Huron villages near Georgian Bay, but did not with his Superior cross Lake Ontario. After three years of roaming, he came back to Montreal, and told Champlain that he had found a river which he descended until it flowed into a sea,—the river by some supposed to be the Susquehanna, and the sea Chesapeake Bay.[448] While in this declaration he may have depended upon his imagination, yet to him belongs the undisputed honor of being the first white man to give the world a knowledge of the region beyond Lake Huron.

Sagard[449] mentions that this bold voyageur, with a Frenchman named Grenolle, made a long journey, and returned with a “lingot” of red copper and with a description of Lake Superior which defined it as very large, requiring nine days to reach its upper extremity, and discharging itself into Lake Huron by a fall, first called Saut de Gaston, afterward Sault Ste. Marie. Upon the surrender of Quebec, in 1629, to the English, Étienne Brulé chose to cast in his lot with the conquerors.[450] During the occupation of nearly three years the English heard many stories of the region of the Great Lakes, and they encouraged the aborigines of the Hudson and Susquehanna to purchase English wares.

The very year that the English occupied Quebec, Ferdinando Gorges and associates, who had employed men to search for a great lake, received a patent for the province of Laconia, and the governor thereof arrived in June, 1630, in the ship “Warwick,” at Piscataway, New Hampshire.[451] Early in June, 1632, Captain Henry Fleet, in the “Warwick,” visited the Anacostans, whose village stood on the shores of the Potomac where now is seen the lofty dome of the Capitol of the Republic. These Indians told Fleet that they traded with the Canada Indians; and on the 27th of the month, at the Great Falls of the Potomac, he saw two axes of the pattern brought over by the brothers Kyrcke to Quebec.[452]

About the time Quebec was restored to the French, on the 23d of September, 1633,[453] Captain Thomas Young received a commission from the King of England to make certain explorations in America.[454] The next spring he sailed, and among his officers was a “cosmographer, skilful in mines and trying of metals.” Entering Delaware Bay on the 24th of July, 1634, he sailed up the river, which he named Charles, in honor of the King, and by the 1st of September had reached the vicinity of the falls, above Trenton, the capital of New Jersey. In a report from this river, dated the 20th of October, he writes: “I passed up this great river, with purpose to have pursued the discovery thereof till I had found the great lake[455] from which the great river issues, and from thence I have particular reason to believe there doth also issue some branches, one or more, by which I might have passed into that Mediterranean Sea which the Indian relateth to be four days’ journey beyond the mountains; but having passed near fifty leagues up the river, I was stopped from further proceedings by a ledge of rocks which crosseth the river.”

He then expresses a determination the next summer to build a vessel above the falls, from whence he hoped to find “a way that leadeth into that mediterranean sea,” and from the lake. He continues: “I judge that it cannot be less than one hundred and fifty or two hundred leagues in length to our North Ocean; and from thence I purpose to discover the mouths thereof, which discharge both into the North and South Sea.”[456] The same month that Captain Young was exploring the Valley of the Delaware, an expedition left Quebec which was not so barren of results.

The year that Étienne Brulé came back from his wandering in the far West, in 1618, Jean Nicolet, the son of poor parents at Cherbourg, came from France, and entered the service of the fur company known as the “Hundred Associates,” under Champlain. For several years he lived among the Algonquins of the Ottawa Valley, and traded with the Hurons; and because of his knowledge of the language of these people, he was valued as an interpreter by the trading company. On the 4th day of July, 1634, on his eventful journey to distant nations, he was at Three Rivers, a trading post just begun. Threading his way in a frail canoe among the isles which extend from Georgian Bay to the extremity of Lake Huron, he, through the Straits of Mackinaw, discovered Lake Michigan, and turning southward found its Grand Bay, an inlet of the western shore, and impressive by its length and vastness.

Here were the Gens de Mer,[457] or Ochunkgraw, called by the Algonquins Ouinipegous or Ouinipegouek,—people of the salt or bad-smelling water; and the traders gave them the name of Puants.

Calling a council of these Winnebagoes and the neighboring tribes, and knowing the power of display upon the savage, he appeared before them in a grand robe of the damask of China, on which was worked flowers and birds of different colors, and holding a pistol in each hand,—a somewhat amusing reminder of the Jove of mythology, with his variegated mantle and thunderbolts. To many he seemed a messenger from the spirit-land; and the women and children, on account of his pistols, called him the man who bore thunder in his hands.[458]

Nicolet announced that he was a peacemaker, and that he desired that they should settle their quarrels and be on friendly terms with the French at Quebec. His words were well received, and one chief, at the conclusion of the conference, invited him to a feast, at which one hundred and twenty beaver were served. He came back to Three Rivers during the next summer, and renewed the interest in the discovery of a route to the Western Ocean, by the declaration that if he had paddled three days more on a large river (probably the Wisconsin), he would have found the sea. There was no design to deceive; but the great water at that distance was what has been called “the father of waters,” the Mississippi. Before December, 1635, he was appointed interpreter at the new trading-post of Three Rivers, and was there when, on Christmas Day, at the age of sixty-eight years, one who had been the life of the fur-trade and the Governor of New France, Samuel de Champlain, expired at Quebec. After the death of the fearless and enterprising Champlain, there was a lull in the zest for discovery, and then difficulties arose which for a time led to the abandonment of all the French trading-posts on the shores of Lake Huron and Lake Michigan.

The Iroquois had for years longed to be revenged upon those who, with the aid of French arquebuses, had defeated them in battle. Friendly relations were established between them and the Dutch traders on the banks of the Hudson River; and for beaver skins, powder and firearms were received. With these they gratified their desire for revenge. They became a terror to the savage and civilized in Canada; and traders and missionaries, women and infants, fled from their scalping-knives.

The following graphic description of affairs was penned in 1653:—

“The war with the Iroquois has dried up all sources of prosperity. The beaver are allowed to build their dams in peace, none being able or willing to molest them. Crowds of Hurons no longer descend from their country with furs for trading. The Algonquin country is depopulated, and the nations beyond it are retiring farther away, fearing the musketry of the Iroquois. The keeper of the Company’s store here in Montreal has not bought a single beaver-skin for a year. At Three Rivers, the small means in hand have been used in fortifying the place, from fear of an inroad upon it. In the Quebec storehouse all is emptiness.”

At length, in the year 1654, peace was effected between the French and Iroquois, and traders again appeared on the upper lakes, and Indians from thence appeared at Montreal. In August, two Frenchmen accompanied some Ottawas to the region of the upper lakes; and in the latter part of August, 1656, these traders came back to Quebec with a party of Ottawas,[459] whose canoes were loaded with peltries; and about this time a trader told a Jesuit missionary that “he had seen three thousand men together, for the purpose of making a treaty of peace, in the country of the Gens de Mer.”

In 1659, while the new governor Argenson was experiencing the perplexities of administration at Quebec, the extremity of Lake Superior was reached by two energetic and intelligent traders,—Medard Chouart, known in history as Sieur des Groseilliers, and Pierre d’Esprit or Sieur Radisson. Chouart was born a few miles east of Meaux, and left France when he was about sixteen years of age, and became a trader among the Hurons. In 1647 he married the widow Étienne, of Quebec, the father of whom was the pilot Abraham Martin, whose baptismal name was given to the suburb of that city, the Plains of Abraham. She gave birth to a son in 1651, named after his father, and soon after died. Chouart, the Sieur des Groseilliers, then married Marguérite Hayet Radisson, and through her he became a sympathizer with the Huguenots.[460] His brother-in-law, Sieur Radisson, was born at St. Malo, France, and in 1656 married at Three Rivers, Canada, Elizabeth Herault; and after her death he espoused a daughter of the zealous Protestant, Sir David Kyrcke, to whose brothers Champlain had surrendered Quebec.

Pushing beyond Lake Superior, after travelling six days in a southwesterly direction, these traders found the Tionnotantés, a band incorporated with the Hurons, called by the French Petuns, because they had raised tobacco. These people dwelt in the country between the sources of the Black and Chippeway Rivers in Wisconsin, where they had been wanderers for several years. Driven from their homes by the Iroquois, they migrated with the Ottawas to the isles of Lake Michigan, at the entrance of Green Bay. Hearing that the Iroquois had learned where they had retreated, they descended the Wisconsin River until they found the Mississippi, and, ascending this twelve leagues, they came to the Ayoes (Ioway) River, now known as the Upper Iowa, and followed it to its source, being kindly treated by the tribes. Although buffaloes were in abundance, they were disappointed when they found no forests, and retracing their steps to the Mississippi, ascended to a prairie island above Lake Pepin, about nine miles below the mouth of the River St. Croix, and here they often received friendly visits from the Sioux. Confident through the possession of firearms, the Ottawas and Hurons conspired to drive the Sioux away, and occupy their country. The attack was unsuccessful, and they were forced to look for another residence. Going down the Mississippi, they entered one of the mouths of the Black River, near the modern city La Crosse, and the Hurons established themselves about its sources, while their allies, the Ottawas, continued their journey to Lake Superior, and stopped at a point jutting out like a bone needle,—hence called Chagouamikon.

Groseilliers and Radisson, while sojourning with the Hurons, learned much of the deep, wide, and beautiful river, comparable in its grandeur to the St. Lawrence,[461] on an isle of which they had for a time resided. Proceeding northward, these explorers wintered with the Nadouechiouec, who hunted and fished among the “Mille Lacs” of Minnesota, between the St. Croix and Mississippi Rivers. The Sioux, as these people were called by traders, were found to speak a language different from the Huron and Algonquin, and to have many strange customs. Women, for instance, were seen whose noses had been cut off as a penalty for adultery, giving them a ghastly look. Beyond, upon the northwest shore of Lake Superior, about the Grand Portage, and at the mouth of a river which upon early maps was called Groseilliers, there was met a separated warlike band of Sioux, called Poualak, who, as wood was scarce in the prairie region, made fire with coal (charbon de terre), and lived in skin lodges, although some of the more industrious built cabins of mud (terre grasse), as the swallows build their nests. The Assinepoualacs, or Assineboines, were feared by the Upper, as the Iroquois were dreaded by the Lower, Algonquins.

After an absence of about a year, these traders, about the 19th of August, 1660, returned to Montreal with three hundred Indians and sixty canoes laden with a “wealth of skins,”—

“Furs of bison and of beaver,
Furs of sable and of ermine.”

The settlers there, and at Three Rivers, and at Quebec, were deeply interested by the tales of the vastness and richness of the new-found land and the peculiarities of the wild Sioux. As soon as the furs were sold and a new outfit obtained, Groseilliers, on the 28th of August, again took his way to the westward, accompanied by six Frenchmen, besides the aged Jesuit missionary René Menard and his servant Guérin.

Just beyond the Huron Isles and Huron Bay, which still retain their name, on the southern shore of Lake Superior, is Keweenaw Bay; and on the 15th of October, Saint Theresa’s Day in the calendar of the Church of Rome, the traders and René Menard, with the returning Indians, stopped, and here some traders and the missionary passed the winter among the Outaouaks.[462] Father Menard, discouraged by the indifference of these Indians, resolved to go to the retreat of the Hurons among the marshes of what is now the State of Wisconsin. He sent three Frenchmen who had been engaged in the fur-trade to inform them of his intention; but after journeying for some days they were appalled by the bogs, rapids, and long portages, and returned. Undaunted by their tale of the difficulties of the way, and some Hurons having come to visit the Outaouaks, he resolved to return with them. On the 13th of June, 1661, Menard and his servant, Jean Guérin, by trade a gunsmith, followed in the footsteps of their Indian guides, who, however, soon forsook them in the wilderness. For fifteen days they remained by a lake, and finding a small canoe in the bushes, they embarked with their packs; and week after week in midsummer, annoyed by myriads of mosquitoes, and suffering from heat, hunger, and bruised feet, they advanced toward their destination, and about the 7th of August, while Guérin was making a portage around a rapid in a river, Menard lost the trail. His servant, becoming anxious, called for him, yet there was no answer; and then he five times fired his gun, in the hope of directing him to the right path, but it was of no avail. Two days after, Guérin reached the Huron village, and endeavored without success to employ some of the tribe to go in search of the aged missionary.

Afterward Guérin met a Sauk Indian with Menard’s kettle, which he said he found in the woods, near footprints going in the direction of the Sioux country.[463] His breviary and cassock were said to have been found among the Sioux, and it is supposed that he was either killed, or died from exposure, and that his effects were taken by wandering Indians.[464] Perrot writes: “The Father followed the Ottawas to the Lake of the Illinois [Michigan], and in their flight to Louisiana [Mississippi] as far as the upper part of Black River.” Upon a map prepared by Franquelin, in 1688,[465] for Louis XIV., there is a route marked by a dotted line from the vicinity of Keweenaw Bay to the upper part of Green Bay. If Perrot’s statement is correct, Menard and his devoted attendant Guérin saw the Mississippi twelve years before Joliet and his companion looked upon the great river. The reports of Nicolet and Groseilliers led to a correction and enlargement of the charts of New France. On a map[466] accompanying the Historia Canadensis, by Creuxius, Lake Michigan is marked as “Magnus Lacus Algonquinorum, seu Lacus Fœtetium,” and a lake intended for Nepigon is called “Assineboines,” near which appear the nations Kilistinus and Alimibegôecus. The lake of the Assineboines is connected by a river with an arm of Hudson’s Bay called “Kilistonum Sinus;” and west of this is Jametus Sinus, or James’s Bay.

Pierre Boucher, an estimable man, sent by the inhabitants of Canada to present their grievances to the King of France, in a little book which in 1663 he published at Paris,[467] wrote: “In Lake Superior there is a great island which is fifty leagues in circumference, in which there is a very beautiful mine of copper.” He also stated that he had heard of other mines from five Frenchmen lately returned, who had been absent three years, and that they had seen an ingot of copper which they thought weighed more than eight hundred pounds, and that Indians after making a fire thereon would cut off pieces with their axes.

Groseilliers[468] returned to Canada, and on the 2d of May, 1662, again left Quebec, with ten men, for the North Sea, or Hudson’s Bay. His journey satisfied him that it was easy to secure the trade of the North by way of Lake Superior; but the Company of Canada, which had the monopoly of the fur traffic, looked upon Groseilliers’ plans for securing the peltries of distant tribes as chimerical. Thus disappointed and chagrined, Groseilliers next went to Boston, and presented his schemes to its merchants.

The Reverend Mother of the Incarnation, Superior of the Ursulines at Quebec, in allusion to him, wrote: “As he had not been successful in making a fortune, he was seized with a fancy to go to New England to better his condition. He excited a hope among the English that he had found a passage to the Sea of the North.” Passing from Boston to France, and securing the influence of the English ambassador at Paris, he went to London, and became acquainted with Prince Rupert, nephew of Charles I., who led the cavalry charge against Fairfax and Cromwell at Naseby. This brilliant man was now devoted to study and to the exhibition of the philosophical toy known to chemists as “Rupert’s drops;” but he was ready to indorse the project for extending the fur-trade, and seeking a northwestern passage to Asia. Men of science also showed interest in explorations which would enlarge the sphere of knowledge. The Secretary of the Royal Society wrote a too sanguine letter to Robert Boyle, the distinguished philosopher, and friend of the apostle Eliot. His words were: “Surely I need not tell you, from hence, what is said here with great joy of the discovery of a northwest passage, and by two Englishmen and one Frenchman, lately represented by them to his Majesty at Oxford, and answered by the grant of a vessel to sail into Hudson’s Bay and channel into the South Sea.” The ship “Nonsuch” was fitted out in charge of Captain Zachary Gillam, a son of one of the early settlers of Boston, and in this vessel Groseilliers and Radisson left the Thames in June, 1668, and the next September reached a tributary of Hudson’s Bay, which in honor of their chief patron was called Rupert’s River. The next year, by way of Boston, they returned to England, where their success was applauded; and in 1670 the trading company was chartered,—still in existence, and among the most venerable of English corporations,—known as “The Hudson’s Bay Company.”

While the Canadian Fur Company did not respond to the proposals of Groseilliers for the extension of commerce, the French Government, in view of the fact that the Dutch on the south side of the St. Lawrence and in the valley of the Hudson River had acknowledged allegiance to England, determined to show more interest in the administration of Canadian affairs, and Mézy having been recalled, hardly before his death, Daniel de Remi, Seigneur de Courcelles, was sent as provincial governor. They also created the new office of Intendant of Justice, Police, and Finance, and made Talon—a person of talent, experience, and great energy—the first incumbent. Arriving at Quebec in 1665, Talon took decided steps for the promotion of agriculture, tanneries, and fisheries, and was enthusiastic in the desire to see the white banner of France, with its fleur-de-lis, floating in the far West.[469]

In the autumn of 1668 he took with him to France one of the hardy voyageurs who had lived in the region of the lakes, and on the 24th of the next February he writes to Colbert, the Colonial Minister, that this man “had penetrated among the western nations farther than any other Frenchman, and had seen the copper mine on Lake Huron. The man offers to go to that mine and explore, either by sea, or by the lake and river, the communication supposed to exist between Canada and the South Sea, or to the region of Hudson’s Bay.”

During the summer of 1669 the active and intelligent Louis Joliet, with an outfit of four hundred livres, and one Peré, perhaps the same person who gave his name to a river leading from Lake Nepigon to Hudson’s Bay,[470] with an outfit of one thousand livres, went to search for copper on the shores of Lake Superior, and to discover a more direct route from the upper lakes to Montreal. Joliet went as far as Sault Ste. Marie, where he did not long remain; but in the place of a mine found an Iroquois prisoner among the Ottawas at that point, and obtained permission to take him back to Canada. In company with another Frenchman, he was led by the Iroquois from Lake Erie through the valley of the Grand River to Lake Ontario, and on the 24th of September, at an Iroquois village between this river and the head of Burlington Bay, he met La Salle with four canoes and fifteen men, and the Sulpitian priests, Galinée and De Casson, who on the 6th of July had left the post at La Chine.

La Salle, alleging ill health, at this point separated from the missionaries, and Joliet, before proceeding toward Montreal, drew a chart of the upper lakes for the guidance of the Sulpitians. By the aid of this the priests reached Lake Erie through a direct river, and near the lake they erected a hut and passed the winter. On the 23d of March, 1670, they resumed their voyage, and on the 25th of May reached Sault Ste. Marie, where there were about twenty-five Frenchmen trading with the Indians. Here was also the mission of the Jesuits among the Ottawas,—a square enclosure defended by cedar pickets twelve feet high, and within were a small house and chapel which had recently been built. Remaining but three days, they returned to Montreal by the old route along the French River of Lake Huron to Lake Nipissing, and thence by portage to the Ottawa River.

About the time of their arrival Talon had learned from some Algonquins that two European vessels had been seen in Hudson’s Bay, and he wrote to Colbert,—

“After reflecting on all the nations that might have penetrated as far north as that, I can fall back only on the English, who under the conduct of one named Desgrozeliers, in former times an inhabitant of Canada, might possibly have attempted that navigation, of itself not much known, and not less dangerous. I design to send by land some men of resolution to invite the Kilistinons, who are in great numbers in the vicinity of that bay, to come down to see us as the Ottawas do, in order that we may have the first handling of what the latter savages bring us, who, acting as retail dealers between us and those natives, make us pay for the roundabout way of three or four hundred leagues.”

To draw the trade from the English, it was determined to make an alliance of friendship with all the nations around Lake Superior. One of the Frenchmen[471] who roved among the tribes west of Lake Michigan, and in the valley of the Fox River, was Nicholas Perrot. Accustomed from boyhood to the scenes and excitements of frontier life, quick-witted, with some education, a leading spirit among coureurs des bois, and looked upon with respect by the Indians, he was an intelligent explorer of the interior of the continent. In the spring of 1670, when twenty-six years of age, Perrot left Green Bay with a flotilla of canoes filled with peltries and paddled by Indians. By way of Lake Nipissing he reached the Ottawa River, and descended to Montreal, and in July he visited Quebec. By the Intendant Talon he was invited to act as guide and interpreter to his deputy, Simon François Daumont, the Sieur Saint Lusson, who on the 3d of September was commissioned to go to Lake Superior to search for copper mines and confer with the tribes.

It was not until October that Perrot and Saint Lusson left Montreal. When Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron was reached, it was decided that Saint Lusson should here remain for the winter hunting and trading, while Perrot went on and visited the tribes of the Green Bay region. On the 5th of May, 1671, he met Saint Lusson at Sault Ste. Marie, accompanied by the principal chiefs of the Sauks, Menomonees, Pottawattamies, and Winnebagoes. After the delegates of fourteen tribes had arrived, a council was held, on the 14th of June, by Saint Lusson, in the presence of the Jesuits André, Claude Allouez, Gabriel Dreuilletes, and the head of the mission Claude d’Ablon, Nicholas Perrot the interpreter, Louis Joliet, and some fur-traders;[472] and a treaty of friendship was formed, and the countries around Lakes Huron and Superior were taken possession of in the name of Louis XIV., King of France. Talon announces the result of the expedition in these words:—

“Sieur de Saint Lusson is returned, after having advanced as far as five hundred leagues from here, and planted the cross and set up the King’s arms in presence of seventeen Indian nations,[473] assembled on this occasion from all parts, all of whom voluntarily submitted themselves to the dominion of his Majesty, whom alone they regard as their sovereign protector. This was effected, according to the account of the Jesuit Fathers, who assisted at the ceremony, with all the formality and display the country could afford. I shall carry with me the record of taking possession prepared by Sieur de Saint Lusson for securing those countries to his Majesty.

“The place to which the said Sieur de Saint Lusson has penetrated is supposed to be no more than three hundred leagues from the extremities of the countries bordering on the Vermillion or South Sea. Those bordering on the West Sea appear to be no farther from those discovered by the French. According to the calculation made from the reports of the Indians and from maps, there seems to remain not more than fifteen hundred leagues of navigation to Tartary, China, and Japan. Such discoveries must be the work of either time or of the King. It can be said that the Spaniards have hardly penetrated farther into the interior of South, than the French have done up to the present time into the interior of North, America.

“Sieur de Lusson’s voyage to discover the South Sea and the copper mine will not cost the King anything. I make no account of it in my statements, because, having made presents to the savages of the countries of which he took possession, he has reciprocally received from them in beaver that which replaces his outlay.”

The Hurons and Ottawas did not arrive in time to witness the formal taking possession of the country by the representative of France, having been detained by difficulty with the Sioux. About the year 1662, the Hurons, who had lingered about the sources of the Black River of Wisconsin, joined again their old allies, the Ottawas, who were clustered at the end of the beautiful Chegoimegon Bay of Lake Superior. The Ottawas lived in one village, made up of three bands,—the Sinagos, Kenonché, and Kiskakon. After this union, a party of Saulteurs, Ottawas, Nipissings, and Amikoués were securing white-fish not far from Sault Ste. Marie, when they discovered the smoke of an encampment of about one hundred Iroquois. Cautiously approaching, they surprised and defeated their dreaded foes, at a place to this day known as Iroquois Point, just above the entrance of Lake Superior.

After this, the Hurons, Ottawas, and Saulteurs returned in triumph to Keweenaw and Chegoimegon, and remained in quietness until a number of Hurons went to hunt west of Lake Superior, and were captured by some of the Sioux. While in captivity they were treated with kindness, asked to come again, and sent away with presents. Accepting the invitation, the Sinagos chief, with some warriors and four French traders, visited the Sioux, and were received with honor and cordiality. Again, a few Hurons went into the Sioux country, and some of the young warriors made them prisoners; but the Sioux chief, who had smoked the calumet with the Sinagos chief, insisted upon their release, and journeyed to Chegoimegon Bay to make an apology. Upon his arrival, the Hurons proved tricky, and persuaded the Ottawas to put to death their visitor. It was not strange that the Sioux were surprised and enraged when they received the intelligence, and panted for revenge. Marquette, who had succeeded Allouez at the mission which was between the Huron and Ottawa villages, in allusion to this disturbance, wrote:—

“Our Outaouacs and Hurons, of the Point of the Holy Ghost, had to the present time kept up a kind of peace with them [the Sioux], but matters having become embroiled during last winter, and some murders having been committed on both sides, our savages had reason to apprehend that the storm would soon burst on them, and they deemed it was safer for them to leave the place, which they did in the spring.”

The Jesuits retired with the Hurons and Ottawas, and more than one hundred and fifty years elapsed before another Christian mission was attempted in this vicinity, under the “American Board of Foreign Missions.” The retreating Ottawas did not halt until they reached an old hunting-ground, the Manitoulin Island of Lake Huron, and the Hurons stopped at Mackinaw. From time to time they formed war-parties with other tribes, against the Sioux. In 1674 some Sioux warriors arrived at Sault Ste. Marie to smoke the pipe of peace with adjacent tribes. At a grand council the Sioux sent twelve delegates, and the others forty. During the conference one of the opposite side drew near and brandished his knife in the face of a Sioux, and called him a coward. The Sioux replied he was not afraid, when the knife was plunged into his heart, and he died. A fight immediately began, and the Sioux bravely defended themselves, although nine were killed. The two survivors fled to the rude log chapel of the Jesuit mission, and closed the door, and finding there some weapons they opened fire upon their enemies. Their assailants wished to burn down the chapel, which the Jesuits would not allow, as they had beaver skins stored in the loft. In the extremity a lay brother of the mission, named Louis Le Boeme, advised the firing of a cannon shot at the cabin’s door. The discharge killed the last two of the Sioux.[474] Governor Frontenac made complaint against Le Boeme for this conduct, in a letter to Colbert.[475]

After the Iroquois had made a treaty of peace with the French, they did not cease to lurk and watch for the Ottawas as they descended to trade at Montreal, Three Rivers, or Quebec, and, as occasion offered, rob them of their peltries and tear their scalps from their heads. Governor Courcelles, in 1671, determined to establish a post on Lake Ontario which would act as a barrier between the Ottawas and Iroquois, and at the same time draw off the trade from the Hudson River.

Before entering upon his journey he had constructed a large plank flat-boat to ascend the streams,—a novelty which was a surprise. It was of two or three tons burden, and provided with a strong rope to haul it over the rapids and shoal places. On the morning of the 3d of June the expedition left Montreal, consisting of the flat-boat, filled with supplies and manned by a sergeant and eight soldiers, and thirteen bark canoes. The party numbered fifty-six persons, who were active and willing to endure the hardships of the journey. At night, with axe in hand, the men cut poles for a lodge frame, which they covered with bark stripped from the trees. The Governor, to protect himself from mosquitoes, had a little arbor made on the ground, about two feet high, and covered with a sheet, which touched the ground on all sides, and prevented the approach of the insects which disturb sleep and irritate the flesh. The second day of the voyage the flat-boat found difficulty in passing the first rapids, and Courcelles plunged into the water, and with the aid of the hardy voyageurs pushed the boat into smooth water. On the 10th of June the first flat-boat reached the vicinity of Lake Ontario, and the Governor two days after, in a canoe, reached the entrance of the lake. Here he found a stream with sufficient water to float a large boat, and bordered by fine land, which would serve as a site for a post. On the 14th, at the time that the deputy Saint Lusson, at Sault Ste. Marie, was taking possession of the region of Lake Superior, Courcelles was descending the rapids of the St. Lawrence on his return to Montreal.[476]

The report of this expedition was sent to Louis XIV., and it met with his approval; but for the benefit of his health Courcelles was permitted to return to France, and on the 9th of April, 1672, Louis de Buade, Count de Frontenac, was appointed Governor and Lieutenant-General in Canada and other parts belonging to New France. It was not until the leaves began to grow old that Frontenac arrived in Quebec, and, full of energy, was ready to push on the work of exploration which had been initiated by his predecessor. Upon the advice of the Intendant Talon, he soon despatched Louis Joliet to go to the Grand River, which the Indians alleged flowed southward to the sea. Joliet (often spelled Jolliet) was born in Canada, the son of a wagon-maker. In boyhood he had been a promising scholar in the Jesuits’ school at Quebec, but, imbibing the spirit of the times, while a young man he became a rover in the wilderness and a trader among Indians. Three years before his appointment to explore the great river beyond the lakes, he had been sent with Peré to search for a copper-mine on Lake Superior, and the year before he stood by the side of Saint Lusson as he planted the arms of France at Sault Ste. Marie.

It was not until Dec. 8, 1672, that he reached the Straits of Mackinaw, and as the rivers between that point and the Mississippi were by this time frozen, he remained there during the winter and following spring, busy in questioning the Indians who had seen the great river as to its course, and as to the nations on its shores. On May 17, 1673, he began his journey toward a distant sea. At Mackinaw he found Marquette, who became his companion, but had no official connection with the expedition, as erroneously mentioned by Charlevoix. With five voyageurs and two birch-bark canoes, Joliet and Marquette, by the 7th of June, had reached a settlement of Kikapous, Miamis, and Mascoutens, in the valley of the Fox River, and three leagues beyond they found a short portage by which they reached the Wisconsin River, and following its tortuous course amid sandbars and islands dense with bushes, on the 17th of June they entered the broad great river called the Mississippi, walled in by picturesque bluffs, with lofty limestone escarpment, whose irregular outline looked like a succession of the ruined castles and towers of the Rhine. In honor of his patron, Governor Frontenac, Joliet called it Buade, the Governor’s family name. Passing one great river flowing from the west, he learned that through its valley there was a route to the Vermeille Sea [Gulf of California], and he saw a village (which was about five days’ journey from another) which traded with the people of California.[477]

This river is without name on his map,[478] but on its banks he places villages of the Missouri, Kansa, Osages, and Pawnee tribes. The River Ohio he marked with the Indian name Ouabouskigou; and the Arkansas, beyond which he did not descend, and which was reached about the middle of July, he named Bazire, after a prominent merchant of Quebec interested in the fur-trade. After ascending the stream, he entered the Illinois River, which he designated as the Divine, or Outrelaise, in compliment, it is supposed, to Frontenac’s wife, a daughter of Lagrange Trianon, noted for her beauty, and Mademoiselle Outrelaise, her fascinating friend, who were called in Court circles “les divines.”[479] Upon the west bank of one of its tributaries, the Des Plaine River, there stands above the prairie a remarkable elevation of clay, sand, and gravel, a lonely monument which has withstood the erosion of a former geologic age. It was a noted landmark to the Indians in their hunting, and to the French voyageurs on their trading expeditions. By this Joliet was impressed, and he gave the elevation his own name, Mont Joliet, which it has retained, while all the others he marked on his map have been forgotten.[480] It was not until about the middle of August, 1674, that he returned to Quebec, and Governor Frontenac, on the 14th of November, writes to the French Government,—

“Sieur Joliet, whom Monsieur Talon advised me, on my arrival from France, to despatch for the discovery of the South Sea, returned three months ago, and found some very fine countries, and a navigation so easy through the beautiful rivers, that a person can go from Lake Ontario and Fort Frontenac in a bark to the Gulf of Mexico, there being only one carrying place, half a league in length, where Lake Ontario communicates with Lake Erie. A settlement could be made at this post, and another bark built on Lake Erie.... He has been within ten days’ journey of the Gulf of Mexico, and believes that water communication could be found leading to the Vermillion and California Seas, by means of the river that flows from the west, with the Grand River that he discovered, which rises from north to south, and is as large as the St. Lawrence opposite Quebec.

“I send you, by my secretary, the map[481] he has made of it, and the observations he has been able to recollect, as he lost all his minutes and journals in the wreck he suffered within sight of Montreal, where, after having completed a voyage of twelve hundred leagues, he was near being drowned, and lost all his papers, and a little Indian whom he brought from those countries.”

Governor Frontenac was satisfied with the importance of establishing a post on Lake Ontario, as Courcelles had suggested, and in the summer of 1673 visited the region. On the 3d of June he departed from Quebec, and at five o’clock in the afternoon of the 15th was received at Montreal amid the roar of cannon and the discharge of musketry. On the 9th of July he had reached a point supposed to be in the present town of Lisbon, in St. Lawrence County, New York, at the head of all the rapids of the St. Lawrence; and while sojourning there, at six o’clock in the evening two Iroquois canoes arrived with letters from La Salle, who two months before went into their country.

After exchanging civilities with the Iroquois, and guided by them, Frontenac was led into a beautiful bay about a cannon-shot from the River Katarakoui, which so pleased him as a site for a post, that he stayed until sunset examining the situation. The next day his engineer, Sieur Raudin, was ordered to trace out the plan of a fort, and on the morning of the 14th, at daybreak, soldiers and officers with alacrity began to clear the ground, and in four days the fort was finished, with the exception of the abatis. After designating the garrison and workmen who were to remain at the post, and making La Salle the commandant, on the 27th Frontenac began his homeward voyage, about the time that Joliet began to ascend the Mississippi from the mouth of the Arkansas.[482]

The reports of Joliet led to the formation of plans for the occupation of the valley of the Mississippi by the leading merchants and officers of Canada; and the application of Joliet, its first explorer, to go with twenty persons and establish a post among the Illinois, was refused by the French Government.[483]

Frontenac, in the fall of 1674,[484] sent La Salle to France. Under the date of the 14th of November, he wrote to Minister Colbert that La Salle was a man of character and intelligence, adapted to exploration, and asking him to listen to his plans. A few weeks before La Salle’s arrival in Paris, the Prince of Condé had fought a battle at Seneffe, and obtained a victory over the Prince of Orange and the allied generals, and every one was full of the praise of the King’s household guards, who without flinching remained eight hours under the fire of the enemy. La Salle could hardly have thought at that moment that the future was yet to reveal as his associates in the exploration of the distant valley of the Mississippi a gend’arme of his Majesty’s guard and a field chaplain of that bloody day.[485] In a memorial to the King, he asked for the grant of Fort Frontenac and lands adjacent, agreeing to repay Frontenac the money he had expended in establishing the post, to repair it, and keep a garrison therein at his own expense. He further asked, in consideration of the voyages he had made at his own expense during the seven years of his residence in Canada, that he might receive letters of nobility.[486] The King, upon the report of Colbert, accepted the offer, and on the 13th of May, 1675, conferred upon La Salle the rank of esquire, with power to attain all grades of knighthood and gendarmerie.[487] This year he came back to Canada in the same ship with Louis Hennepin, and going to Fort Frontenac in August, 1676, he increased the buildings, erected a strong wall on the land side, and strengthened the palisades toward the water. From time to time he had cattle brought thither from Montreal, and constructed barks to navigate the lake, keep the Iroquois in check, and deter the English from trading in the region of the upper lakes.[488] In November, 1677, he made another visit to France,[489] and obtained a permit, dated the 12th of May, 1678, allowing him to explore the western part of New France, with the prospect of penetrating as far as Mexico.[490] The expedition was to be at the expense of himself and associates, with the privilege of trade in buffalo skins, but with the express condition that he should not trade with the Ottawas and other Indians who brought their beavers to Montreal.

Frontenac was not only in full sympathy with La Salle, but with other enterprising adventurers, and there is but little doubt that he shared the profits of the fur-traders. About the time that La Salle was improving Fort Frontenac as a trading-post, Raudin,[491] the engineer who had laid out the plan of that fort, was sent by Frontenac with presents to the Ojibways and Sioux, at the extremity of Lake Superior.[492] A nephew of Patron, named Daniel Greysolon du Lhut,[493] and who had made two voyages from France before 1674, had then entered the army as squire of Marquis de Lassay, was in the campaign of Franche-Comté and at Seneffe, having now returned to Quebec was permitted to go on a voyage of discovery in the then unknown region where dwelt the Sioux and Assineboines.

On the 1st of September, 1678, with three Indians and three Frenchmen, Du Lhut left Montreal for Lake Superior, and wintered at some point on the shore of, or in the vicinity of, Lake Huron. On the 5th of April, 1679, he was in the woods, three leagues from Sault Ste. Marie, when he wrote in the third person to Governor Frontenac: “He will not stir from the Nadoussioux until further orders; and peace being concluded he will set up the King’s arms, lest the English and other Europeans settled toward California take possession of the country.”[494] On the 2d of July, 1679, Du Lhut planted the arms of France beyond Lake Superior, among the Isanti Sioux,[495] who dwelt at Mille Lacs, in what is now the State of Minnesota, and then visited the Songaskitons (Sissetons) and Houetbatons, bands of the Sioux, whose villages were one hundred and twenty leagues beyond. Entering by way of the St. Louis River, it would be easy, by a slight portage, to reach the Sioux village, which was at that time on the shores of the Sandy Lake of the Upper Mississippi.

Among those who went to the Lake Superior region at the same time as Du Lhut, were Dupuy, Lamonde, and Pierre Moreau, alias La Taupine, who had been with Saint Lusson at the planting of the French arms in 1671 at Sault Ste. Marie, and was trading among the Illinois when Joliet was in that country. In the summer of 1679 La Taupine returned, and it was rumored that he had obtained among the Ottawas in two days nine hundred beavers. Duchesneau, Intendant of Justice, feeling that Moreau had violated the law forbidding coureurs des bois to trade with the Indians, had him, in September, arrested at Quebec; but Moreau produced a license from Governor Frontenac, permitting him, with his two comrades, to go to the Ottawas, to execute his secret orders, and so was liberated. He had not left the prison but a short time when an officer and some soldiers came with an order from Frontenac to force the prison, in case he were still there. In a letter to Seignelay he writes: “It is certain, my Lord, that the said La Taupine carried goods to the Ottawas, that his two comrades remained in the country, apparently near Du Lhut, and that he traded there.”[496]

On the 15th of September Du Lhut had returned to Lake Superior, and at Camanistigoya, or the Three Rivers, the site of Fort William of the old Northwest Company, he held a conference with the Assineboines, an alienated band of the Sioux, and other northern tribes, and persuaded them to be at peace, and to intermarry with the Sioux. The next winter he remained in the region near the northern boundary of Minnesota; but in June, 1680, he determined to visit the Issati Sioux by water, as he had before gone to their villages by land.[497] With two canoes, an Indian as an interpreter, and four Frenchmen,—one of whom was Faffart, who had been in the employ of La Salle at Fort Frontenac,[498]—he entered a river eight leagues from the extremity of Lake Superior, now called Bois Brulé, a narrow, rapid stream, then much obstructed by fallen trees and beaver-dams. After reaching its upper waters a short portage was made to Upper Lake St. Croix, the outlet of which was a river, which, descending, led him to the Mississippi.

Two weeks after Du Lhut left Montreal to explore the extremity of Lake Superior, La Salle returned from France, accompanied by the brave officer Henry Tonty, who had lost one hand in battle, but who, with an iron substitute for the lost member, could still be efficient in case of a conflict. He also brought with him, beside thirty persons, a supply of cordage, anchors, and other material to be used at Fort Frontenac and on his proposed journey toward the Gulf of Mexico.

After reaching Frontenac, La Motte, who had been a captain in a French regiment, was sent in advance, with the Franciscan Hennepin and sixteen men, to select a site for building a vessel to navigate the upper lakes. On the 8th of January, 1679, La Salle and Tonty, late at night, reached La Motte’s encampment at the rapids below the Falls of Niagara, only to find him absent on a visit to the Senecas. The next day La Salle climbed the heights, and following the portage road round the cataract he found at the entrance of Cayuga Creek an admirable place for a ship-yard. La Motte having returned to his encampment, with La Salle and Tonty he visited the selected site, and Tonty was charged with the supervision of the ship-builders.

Four days later, the keel of the projected vessel was laid, and in May it was launched with appropriate ceremonies, and named after the fabulous animal—the symbol of strength and swiftness,—the “Griffin,” two of which were the supporters of the escutcheon of Count Frontenac. Tonty, on the 22d of July, was sent forward with five men to join fourteen others who had been ordered by La Salle to stop at the mouth of the Detroit River. On the 7th day of August the “Griffin” spread her sails upon her voyage to unknown waters whose depths had never been sounded, and early on the morning of the 10th reached Tonty and his party, who had anxiously awaited its coming, and received them on board. On the 10th of August, the day in the calendar of the Church of Rome devoted to the memory of the virgin Saint Clare, foundress of the Franciscan Order of Poor Clares, the vessel entered the lake called by the Franciscan priests after her, although now written St. Clair. On the 27th they reached the harbor of Mackinaw,—a point on the mainland south of the straits; and upon his landing La Salle was greatly surprised to find there a number of those whom he had sent, at the close of the last year, to trade for his benefit with the Illinois. Their excuse for their unfaithfulness was credence in a report that La Salle was a visionary, and that his vessel would never arrive at Mackinaw. Four of the deserters were arrested. La Salle, learning that two more—Hemant and Roussel, or Roussellière—were at Sault Ste. Marie, sent Tonty on the 29th with six men to take them into custody. While the lieutenant was absent on this errand, La Salle lifted his anchor and set sail for the Grand Bay, now Green Bay, where he found among the Pottawattamies still others of those whom he had sent to the Illinois, and who had collected furs to the value of twelve thousand livres. From this point he determined to pursue his journey southward in a canoe, and to send back the “Griffin” with the peltries here collected. On the 18th of September the ship—in charge of the pilot, a supercargo, and five sailors—sailed for the magazine at the end of Lake Erie, but it never came to Mackinaw. Some Indians said it had been wrecked, but there was never any certain information obtained. A Pawnee lad, fourteen or fifteen years of age, who was a prisoner among the Indians near a post established among the Illinois, reported that the pilot of the “Griffin” had been seen among the Missouri tribes, and that he had ascended the Mississippi, with four others, in two canoes, with goods stolen from the ship, and some hand-grenades. It was the intention of this party to join Du Lhut, and if they could not find him, to push on to the English on Hudson’s Bay. Meeting some hostile Indians, a fight occurred, and all the Frenchmen were killed but the pilot and another, who were sold as prisoners to the Missouri Indians. In the chapter on the exploration of the lakes, it is only necessary to allude to that portion of La Salle’s expedition which pertains to this region.

After La Salle had established Fort Crèvecœur among the Illinois, on the 29th of February, 1680, he sent Michel Accault (often spelt Ako) on a trading and exploring expedition to the Upper Mississippi. He took with him Anthony Augelle, called the Picard, and the Franciscan priest Louis Hennepin, in a canoe, with goods valued at about a thousand livres. In ascending the Mississippi the party was hindered by ice near the mouth of the Illinois River until the 12th of March, when they resumed their voyage. Following the windings of the Mississippi, La Salle mentions in a letter written on the 22d of August, 1682, at Fort Frontenac,[499] that they passed a tributary from the east called by the Sioux Meschetz Odéba,[500] now called Wisconsin, and twenty-three or twenty-four leagues above they saw the Black River, called by the Sioux Chabadeba.[501] About the 11th of April, at three o’clock in the afternoon, a war-party of Sioux going south was met, and Accault, as the leader, presented the calumet,[502] and gave them some tobacco and twenty knives. The Sioux gave up their expedition, and conducted Accault and his companions to their villages. On the 22d of April the isles in the Mississippi were reached, where two Sioux had been killed by the Maskoutens, and they stopped to weep over their death, while Accault, to assuage their grief, gave them in trade a box of goods and twenty-four hatchets. Arriving at an enlargement of the river, about three miles below the modern city of St. Paul, the canoes were hidden in the marshes, and the rest of the journey to the villages of Mille Lacs was made by land. Six weeks after they reached the villages, the Sioux determined to descend the Mississippi on a buffalo hunt, and Hennepin and Augelle went with the party.

When Du Lhut reached the Mississippi from Lake Superior, he found eight cabins of Sioux, and learned that some Frenchmen were with the party hunting below the St. Croix River. Surprised by the intelligence, leaving two Frenchmen to guard his goods, he descended in a canoe with his interpreter and his other two men, and on the morning of the third day he found the hunting camp and the Franciscan Hennepin. In a letter to Seignelay, written while on a visit in France, Du Lhut writes:—

It was not until some time in May, 1681, that Du Lhut arrived at Montreal, and although he protested that his journey had only been in the interest of discovery and of peace-making with the tribes, the Intendant of Justice accused him of violating the King’s edict against trading with the Indians, and Frontenac held him for a time in the castle at Quebec, more as a friend than as a prisoner. It was but a little while before an amnesty came from the King of France to all suspected of being “coureurs des Bois,” and authorizing Governor Frontenac to issue yearly twenty-five licenses to twenty-five canoes, each having three men, to trade among the savages.

Duchesneau, the Intendant of Justice, still complained that the Governor winked at illicit trade, and on the 13th of November, 1681, he wrote to Seignelay, who had succeeded his father as Minister for the Colonies:—

“But not content with the profits to be derived within the countries under the King’s dominion, the desire of making money everywhere has led the Governor, Sieurs Perrot, Boisseau, Du Lhut, and Patron, his uncle, to send canoes loaded with peltries to the English. It is said that sixty thousand livres’ worth has been sent thither; and though proof of this assertion cannot be adduced, it is a notorious report.... Trade with the English is justified every day, and all those who have pursued it agree that beaver carried to them sells for double what it does here, for that worth fifty-two sous, six deniers, the pound, duty paid, brings eight livres there, and the beaver for Russia sells there at ten livres the pound in goods.”

On grounds of public policy Frontenac in 1682 was recalled, and De la Barre, his successor, in October of this year held a conference with the most influential persons, among whom was Du Lhut, who afterward sailed for France, and early in 1683[504] there wrote the letter to Seignelay from which extracts have been made.

The Iroquois having found it profitable to carry the beavers of the northwest to the English at Albany, determined to wage war against the tribes of the upper Lakes, seize Mackinaw, and drive away the French. Governor de la Barre, to thwart this scheme, in May, 1683, sent Oliver Morrel, the Sieur de la Durantaye, with six canoes and thirty good men, to Mackinaw, and the Chevalier de Baugy was ordered to the fort established by La Salle on the Illinois River, in charge of Tonty. As soon as Durantaye reached Mackinaw, he immediately sent parties to Green Bay to take steps to humble the Pottawattamies for the hostility exhibited toward the French. He afterward went down the west side of Lake Michigan, and Chevalier de Baugy proceeded on the other side, hoping to meet La Salle, who was expected to go to Mackinaw by following the eastern shore.

Du Lhut, upon his return from France, obtained a license to trade, and in August arrived at Mackinaw with men and goods for trading in the Sioux country[505] by way of Green Bay. Upon the 8th of the month he left Mackinaw with about thirty persons; and after leaving their goods at the extremity of the Bay, they proceeded, armed for war, to the village of the Pottawattamies, and rebuked them for the bad feelings which they had exhibited. Some Cayuga Iroquois in the vicinity captured five of the Wyandot Hurons that Du Lhut had sent out to reconnoitre, but avoided the French post. “The Sieur du Lhut,” writes the Governor to Seignelay, “who had the honor to see you at Versailles, happening to be at that post when my people arrived, placed himself at their head, and issued such good orders that I do not think it can be seized, as he has employed his forces and some Indians in fortifying and placing himself in a condition of determined defence.” Having been advised of the retreat of the Iroquois, Du Lhut proceeded toward the north to execute his design of stopping English trade in that direction. The project is referred to in a despatch of the Canadian to the Home Government in these words: “The English of Hudson’s Bay have this year attracted many of our northern Indians, who for this reason have not come to trade to Montreal. When they learned by expresses sent them by Du Lhut, on his arrival at Messilimakinak, that he was coming, they sent him word to come quickly, and they would unite with him to prevent all others going thither any more. The English of the Bay excite us against the savages, whom Sieur du Lhut alone can quiet.”

Departing from his first post at Kaministigouia, the site of which is in view of Prince Arthur’s Landing, he found his way between many isles, varied and picturesque, to a river on the north shore of Lake Superior leading to Lake Nepigon (Alepimigon). Passing to the northeastern extremity, he built a post on a stream connecting with the waters of the Hudson’s Bay, called after a family name, La Tourette. He returned the next year, if not to Montreal, certainly to Mackinaw. Keweenaw by this time had become a well-known resort of traders; and in its vicinity, in the summer of 1683, two Frenchmen, Colin Berthot and Jacques Le Maire, had been surprised by Indians, robbed and murdered. While Du Lhut was at Mackinaw, on the 24th of October, he was told that an accomplice, named Folle Avoine, had arrived at Sault Ste. Marie with fifteen Ojibway families who had fled from Chagouamigon Bay, fearing retaliation for an attack which they had made upon the Sioux during the last spring. There were only twelve Frenchmen at the Sault at the time, and they felt too weak, without aid, to make an arrest of Folle Avoine.

At the dawn of the next day after the information was received, Du Lhut embarked with six Frenchmen to seize the murderer, and he also gave a seat in his canoe to the Jesuit missionary, Engelran. When within a league of the post at the Sault, he left the canoe, and with Engelran and the Chevalier de Fourcille, on foot, went through the woods to the mission-house, and the remaining four—Baribaud, Le Mere, La Fortune, and Maçons—proceeded with the canoe.

Du Lhut, upon his arrival, immediately ordered the arrest of the accused, and placed him under a guard of six men; then calling a council, he told the Indians that those guilty of the murder must be punished. But they, hoping to exculpate the prisoner, said that the murder had been committed by one Achiganaga and his sons. Peré had been sent to Keweenaw to find Achiganaga and his children, and when he arrested them they acknowledged their guilt, and told him that the goods they had stolen were hidden in certain places. The powder and tobacco were found soaked in water and useless, and the bodies of the murdered were found in holes in marshy ground, covered with branches of trees to prevent them from floating. The goods not damaged were sold at Keweenaw, to the highest bidder among the traders, for eleven hundred livres, to be paid in beavers to M. de la Chesnaye. On the 24th of November Peré, at ten o’clock at night, came and told Du Lhut that he had found eighteen Frenchmen at Keweenaw, and that he had brought down as prisoners Achiganaga and sons, and had left them under a guard of twelve Frenchmen at a point twelve leagues from the Sault. The next day, at dawn, he went back, and at two o’clock in the afternoon returned with the prisoners, who were placed in a room in the house where Du Lhut was, and watched by a strong guard, and not allowed to converse with each other.

On the 26th a council was held. Folle Avoine was allowed two of his relatives to defend him, and the same privilege was accorded to the others. He was interrogated, and his answers taken in writing, when they were read to him, and inquiry made whether the record was correct. He being removed, Achiganaga was introduced, and in like manner questioned; and then his sons. The Indians watched the judicial examination with silent interest, and the chiefs at length said to the prisoners: “It is enough! You accuse yourselves; the French are masters of your bodies.”

On the 29th all the French at the place were called together. The answers to the interrogatories by the prisoners were read, and then by vote it was unanimously decided that they were guilty and ought to die. As the traders at Keweenaw desired all possible leniency to be shown, Du Lhut decided to execute only two,—man for man, for those murdered; and in this opinion he was sustained by De la Tour, the Superior of the Jesuit missionaries at the Sault. Folle Avoine and the eldest of Achiganaga’s sons were selected. Du Lhut writes: “I then returned to the cabin of Brochet [a chief], with Mess’rs Boisguillot, Peré, De Repentigny, De Manthet, De la Ferte, and Maçons, where were all the chiefs of the Outawas du Sable, Outawas Sinagos, Sauteurs, D’Achiliny, a part of the Hurons, and Oumamens, chief of the Amikoys. I informed them of our decision; ... that the Frenchmen having been killed by the different tribes, one of each must die; and that the same death they had caused the French to suffer they must also suffer.” The Jesuit Fathers then proceeded to baptize the prisoners, in the belief of the Church of Rome that by the external application of water they might become citizens of the kingdom of heaven. One hour later, a procession was formed of forty-two Frenchmen, with Du Lhut at their head, and the prisoners were taken to a hill, and in the sight of four hundred Indians the two murderers were shot.

To Du Lhut must always be given the credit of being the first in the distant West, at the outlet of Lake Superior, to exhibit the majesty of law, under the forms of the French code. While some of the timid and prejudiced, in Canada and France, condemned his course as harsh and impolitic, yet, as the enforcer of a respect for life, he was upheld by the more thoughtful and reasonable.[506]

During the summer of 1683 (Aug. 10), René Le Gardeur, Sieur de Beauvais, with thirteen others who had a permit to trade among the Illinois, departed from Mackinaw, and early in December reached the lower end of Lake Michigan, and wintered in the valley of the Theakiki or Kankakee River. About the 10th of March, 1684, while on their way to Fort St. Louis, on the Illinois River, they were robbed by the Seneca Iroquois of their seven canoes of merchandise, and after nine days sent back to the Chicago River with only two canoes and some powder and lead. The Indians, on the 21st, approached and besieged Fort St. Louis,[507] which was gallantly defended by the Chevalier de Baugy and the brave Henry Tonty, the Bras Coupé (Cut Arm), as he was called by them, because he had lost his hand in battle.[508]

Upon the receipt of the news of this incursion, Governor de la Barre, under a pressure from the merchants of Quebec, whose goods were imperilled, determined to attack the Iroquois in their own country. Orders were sent to the posts of the upper lakes for the commandants to bring down allies to Niagara. While on his way, Du Lhut wrote to De la Barre:—

Durantaye, Du Lhut, and Nicholas Perrot left Mackinaw with one hundred and fifty Frenchmen and about five hundred Indians[513] to join De la Barre’s army; and they had not been six hours at Niagara, on the 6th of September, before orders were received that their services were not needed, as the French troops were suffering from sickness, and a truce had been made with the Iroquois.[514] Du Lhut and the other Frenchmen slowly returned to their posts, and when the new governor (Denonville) arrived, he wrote to De la Durantaye at Mackinaw, and sent orders to Du Lhut, who was at a great distance beyond, to inform him of the number of allies he could furnish in case of a war against the Iroquois.

Nicholas Perrot, in the spring of 1685, was commissioned to go to Green Bay and have chief command there, and of any countries he might discover.[515] He left Montreal with twenty men, and arriving at Green Bay, some Indians told him that they had visited countries toward the setting sun, where they obtained the blue and green stones suspended from their ears and noses, and that they saw horses and men like Frenchmen,—probably the Spaniards of New Mexico; and others said that they had obtained hatchets from persons who lived in a house that walked on the water in the Assineboine region,—alluding to the English established at Hudson’s Bay. At the portage between the Fox and Wisconsin rivers thirteen Hurons were met, who were bitterly opposed to the establishment of a post near the Sioux. After reaching the Mississippi, Perrot sent a few Winnebagoes to notify the Aiouez (Ioways) who roamed on the prairies beyond, that the French had ascended the river, and that they would indicate their stopping-place by kindling a fire. A place was found suitable for a post,[516] where there was wood, at the foot of a high hill (au pied d’une montagne), behind which there was a large prairie.[517] In eleven days a number of Ioways arrived at the Mississippi, about twenty-five miles above, and Perrot ascended to meet them; but as he and his men drew near, the Indian women ran up the bluffs and hid in the woods. But twenty of the braves met him and bore him to the chief’s lodge, and he, bending over Perrot, began to weep, and allowed the tears to fall upon his guest. After he had exhausted himself, the principal men continued this wetting process. Buffalo tongues were then boiled in an earthen pot, and after being cut into small pieces, the chief took a piece, and, as a mark of respect, placed it in Perrot’s mouth. During the winter Perrot traded with the Sioux; and by 1686 a post was established on the Wisconsin shore of Lake Pepin, just above its entrance, called “Fort St. Antoine.”[518]

Denonville discovered upon his arrival at Quebec that the policy which De la Barre had pursued in making peace had rendered the Iroquois more insolent, and had made the allies of the French upon the upper lakes discontented, on account of their long and fruitless voyage to Niagara. He therefore determined, as soon as he could gather a sufficient force, to march into the Iroquois country[519] “and not chastise them by halves, but if possible annihilate them.” Orders were again sent to the posts at Mackinaw and Green Bay to prepare for another expedition against the Seneca Iroquois. Perrot at the time he received the order to return was among the Sioux, and his canoes had been broken by the ice. During the summer of 1686 he visited the Miamis, sixty leagues distant. Upon his return he perceived a great smoke, and at first thought it was a war-party going against the Sioux. Fortunately he met a Maskouten chief, who had been at the post to visit him, and from him he learned that the Foxes, Kickapoos, Maskouten, and others had determined to pillage the post, kill its inmates, and then go forward and attack the Sioux. Hurrying on, he reached the post, and was told that on that very day three spies had been there and discovered that there were only six men in charge. The next day two more appeared, but Perrot had taken the precaution to put loaded guns at the door of each hut, and made his men frequently change their clothes. To the query of the savage spies, “How many French were there?” the reply was, “Forty, and that more were daily expected, who had been on a buffalo hunt, and that the guns were loaded and the knives well sharpened.” They were then told to go back to their camp and bring a chief of each tribe; and that if Indians in large numbers came they would be fired at.

In accordance with this message, six chiefs presented themselves, and after their bows and arrows had been taken from them, they were invited to Perrot’s cabin, where he gave them something to eat and tobacco to smoke. Looking at Perrot’s loaded guns, they asked “if he were afraid of his children?” He answered, “No.” They continued, “Are you displeased?” To this he said, “I have good reason to be. The Spirit has warned me of your designs; you will take my things away and put me in the kettle, and proceed against the Nadouaissioux. The Spirit told me to be on my guard, and he would help me.” Astonished at these words, they confessed he had spoken the truth. That night the chiefs slept within the stockade, and early the next morning a part of the hostile force came and wished to trade. Perrot had now only fifteen men, and arresting the chiefs, he told them he would break their heads if they did not make the Indians go away. One of the chiefs, therefore, stood on the gate of the fort and said to the warriors: “Do not advance, young men, the Spirit has warned Metaminens of your designs.” The advice was followed, and the chiefs, receiving some presents, also retired.

A few days after, Perrot returned to Green Bay in accordance with the order of the Governor of Canada. His position toward the Jesuits at this point was different from that of La Salle. This latter explorer had declared that the missionaries were more anxious to convert, at their blacksmith shop, iron into implements, to be exchanged for beaver, than to convert souls.

After being buried in the earth for years, there has been discovered a silver soleil or ostensorium, fifteen inches high, and weighing twenty ounces, intended for the consecrated wafer;[520] around the oval base of the rim is the following inscription in French: “This soleil was given by M^r Nicholas Perrot, to the mission of St. Francis Xavier, at the Bay of Puans, 1686.”[521]

Governor Dongan of New York, although an Irishman and Roman Catholic, was aggressive in the interests of England, and asserted the right of traders from Albany to go among the Indians of the Northwest. As early as 1685 he licensed several persons, among whom was La Fontaine Marion, a Canadian, to trade for beaver in the Ottawas country; and their journey was successful, and created consternation at Quebec. Governor Denonville wrote to Seignelay of the pretences of the English, who claimed the lakes to the South Sea. His language was terse and emphatic: “Missilimakinak is theirs. They have taken its latitude, have been to trade there with our Outawas and Huron Indians, who received them cordially on account of the bargains they gave by selling them merchandise for beaver at a much higher price than we. Unfortunately we had but very few Frenchmen there at that time.”

A despatch on the 6th of June, 1686, was sent to Du Lhut, that he should go and establish a post at some point on the shore of St. Clair River, between Lake Erie and Lake Huron, which would serve as a protection for friendly Indians, and a barrier to the English traders. After he had built the post he was ordered to leave it in command of a lieutenant and twenty-eight men, return to Mackinaw, and then take thirty men more to the post, which was called Fort St. Joseph. A party of English, under Captain Thomas Roseboome, of Albany, consisting of twenty-nine whites and five Indians, and La Fontaine as interpreter, in the spring of 1687 were arrested by Durantaye on Lake Huron, twenty leagues from Mackinaw, and their eau de vie (brandy) given to the Indians.

In June, Durantaye left Mackinaw with allies for Denonville, and was afterward followed by Perrot; and at Fort St. Joseph he met Du Lhut and Henry Tonty, who had arrived from Fort St. Louis with a few Illinois Indians.[522] After the united company had left this post, they met in St. Clair River a second party of Englishmen, consisting of twenty-one whites, six Indians, and eight prisoners, in charge of Major Patrick Macgregory, of Albany, a native of Scotland. These were also arrested, making about sixty then in the hands of the French.

On the 27th of June, Durantaye and associates, to the number of one hundred and seventy Frenchmen, and about four hundred Indians, arrived at Niagara. Sieur de la Foret, who had been with Tonty at Fort St. Louis, on the 1st of July reported their arrival to Denonville, then at Fort Frontenac. The Governor was pleased to hear of the capture of the English, and in a subsequent despatch wrote: “It is certain that had the two English detachments not been stopped and pillaged, had their brandy and other goods entered Michillimaquina, all our Frenchmen would have had their throats cut by a revolt of all the Hurons and Outaouas, whose example would have been followed by all the other far nations, in consequence of the presents which had been secretly sent to the Indians.”

On the 10th of July, as the Canadian and French troops entered Irondequoit Bay, they were elated by the approach, under sail, of the Indian allies from Mackinaw who on the 6th had left Niagara. On the 12th, the march to the Seneca village was begun; but the story of it has been told elsewhere.[523]

The officers who came from the posts of the upper lakes were well spoken of by Denonville. In one of his despatches he writes: “A half-pay captaincy being vacant, I gave it to Sieur de la Durantaye, who since I have been in this country has done good service among the Outawas, and has been very economical in labor and expense in executing the orders he received from me. He is a man of rank, unfortunate in his affairs, and who, by his great assiduity at Missillimakinak, efficiently carried out the instructions to seize the English; he arrested one of the parties within two days’ journey of Missillimakinak. Sieurs de Tonty and Du Lhut have acquitted themselves very well; all would richly deserve some reward.”

After the allies had left Niagara for the scene of battle, Greysolon de la Tourette, a brother of Du Lhut, described as “an intelligent lad,” arrived there from Lake Nepigon, north of Lake Superior, in a canoe, without an escort. Denonville a few weeks after wrote: “Du Lhut’s brother, who has recently arrived from the rivers above the Lake of the Allemepigons, assures me that he saw more than fifteen hundred persons come to trade with him, and they were very sorry he had not sufficient goods to satisfy them. They are of the tribes accustomed to resort to the English at Port Nelson and River Bourbon.”[524]

The destruction of the Seneca villages having been completed, Du Lhut, with his brave cousin Henry Tonty, returned in September to Fort St. Joseph,[525] near the entrance of Lake Huron, garrisoned at his own charges by coureurs des bois, who had in the spring sown some bushels of Turkey wheat. The next year, to allay the irritation of the Iroquois, Governor Denonville issued an order to abandon the fort, and on the 27th of August the buildings were destroyed by fire.

Perrot, in 1688, was ordered to return to his post on the Upper Mississippi, and take formal possession of the country in the King’s name. With a party of forty men, he left Montreal to trade with the Sioux, who, according to La Potherie, “were very distant, and could not trade with us easily, as the other tribes and the Outagamis [Foxes] boasted of having cut off the passage thereto.” Reaching Green Bay in the fall of the year, Perrot was met by a deputation of Foxes, and afterward visited their village. In the chief’s lodge there was placed before him broiled venison, and for the rest of the French raw meat was served; but he refused to eat, because, he said, “meat did not give him any spirit. But he would take some when they were more reasonable.” He then chided them for not having gone, as requested by the Governor of Canada, on the expedition against the Senecas. Urging them to proceed on the beaver hunt, and to fight only the Iroquois, and leaving a few Frenchmen to trade, he proceeded toward the Sioux country. Arriving at the portage, the ice formed some impediment, but, aided by Pottawattamies, his men transported their goods to the Wisconsin River, which was not frozen. Ascending the Mississippi, he proceeded to the post which he occupied before he was summoned to fight the Senecas.

As soon as the ice left the river, in the spring of 1689, the Sioux came down and escorted Perrot to one of their villages, where he was received with much enthusiasm. He was carried around upon a beaver robe, followed by a long line of warriors, each bearing a pipe and singing. Then, taking him to the chief’s lodge, several wept over his head, as the Ioways had done when he first visited the Upper Mississippi. After he had left, in 1686, a Sioux chief, knowing that few Frenchmen were at the fort, had come down with one hundred warriors to pillage it. Of this, complaint was made by Perrot, and the guilty leader came near being put to death by his tribe. As they were about to leave the Sioux village, one of his men told Perrot that a box of goods had been stolen, and he ordered a cup of water to be brought, into which he poured some brandy. He then addressed the Indians, and told them he would dry up their marshes if the goods were not restored, at the same time setting on fire the brandy in the cup. The savages, astonished, and supposing that he possessed supernatural powers, soon detected the thief, and the goods were returned.

On the 8th of May, 1689, at the post St. Antoine, on the Wisconsin side of Lake Pepin, a short distance above the Chippewa River, in the presence of the Jesuit missionary, Joseph J. Marest, Boisguillot,[526] a trader near the mouth of the Wisconsin River, Pierre Le Sueur, whose name was afterward identified with the exploration of the Minnesota, and a few others, Perrot took possession of the country of the rivers St. Croix, St. Pierre, and the region of Mille Lacs, in the name of the King of France.

When he returned to Montreal, he found a great change had occurred in political affairs. It had become evident that the Iroquois were mere agents of the English. The Albany traders had searched the land between the Hudson River and Lake Erie, and had made a report that the Valley of the Genesee was fertile and beautiful to behold, and every year an increasing number of pale-faces wandered among the Indian villages toward Lake Ontario. Old officers in Canada saw that their only hope was to destroy the source of supply to the Iroquois. The question to be determined was whether the King of France or the King of England should control the region of the Great Lakes. Chevalier de Callières, who had seen much service in Europe, and was in command of the troops in Canada, insisted that decisive steps should be taken. The crisis was hastened by the arrival of the intelligence that a revolution had occurred in England, and that William and Mary had been acknowledged. Callières wrote to Seignelay relative to the condition of affairs: “It would be idle to flatter ourselves with the hope to find them improved since the usurpation of the Prince of Orange, who will be assuredly acknowledged by Sir Andros,[527] who is a Protestant, born in the Island of Jersey, and by New York, the inhabitants whereof are mostly Dutch, who planted this colony under the name of New Netherland, all of whom are Protestant.”

He urged that the war should be carried into New York, and that a force be sent strong enough to seize Albany, and then to move down and capture Manhattan. “It will give his Majesty,” he said, “one of the finest harbors in America, accessible at almost all seasons, and it will give one of the finest countries of America, in a milder and more fertile climate than that of Canada.” The sequel was a conflict of drilled troops under European officers upon the borders of New England and New York.

1609-1640.—The Voyages of Champlain, as published in 1632 at Paris, are valuable in facts pertaining to discovery along the shores of Lake Champlain and Lake Huron; but the book is the subject of special treatment in another chapter.[528] The Grand Voyage of Sagard[529] contains little more than what may be found in Champlain and the Relations of the Jesuit missionaries. Charlevoix mentions that Sagard passed “some time among the Hurons, but had not time to see things well enough, still less to verify all that was told him.”

1640-1660.—Benjamin Sulté, in his “Notes on Jean Nicolet,” printed in the Wisconsin Historical Society Collections, viii. 188-194,[530] shows that Nicolet, the trader, must have visited Green Bay between July, 1634, and July, 1635, because this interval is the only period of his life when he cannot be found on the shores of the St. Lawrence. The recently published History of the Discovery of the Northwest in 1634 by Jean Nicolet, with a Sketch of his Life by C. W. Butterfield, Cincinnati, 1881, is a useful book, and gives evidence that Nicolet did not descend the Wisconsin River.

The Relations des Jésuites (of which a full bibliographical account is appended to the following chapter) are important sources for the tracing of these western explorations.

The Relation of 1640 has an extract from a letter of Paul Le Jeune, in which, after giving the names of the tribes of the region of the Lakes, he adds that “the Sieur Nicolet, interpreter of the Algonquin and Huron languages for Messieurs de la Nouvelle France, has given me the names of these natives he has visited, for the most part in their country.” This Relation shows how near an approach Nicolet made to discovering the Mississippi. See in this connection Margry’s “Les Normands dans l’Ohio et le Mississippi,” in the Journal général de l’Instruction publique, 30 Juillet, 1862. Shea, Mississippi Valley, p. xx, contends that Nicolet reached the river or its affluents. The Relation of 1643 records the death of Nicolet, with some particulars of his life.

For slight notices of the period, with dates of the departure and arrival of traders and missionaries, there is serviceable aid to be had from Le Journal des Jésuites publié d’après le Manuscrit original conservé aux Archives du Séminaire de Québec. Par MM. les Abbés Laverdière et Casgrain. Quebec, 1871.[531] Under date of Aug. 21, 1660, is noted the arrival of a party of Ottawas at Montreal, who departed the next day, and arrived at Three Rivers on the 24th, and on the 27th left. It adds: “They were in number three hundred. Des Grosilleres was in their company, who had gone to them the year before. They had departed from Lake Superior with one hundred canoes; forty turned back, and sixty arrived, loaded with peltry to the value of 200,000 livres. At Montreal they left to the value of 50,000 livres, and brought the rest to Three Rivers. They come in twenty-six days, but are two months in going back. Des Grosillers wintered with the Bœuf tribe, who were about four thousand, and belonged to the sedentary Nadouesseronons [Dakotahs]. The Father Menar, the Father Albanel, and six other Frenchmen went back with them.”

There appears to be no uniformity in the spelling of the name of Groseilliers. Under May, 1662, is this entry: “I departed from Quebek on the 3d for Three Rivers; there met Des Grosillers, who was going to the Sea of the North. He left Quebek the night before with ten men.” Under August, 1663, is the following: “The 5th returned those who had been three years among the Outaoouac; nine Frenchmen went, and seven returned. The Father Menar and his man, Jean Guerin, one of our donnés, had died,—the Father Menar the 7th or 8th of August, 1661, and Jean Guerin in September, 1662. The party arrived at Montreal on the 25th of July, with thirty-five canoes and one hundred and fifty men.” Of Creuxius’ Historia and its relations to the missionaries’ reports, there is an account in the next chapter.

1660-1680.—The documents from the French archives in the Parliament Library at Ottawa, Canada (copies in manuscript), and those translated and printed in the New York Col. Docs., vol. ix., give much information on this period; and so do the Jesuit Relations, and the first volume of the Collections edited by Margry and published at Paris in 1875.[532]

The Mémoire sur les Mœurs, Coustumes, et Réligion des Sauvages de l’Amérique septentrionale, par Nicolas Perrot, publié pour la première fois par le R. P. J. Tailhan, de la Compagnie de Jésus, Leipsic and Paris, 1864,[533] was examined by Charlevoix one hundred and fifty years ago, when it was in manuscript, and afforded him useful information. It is the only work referring to the traders at the extremity of Lake Superior between 1660 and 1670, and to the migrations of the Hurons from the Mississippi to the Black River, and from thence to Lake Superior. Much of interest is also derived from the Histoire de l’Amérique septentrionale. Par M. de Bacqueville de la Potherie, Paris, 1722, 4 vols.[534]

1680-1690.—There are differences of statements regarding the Upper Mississippi Valley, but nevertheless much information of importance, in the letter of La Salle from Fort Frontenac, in August, 1682,[535] in Du Lhut’s Mémoire of 1683, as printed by Harrisse,[536] and in Hennepin’s Description de la Louisiane.[537]

Perrot, in the work already quoted, gives the best account of this region from 1683 to 1690.

For the whole period of the exploration of the Great Lakes, the works among the secondary authorities of the chief value are Charlevoix in the last century, and Parkman in the present; but their labors are commemorated elsewhere.

THE local historical work of the Northwest has been done in part under the auspices of various State and sectional historical societies. The Ohio Society, organized in 1831, became later inanimate, but was revived in 1868, and ought to hold a more important position among kindred bodies than it does. Mr. Baldwin has given an account of the historical and pioneer societies of Ohio in the Western Reserve and Northern Ohio Historical Society’s Tracts, no. 27; and this latter Society, organized in 1867, with the Licking County Pioneer Historical Society, organized the same year, and the Firelands Historical Society, organized in 1857, have increased the historical literature of the State by various publications elucidating in the main the settlements of the last century. The youngest of the kindred associations, the Historical and Geographical Society of Toledo, was begun in 1871. The State, however, is fortunate in having an excellent Bibliography of Ohio (1880), embracing fourteen hundred titles, exclusive of public documents, which was compiled by Peter G. Thomson; while the Americana Catalogues of Robert Clarke & Co., of Cincinnati, are the completest booksellers’ lists of that kind which are published in America. The Ohio Valley Historical Series, published by the same house, has not as yet included any publication relating to the period of the French claims to its territory. The earliest History of Ohio is by Caleb Atwater, published in 1838; but the History by James W. Taylor—“First Period, 1650-1787”—is wholly confined to the Jesuits’ missions, the wars of the Eries and Iroquois, and the later border warfare. (Field, Indian Bibliography, no. 1,535.) Henry Howe’s Historical Collections of Ohio, originally issued in 1848, and again in 1875, is a repository of facts pertaining for the most part to later times.

The Historical Society of Indiana, founded in 1831, hardly justifies its name, so far as appears from any publications. The chief History of Indiana is that by John B. Dillon, which, as originally issued in 1843, came down to 1816; but the edition of 1859 continues the record to 1856. The first three chapters are given to the French missionaries and the natives. (Field, Indian Bibliography, nos. 429, 430; Sabin, vol. v. no. 20,172.) A popular conglomerate work is The Illustrated History of Indiana, 1876, by Goodrich and Tuttle. A few local histories touch the early period, like John Law’s Colonial History of Vincennes, 1858; Wallace A. Brice’s History of Fort Wayne, 1868; H. L. Hosmer’s Early History of the Maumee Valley, Toledo, 1858; and H. S. Knapp’s History of the Maumee Valley from 1680, Toledo, 1872, which is, however, very scant on the early history.

In Illinois there is no historical association to represent the State; but the Historical Society of Chicago (begun in 1856), though suffering the loss of its collections of seventeen thousand volumes in the great fire of 1871, still survives.

The principal histories of the State touching the French occupation are Henry Brown’s History of Illinois, New York, 1844; John Reynolds’s Pioneer History of Illinois, Belleville, 1852, now become scarce; and Davidson and Stuvé’s Complete History of Illinois, 1673-1873, Springfield, 1874. The Historical Series issued by Robert Fergus pertain in large measure to Chicago, and, except J. D. Caton’s “Last of the Illinois, and Sketch of the Potawatomies,” has, so far as printed, little of interest earlier than the English occupation. H. H. Hurlbut’s Chicago Antiquities, 1881, has an account of the early discovery of the portage.

The Michigan Pioneer Society was founded in 1874, and has printed three volumes of Pioneer Collections, 1877-1880. The Houghton County Historical Society, devoting itself to the history of the region near Lake Superior,[538] dates from 1866. It has published nothing of importance. The State of Michigan secured, through General Cass, while he was the minister of the United States at Paris, transcripts of a large number of documents relating to its early history. The Historical Society of Michigan was begun in 1828, and during the few years following it printed several Annual Addresses and a volume of Transactions. Every trace of the Society had nearly vanished, when in 1857 it was revived. (Historical Magazine, i. 353.) The principal histories of the State are James H. Lanman’s History of Michigan, New York, 1839; Electra M. Sheldon’s Early History of Michigan, from the First Settlement to 1815, New York, 1856, which is largely given to an account of the Jesuit missions;[539] Charles R. Tuttle’s General History of Michigan, Detroit, 1874; James Valentine Campbell’s Outlines of the Political History of Michigan, Detroit, 1876. (Cf. Clarke’s Bibliotheca Americana, 1878, p. 92; 1883, p. 169; Sabin, Dictionary, vol. xii. p. 141.) A few of the sectional histories, like W. P. Strickland’s Old Mackinaw, Philadelphia, 1860, touch slightly the French period. A brief sketch of Mackinaw Island by Lieutenant Dwight H. Kelton, U. S. A., includes extracts from the registers of the Catholic Church at Mackinaw, and a list of the French commanders at that post during the eighteenth century.

The Historical Society of Wisconsin was founded in 1849, and reorganized in 1854. It has devoted itself to forming a large library, and has published nine volumes of Collections, etc. (Joseph Sabin in American Bibliopolist, vi. 158; Field, Indian Bibliography, no. 1,688). Mr. D. S. Durrie published a bibliography of Wisconsin in Historical Magazine, xvi. 29, and a tract on the Early Outposts of Wisconsin in 1873. A paper on the “First Page of the History of Wisconsin” is in the American Antiquarian, April, 1878. The principal histories of the State are I. A. Lapham’s Wisconsin, Milwaukee, 1846, which lightly touches the earliest period; William R. Smith’s Wisconsin (vol. i., historical; vol. ii., not published; vol. iii., documentary, translating in part the Jesuit Relations from the set in Harvard College Library), Madison, 1854; and Charles R. Tuttle’s Illustrated History of Wisconsin, Madison and Boston, 1875.

The Minnesota Historical Society was organized in 1849, and began the publication of its Annals in 1850, completing a volume in 1856. This volume was reissued in 1872 as vol. i. of its Collections, and includes papers on the origin of the name of Minnesota and the early nomenclature of the region, and papers by Mr. Neill on the French Voyageurs, the early Indian trade and traders,[540] and early notices of the Dakotas. In vol. ii. Mr. Neill has a paper on “The Early French Forts and Footprints in the Valley of the Upper Mississippi;”[541] and Mr. A. J. Hill has examined the geography of Perrot so far as it relates to Minnesota territory. In vol. iii. there is a bibliography of the State; in vol. iv., a History of St. Paul, by John Fletcher Williams, which but briefly touches the period of exploration. The State Historical Society of Minnesota lost a considerable part of its collections in the fire of March 11, 1881, which burned the State capitol,—as detailed in its Report for 1883.

The principal and sufficient account of the State’s history is Edward D. Neill’s History of Minnesota from the Earliest French Explorations, Philadelphia, 1858, which in 1883 reached an improved fifth edition, and is supplemented by his Minnesota Explorers and Pioneers, 1659-1858, published in 1881. In 1858 an edition was also issued, of one hundred copies, on large paper, illustrated with forty-five quarto steel plates, engraved from paintings chiefly by Captain Seth Eastman, U. S. Army.

The Historical Society of Iowa was founded in 1857, and began the publication of its Annals in 1863. The principal account of the State is C. R. Tuttle and D. S. Durrie’s Illustrated History of Iowa, Chicago, 1876.

There are a few more general works to be noted: John W. Monette’s History of the Discovery and Settlement of the Valley of the Mississippi, New York, 1846-1848;[542] S. P. Hildreth’s Pioneer History of the Ohio Valley, Cincinnati, 1848, which but cursorily touches the French period; James H. Perkins’s Annals of the West, Cincinnati, 1846, which brought ripe scholarship to the task at a time before the scholar could have the benefit of much information now accessible;[543] Adolphus M. Hart’s History of the Discovery of the Valley of the Mississippi, Cincinnati, 1852,—a slight sketch, as we now should deem it, but followed soon after by a more scholarly treatment in J. G. Shea’s Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley, New York, 1852, to which a sequel, Early Voyages up and down the Mississippi, was published in 1861, containing the voyages of Cavelier, Saint Cosme, Le Sueur, Gravier, and Guignas, during the last years of the century; George Gale’s Upper Mississippi, Chicago, 1867,—a topical treatment of the subject; and Rufus Blanchard’s Discovery and Conquests of the Northwest, Chicago, 1880—the latest general survey of the subject. Poole’s Index to Periodical Literature, under the names of these several States, can often be usefully consulted.

HISTORICAL SOURCES AND ATTENDANT CARTOGRAPHY.

BY THE EDITOR.

THE principal sources for the cartographical part of this study are as follows: The collection of manuscript copies[544] of maps in the French Archives which was formed by Mr. Parkman, and which he has described in his La Salle (p. 449), and which is now in Harvard College Library; a collection of manuscript and printed maps called Cartographie du Canada, formed by Henry Harrisse in Paris, and which in 1872 passed into the hands of Samuel L. M. Barlow, Esq., of New York, by whose favor the Editor has had it in his possession for study; the collection of copies made by Dr. J. G. Kohl which is now in the Library of the State Department at Washington, and which through the kind offices of Theodore F. Dwight, Esq., of that department, and by permission of the Secretary of State, have been intrusted to the Editor’s temporary care; and the collection of printed maps now in Harvard College Library, formed mainly by Professor Ebeling nearly a hundred years ago, and which came to that library, with all of Ebeling’s books, as a gift from the late Colonel Israel Thorndike, in 1818.[545]

The completest printed enumeration of maps is in the section on “Cartographie” in Harrisse’s Notes pour servir à l’histoire ... de la Nouvelle France, 1545-1700, Paris, 1872, and this has served the Editor as a convenient check-list. A special paper on “Early Maps of Ohio and the West” constitutes no. 25 of the Tracts of the Western Reserve and Northern Ohio Historical Society. It was issued in 1875, and has been published separately, and is the work of Mr. C. C. Baldwin, secretary of that Society, whose own collection of maps is described by S. D. Peet in the American Antiquarian, i. 21. See also the Transactions (1879) of the Minnesota Historical Society.

The main guide for the historical portion of this essay has been the La Salle of Parkman.[546]

There are in the Dépôt de la Marine in Paris two copies of a rough sketch on parchment, showing the Great Lakes, which were apparently made between 1640 and 1650. They have neither maker’s name nor date, but clearly indicate a state of knowledge derived from the early discovery of the Upper Lakes by way of the Ottawa, and before the southern part of Lake Huron had been explored, and found to connect with Lake Erie. The maker must have been ignorant of the knowledge, or discredited it, which Champlain possessed in 1632 when he connected Ontario and Huron. Indications of settlements at Montreal would place the date of this map after 1642; and it may have embodied the current traditions of the explorations of Brulé and Nicolet, though it omits all indications of Lake Michigan, which Nicolet had discovered. Though rude in many ways, it gives one of the earliest sketches of the Bras d’Or in Cape Breton. The channel connecting the Atlantic and the St. Lawrence, if standing for anything, must represent the Connecticut and the Chaudière. Dr. Kohl, in a marginal note on a copy of this map in his Washington Collection, while referring to the uninterrupted water-way by the Ottawa, remarks on a custom, not uncommon on the early maps, of leaving out the portages; and the same suspicion may attach to the New England water-way here given. A note on the map gives the distance as three hundred leagues from Gaspé to the extremity of Lake Ontario; two hundred more to the land of the buffaloes; two hundred additional to the region of apes and parrots; then four hundred to the Sea of New Spain; and thence fifteen or sixteen hundred more to the Indies. A legend in the neighborhood of Lake Superior confirms other mention of the early discovery of copper in that region: “In the little lake near the mountains are found pieces of copper of five and six hundred pounds’ weight.”

At a later day La Salle had learned, from some Senecas who visited his post at Lachine, of a great river, rising in their country and flowing to the sea; and, with many geographers of his day, captivated with a promised passage to India, he preferred to believe that it emptied into the Gulf of California.[547]

He was determined to track it; and gaining some money by selling his grant at Lachine, and procuring the encouragement of Talon and Courcelles, he formed an alliance for the journey with two priests of the Seminary at Montreal, Dollier de Casson and Galinée, who were about going westward on a missionary undertaking. La Salle started with them on the 6th of July, 1669, with some followers, and a party of Senecas as guides. The savages led them across Lake Ontario to a point on the southern shore nearest to their villages, which the party visited in the hope of securing other guides to the great river of which they were in search. Failing in this, they made their way to the western extremity of the lake, where they fell in with Joliet, as mentioned in the preceding chapter. La Salle now learned Joliet’s route; but he was not convinced that it opened to him the readiest way to the great river of the Indians, though the Sulpitians were resolved to take Joliet’s route north of Lake Erie. When these priests returned to Montreal, in June, 1670, they brought back little of consequence, except the data to make the earliest map which we have of the Upper Lakes, and of which a sketch is given herewith.

This map of Galinée, says Parkman,[548] was the earliest attempt after Champlain to portray the great lakes. Faillon, who gives a reproduction of this map,[549] says it is preserved in the Archives of the Marine at Paris; but Harrisse[550] could not find it there. There is a copy of it, made in 1856 from the original at Paris, in the Library of Parliament at Ottawa.[551] Faillon[552] gives much detail of the journey, for the Sulpitians were his heroes; and Talon made a report;[553] but the main source of our information is Galinée’s Journal, which is printed, with other papers appertaining, by Margry,[554] and by the Abbé Verreau.[555]

The Michigan peninsula, which Galinée had failed to comprehend, is fully brought out in the map of Lake Superior which accompanies the Jesuit Relation of 1670-1671.[556] Mr. Parkman is inclined to consider a manuscript map without title or date, but called in the annexed sketch “The Lakes and the Mississippi” (from a copy in the Parkman Collection), as showing “the earliest representation of the upper Mississippi, based perhaps on the reports of the Indians.”[557] He calls it the work of the Jesuits, whose stations are marked on it by crosses. It seems however to be posterior to the time when Joliet gave the name Colbert to the Mississippi.

What La Salle did after parting with the Sulpitians in 1669 is a question over which there has been much dispute. The absence of any definite knowledge of his movements for the next two years leaves ample room for conjecture, and Margry believes that maps which he made of his wanderings in this interval were in existence up to the middle of the last century. It is from statements regarding such maps given in a letter of an aged niece of La Salle in 1756, as well as from other data, that Margry has endeavored to place within these two years what he supposes to have been a successful attempt on La Salle’s part to reach the Great River of the West. If an anonymous paper (“Histoire de Monsieur de la Salle”) published by Margry[558] is to be believed, La Salle told the writer of it in Paris,—seemingly in 1678,—that after leaving Galinée he went to Onondaga (?), where he got guides, and descending a stream, reached the Ohio (?), and went down that river. How far? Margry thinks that he reached the Mississippi: Parkman demurs, and claims that the story will not bear out the theory that he ever reached the mouth of the Ohio; but it seems probable that he reached the rapids at Louisville, and that from this point he retraced his steps alone, his men having abandoned him to seek the Dutch and English settlements. Parkman finds enough amid the geographical confusions of this “Histoire” to think that upon the whole the paper agrees with La Salle’s memorial to Frontenac in 1677, in which he claimed to have discovered the Ohio and to have coursed it to the rapids, and that it confirms the statements which Joliet has attached to the Ohio in his maps, to the effect that it was by this stream La Salle went, “pour aller dans le Mexique.”[559]

The same “Histoire” also represents that in the following year (1671) La Salle took the course in which he had refused to follow Galinée, and entering Lake Michigan, found the Chicago portage, and descending the Illinois, reached the Mississippi. This descent Parkman is constrained to reject, mainly for the reason that from 1673 to 1678 Joliet’s claim to the discovery of the Mississippi was a notorious one, believed by Frontenac and by all others, and that there was no reason why La Salle for eight years should have concealed any prior knowledge. The discrediting of this claim is made almost, if not quite, conclusive by no mention being made of such discovery in the memorial of La Salle’s kindred to the King for compensation for his services, and by the virtual admission of La Salle’s friends of the priority of Joliet’s discovery in a memorial to Seignelay, which Margry also prints.[560]

In 1672 some Indians from the West had told Marquette at the St. Esprit mission of a great river which they had crossed. Reports of it also came about the same time to Allouez and Dablon, who were at work establishing a mission at Green Bay; and in the Relation of 1672 the hope of being able to reach this Mississippi water is expressed.

Frontenac on his arrival felt that the plan of pushing the actual possession of France beyond the lakes was the first thing to be accomplished, and Talon, as we have seen, on leaving for France recommended Joliet[561] as the man best suited to do it. Jacques Marquette joined him at Point St. Ignace. The Jesuit was eight years the senior of the fur-trader, and of a good family from the North of France.

Their course has been sketched in the preceding chapter. They seemed to have reached a conviction that the Great River flowed into the Gulf of Mexico. Their return was by the Illinois River and the Chicag portage.[562] During the four months of their absence, says Parkman, they had paddled their canoes somewhat more than two thousand five hundred miles.

While Marquette remained at the mission Joliet returned to Quebec. What Joliet contributed to the history of this discovery can be found in a letter on his map, later to be given in fac-simile; a letter dated Oct. 10, 1674, given by Harrisse;[563] the letter of Frontenac announcing the discovery, which must have been derived from Joliet,[564] and the oral accounts which Joliet gave to the writer of the “Détails sur le voyage de Louis Joliet; and a Relation de la descouverte de plusieurs pays situez au midi de la Nouvelle France, faite en 1673,” both of which are printed by Margry.[565]

Within a few years there has been produced a map which seems to have been made by Joliet immediately after his return to Montreal. This would make it the earliest map of the Mississippi based on actual knowledge, and the first of a series accredited to Joliet. It is called Nouvelle découverte de plusieurs nations dans la Nouvelle France en l’année 1673 et 1674. Gabriel Gravier first made this map known through an Étude sur une carte inconnue; la première dressée par L. Joliet en 1674, après son exploration du Mississippi auec Jacques Marquette en 1673.[566] A sketch of it, with a key, is given herewith. The tablet in the sketch marks the position of Joliet’s letter to Frontenac, of which a reduced fac-simile is also annexed.

“In this epistle,” says Mr. Neill, “Joliet mentions that he had presented a map showing the situation of the Lakes upon which there is navigation for more than 1,200 leagues from east to west, and that he had given to the great river beyond the Lakes, which he had discovered in the years 1673-1674, the designation of Buade, the family name of Frontenac.[567] He adds a glowing description of the prairies, the groves, and the forests,” and writes of the quail (cailles) in the fields and the parrot (perroquet) in the woods. He concludes his communication as follows: “By one of the large rivers which comes from the west and empties into the River Buade, one will find a route to the Red Sea” [Mer vermeille, i. e. Gulf of California].

“I saw a village which was not more than five days’ journey from a tribe which traded with the tribes of California;[568] if I had arrived two days before, I could have conversed with those who had come from thence, and had brought four hatchets as a present. You would have seen a description of these things in my Journal, if the success which had accompanied me during the voyage had not failed me a quarter of an hour before arriving at the place from which I had departed. I had escaped the dangers from savages, I had passed forty-two rapids, and was about to land with complete joy at the success of so long and difficult an enterprise, when, after all dangers seemed past, my canoe turned over. I lost two men and my box in sight of the first French settlement, which I had left almost two years before. Nothing remains to me but my life, and the wish to employ it in any service you may please.” This Report was sent to France in November, 1674.

There is in Mr. Barlow’s Collection a large map (27 × 40 inches), which is held by Dr. Shea and General Clarke to be a copy of the original Joliet Map, with the Ohio marked in by a later and less skilful hand. A sketch of it is annexed as “Joliet’s Larger Map.”

A copy of what is known as “Joliet’s Smaller Map” is also in the Barlow Collection, and from it the annexed sketch has been made. This map is called Carte de la descouverte du S^r Jolliet, ou l’on voit la communication du Fleuve St. Laurens avec les Lacs Frontenac, Erie, Lac des Hurons, et Illinois ... au bout duquel on va joindre la Rivière divine par un portage de mille pas qui tombe dans la Rivière Colbert et se descharge dans le Sein Mexique. Though evidently founded in part on the Jesuits’ map of Lake Superior, it was an improvement upon it, and was inscribed with a letter addressed to Frontenac. The Valley of the Mississippi is called Colbertie; the Ohio is marked as the course of La Salle’s route to the Gulf;[569] the Wisconsin is made the route of Joliet.

Mr. Parkman describes another map, anonymous, but “indicating a greatly increased knowledge of the country.” It marks the Ohio as a river descended by La Salle, but it does not give the Mississippi.[570] Harrisse found in the Archives of the Marine a map which he thought to be a part of the same described by Parkman, and this was made by Joliet himself later than 1674.

There is in the Parkman Collection another map ascribed to Joliet, and called in the sketch given herewith “Joliet’s carte générale,” which Parkman thinks was an early work (in the drafting, at least) of the engineer Franquelin. It is signed Johannes Ludovicus Franquelin pinxit; but it is a question what this implies. Harrisse[571] thinks that Franquelin is the author, and places it under 1681. Gravier holds it to imply simply Franquelin’s drafting, and affirms that it corresponds closely with a map signed by Joliet, which has already been mentioned as his earliest. Mr. Neill says of this map that it “is the first attempt to fix the position of the nations north of the Wisconsin and west of Lake Superior. The Wisconsin is called Miskous, perhaps intended for Miskons; and the Ohio is marked ‘Ouaboustikou.’ On the upper Mississippi are the names of the following tribes: The ‘Siou,’ around what is now called the Mille Lacs region, the original home of the Sioux of the Lakes, or Eastern Sioux; the Ihanctoua, Pintoüa, Napapatou, Ouapikouti, Chaiena, Agatomitou, Ousilloua, Alimouspigoiak. The Ihanctoua and Ouapikouti are two divisions of the Sioux, now known as Yanktons and Wahpekootays. The Chaiena were allies of the Sioux, and hunted at that time in the valley of the Red River of the North. The word in the Sioux means ‘people of another language,’ and the voyageurs called them Cheyennes.”

Mention may be made in passing of a small map within an ornamented border, and detailing the results of these explorations, which bears a Dutch title in the vignette, and another along the bottom in French, as follows: Pays et peuple decouverts en 1673 dans la partie septentrionale de l’Amerique par P. Marquette et Joliet, suivant la description qu’ils en ont faite, rectifiée sur diverses observations posterieures de nouveau mis en jour par Pierre Vander Aa à Leide.

Something now needs to be said regarding Marquette’s contribution to our knowledge of this expedition of 1673. He seems to have prepared from memory a narrative for Frontenac, which is printed in two different forms in Margry.[572] Dablon used this account in his Relation, and sent a copy of the manuscript to Paris;[573] but he seems also to have prepared another copy, which was, with the original map, confided finally to the Archives of the Collége Ste. Marie at Montreal, where Shea found it, and translated it for his Discovery of the Mississippi,[574] in 1853, giving with it a fac-simile of the map.[575]

Mr. Neill, in comparing this map with the earliest of Joliet’s, as reproduced by Gravier says: “Joliet marks the large island toward the extremity of Lake Superior known as Isle Royale; but he gives no name, and he indicates four other islands on the north shore.”

Marquette shows the large island only, but without a name. Joliet on the north shore of Lake Huron has three large islands,—one marked Kaintoton; Marquette has the same number, but without names. Parallel columns will show some other names of the two maps; the last three of each column referring to tribes between Green Bay and the Mississippi:—

Joliet’s Map.	Marquette’s Map.
1. Lac Superieur. 2. Lac des Illinois, ou Missihiganin. 3. Baye des Puans. 4. Puans. 5. Outagami. 6. Maskoutens.
07. Lac Superieur, ov De Tracy. 08. Lac des Illinois. 09. No name. 10. Pouteoutami. 11. Outagami. 12. Maskoutens.

Joliet gives the name Miskonsing to the river, and marks the portage; while Marquette gives no names. The country south of Lake Superior and west of Lake Michigan in Marquette is blank. In Joliet it is marked ‘La Frontenacie.’ West of Lake Superior in Marquette is a blank; in Joliet are several lakes and the tribe of Madouesseou. Joliet calls the Mississippi, Rivière de Buade, and Marquette names it R. de la Conception.”

The original French of the narrative as Shea found it at Montreal was printed for Mr. Lenox in 1855,[576] and bears the following title: Récit des voyages et des découvertes du P. J. Marquette en l’année 1673, et aux suivantes;[577] and the copy being defective in two leaves, this matter was supplied from the print of Thevenot, next to be mentioned.

The copy which Dablon sent to Paris was used by Thevenot, who gives it, with some curtailment, in his Recueil de voyages, published in Paris in 1681,[578] with the caption: “Voyage et découverte de quelques pays et nations de l’Amérique septentrionale par le P. Marquette et Sr. Joliet.”[579]

The Jesuits about this time made a map, which, from having been given in Thevenot as Marquette’s, passed as the work of that missionary till Shea found the genuine one in Canada. What was apparently the original of this in Thevenot is a manuscript which Harrisse[580] says was formerly in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, but cannot now be found. Mr. Parkman has a copy of it, and calls it “so crude and careless, and based on information so inexact, that it is of little interest.”[581]

As engraved in Thevenot, this map differs a little, and bears the title: “Carte de la découverte faite l’an 1673, dans l’Amérique septentrionale. Liebaux fecit.” Sparks followed this engraving in the map in his Life of Marquette, and calls it, with the knowledge then current, “the first that was ever published of the Mississippi River.”[582]

Marquette’s later history is but brief. In the autumn of the next year (1674) he started to found a mission among the Illinois; but being detained by illness near Chicago, he did not reach the Indian town of Kaskaskia till the spring of 1675. His strength was ebbing, and he started with his companions to return to St. Ignace, but had only reached a point on the easterly shore of Lake Michigan, when he died, and his companions buried him beside their temporary hut. The next year some Ottawas who had been of his flock unearthed the bones and carried them to Michillimackinac, where they were buried beneath the floor of the little mission chapel.[583]

Thirty years ago there were statements made by M. Noiseux, late vicar-general of Quebec, to the effect that Marquette was not the first priest to visit the Illinois; but the matter was set at rest by Dr. Shea.[584] A renewed interest came in 1873 with the bicentennial of the discovery. Dr. Shea delivered an address on the occasion of the celebration,[585] and he also made an Address on the same theme before the Missouri Historical Society, July 19, 1878.[586] At the Laval University in Quebec the anniversary was also observed on the 17th of June, 1873, when a discourse was delivered by the Abbé Verreau.[587]

New complications were now forming. The new governor, Frontenac, was needy in purse, expedient in devices, and on terms of confidence with a man destined to gain a name in this western discovery.[588] This was La Salle. Parkman pictures him with having a certain robust ambition to conquer the great valley for France and himself, and to outdo the Jesuits. Shea sees in him little of the hero, and few traces of a powerful purpose.[589] Whatever his character, he was soon embarked with Frontenac on a far-reaching scheme. It has been explained in the preceding chapter how the erection of a fort had been begun by Frontenac near the present town of Kingston on Lake Ontario. By means of such a post he hoped to intercept the trafficking of the Dutch and English, and turn an uninterrupted peltry trade to the French. The Jesuits at least neglected the scheme, but neither Frontenac nor La Salle cared much for them.[590] Fort Frontenac was the first stage in La Salle’s westward progress, and he was politic enough to espouse the Governor’s side in all things when disputes occasionally ran high. His becoming the proprietor of the seigniory, which included the new fort, meant the exclusion of others from the trade in furs, and such exclusion made enemies of the merchants. It meant also colonization and settlements; and that interfered with the labors of the Jesuits among the savages, and made them look to the great western valley, of which so much had been said; but La Salle was looking there too.[591]

In the first place he had strengthened his fort. He had pulled down the wooden structure, and built another of stones and palisades, of which a plan is preserved to us. He had drawn communities of French and natives about him, and maintained a mission, with which Louis Hennepin was connected. We have seen how in the autumn of 1677[592] he went once more to France, securing the right of seigniory over other posts as he might establish them south and west during the next five years. This was by a patent dated at St. Germain-en-Laye, May 12, 1678.[593] With dreams of Mexico and of a clime sunnier than that of Canada, La Salle returned to Quebec to make new leagues with the merchants, and to listen to Hennepin, who had come down from Fort Frontenac to meet him.[594] Mr. Neill (in the previous chapter) has followed his fortunes from this point, and we have seen him laying the keel of a vessel above the cataract.[595]

While this was going on La Salle returned below the Falls, and having begun two blockhouses on the site of the later Fort Niagara,[596] proceeded to Fort Frontenac. By spring Tonty had the “Griffin” ready for launching. She was of forty-five or fifty tons, and when she had her equipment on board, five cannon looked from her port-holes. The builders made all ready for a voyage in her, but grew weary in waiting for La Salle, who did not return till August, when he brought with him Membré the priest, whose Journal we are to depend on later, and the vessel departed on the voyage which Mr. Neill has sketched.[597]

After the “Griffin” had departed homeward from this region, La Salle and his canoes followed up the western shores of the lake, while Tonty and another party took the eastern. The two finally met at the Miamis, or St. Joseph River, near the southeastern corner of Lake Michigan.

They now together went up the St. Joseph, and crossing the portage[598] launched their canoes on the Kankakee, an upper tributary of the Illinois River, and passed on to the great town of the tribe of that name, where Marquette had been before them, near the present town of Utica.[599] They found the place deserted, for the people were on their winter hunt. They discovered, however, pits of corn, and got much-needed food. Passing on, a little distance below Peoria Lake they came upon some inhabited wigwams. Among these people La Salle learned how his enemies in Canada were inciting them to thwart his progress; and there were those under this incitement who pictured so vividly the terrors of the southern regions, that several of La Salle’s men deserted.

In January (1680) La Salle began a fortified camp near at hand, and called it Fort Crèvecœur,[600] and soon after he was at work building another vessel of forty tons. He also sent off Michel Accau, or Accault, and Hennepin on the expedition, of which some account is given by Mr. Neill, and also by the Editor in a subsequent note. Leaving Tonty in command of the fort, La Salle, in March, started to return to Fort Frontenac, his object being to get equipments for his vessel; for he had by this time made up his mind that nothing more would be seen of the “Griffin” and her return lading of anchors and supplies. For sixty-five days he coursed a wild country and braved floods. He made, however, the passage of a thousand miles in safety to Fort Frontenac, only to become aware of the disastrous state of his affairs,—the loss of supplies.[601] A little later the same sort of news followed him from Tonty, whose men had mutinied and scattered. His first thought was to succor Tonty and the faithful few who remained with him; and accordingly he started again for the Illinois country, which he found desolate and terrible with the devastations of the Iroquois. He passed the ruins of Crèvecœur, and went even to the mouth of the Illinois; and under these distressing circumstances he saw the Mississippi for the first time. Then he retraced his way, and was once again at Fort Miami. Not a sign had been seen of Tonty, who had escaped from the feud of the Iroquois and Illinois, not knowing which side to trust, and had made his way down the western side of Lake Michigan toward Green Bay.

La Salle meanwhile at Fort Miami was making new plans and resolutions. He had an idea of banding together under his leadership all the western tribes, and by this means to keep the Iroquois in check while he perfected his explorations southward. So in the spring (1681) he returned to the Illinois country to try to form the league; and while there first heard from some wandering Outagamies of the safe arrival of Tonty at Green Bay, and of the passage through that region of Hennepin eastward. Among the Illinois and on the St. Joseph he was listened to, and everything promised well for his intended league. In May he went to Michillimackinac, where he found Tonty and Membré, and with them he proceeded to Fort Frontenac. Here once more his address got him new supplies, and in the autumn (1681) he was again on his westward way. In the latter part of December, with a company of fifty-four souls,—French and savage, including some squaws,—he crossed the Chicago portage; and sledding and floating down the Illinois, on the 6th of February he and his companions glided out upon the Mississippi among cakes of swimming ice. On they went.[602] Stopping at one of the Chickasaw bluffs, they built a small stockade and called it after Prudhomme, who was left in charge of it. Again they stopped for a conference of three days with a band of Indians near the mouth of the Arkansas, where, on the 14th of March, in due form, La Salle took possession of the neighboring country in the name of his King.[603] On still they went, stopping at various villages and towns, securing a welcome by the peace-pipe, and erecting crosses bearing the arms of France in the open squares of the Indian settlements. On the 6th of April La Salle divided his party into three, and each took one of the three arms which led to the Gulf. On the 9th they reunited, and erecting a column just within one of the mouths of the river, La Salle formally took possession of the great Mississippi basin in the name of the French monarch, whom he commemorated in applying the name of Louisiana to the valley.[604]

Up the stream their canoes were now turned. On reaching Fort Prudhomme La Salle was prostrated with a fever. Here he stayed, nursed by Membré,[605] while Tonty went on to carry the news of their success to Michillimackinac, whence to despatch messengers to the lower settlements. At St. Ignace La Salle joined his lieutenant.

For the events of these two years we have two main sources of information. First, the “Relation de la descouverte de l’embouchure de la Rivière Mississipi dans le Golfe de Mexique, faite par le Sieur de la Salle, l’année passée, 1682,” which was first published by Thomassy;[606] the original is preserved in the Archives Scientifiques de la Marine, and though written in the third person it is held to constitute La Salle’s Official Report, though perhaps written for him by Membré.[607] Second, the narrative ascribed to Membré which is printed in Le Clercq’s Établissement de la Foi, ii. 214, and which seems to be based on the document already named.[608]

In addition to this there is the paper of Nicolas de la Salle (no kinsman of the explorer), who wrote for Iberville’s guidance, in 1699, his Récit de la découverte que M. de la Salle a faite de la Rivière de Mississipi en 1682.[609]

La Salle’s future plans were now clearly fixed in his own mind, which were to reach from Europe the Mississippi by sea, and to make it the avenue of approach to the destined colonies, which he now sent Tonty to establish on the Illinois. With as little delay as possible, he went himself to join his deputy. In December they selected the level summit of the scarped rock (Starved Rock), on the river near the great Illinois town, and there intrenched themselves, calling their fort “St. Louis.” Around it were the villages and lodges of near twenty thousand savages, including, it is estimated, about four thousand warriors. To this projected colony La Salle was under the necessity of trying to bring his supplies from Canada till the route by the Gulf could be secured,—that Canada in which he had many enemies, and whose new governor, De la Barre, was hostile to him, writing letters of disparagement respecting him to the Court in Paris,[610] and seizing his seigniory at Fort Frontenac on shallow pretexts. Thwarted in all efforts for succor from below, La Salle left Tonty in charge of the new fort,[611] and started for Quebec, meeting on the way an officer sent to supersede him in command. From Quebec La Salle sailed for France.[612]

At this time the young French engineer, Franquelin, was in Quebec making record as best he could, from such information as reached headquarters, of the progress of the various discoverers. There are maps of his as early as 1679 and 1681 which are enumerated by Harrisse.[613] Parkman is also inclined to ascribe to Franquelin a map with neither date nor author, but of superior skill in drafting, which is called Carte de l’Amérique septentrionale et partie de la meridionale ... avec les nouvelles decouvertes de la Rivière Mississipi, ou Colbert. It records an event of 1679 in a legend, and omits the lower Mississippi; which would indicate that the record was made before the results of La Salle’s explorations were known.[614] A sketch of the Map of 1682 is given herewith from a copy in the Barlow Collection.

From La Salle, on his arrival in Quebec late in 1683, Franquelin undoubtedly got new and trustworthy information of that explorer’s expedition down the Mississippi; and this he embodied in what is usually known as Franquelin’s Great Map of 1684. It professed to have been made in Paris, and as Franquelin was not in that city in 1684, Harrisse contends that it was the work of De la Croix upon Franquelin’s material. It is called Carte de la Louisiane, ou des voyages du Sieur de la Salle et des pays qu’il a découverts depuis la Nouvelle-France jusqu’au Golfe de Mexique, les années 1679-80-81 et 82, par Jean-Baptiste Louis Franquelin, l’an 1684, Paris. It was formerly in the Archives du Dépôt de la Marine; but Harrisse[615] reports it as missing from that repository, and describes it from the accounts given by Parkman and by Thomassy.[616] A manuscript copy of this map was made for Mr. Parkman, which is now in Harvard College Library, and from this copy another copy was made in 1856, which is now in the Library of Parliament at Ottawa. Mr. Parkman’s copy has been used in the annexed sketch.

Harrisse says that De la Croix made the Carte de l’Amérique septent^le,[617] which also purports to be Franquelin’s, and shows the observations of “douze années.” Harrisse places this map also in 1684, for the reason that a third map by Franquelin, Carte de la Amérique septentrionale,[618] is dated 1688, and claims to embody the observations of “plus de 16 années,” giving names and legends not in the earlier ones.[619]

“It indicates,” says Mr. Neill, “the post which had been recently established by Du Lhut near the lower extremity of Lake Huron, and gives the present name, Manitoulin, to the large island of Lake Huron, and marks on the west shore a Baye de Saginnam. It places the mission on the south shore of Sault Ste. Marie, and names the rivers and points on the north and south shores of Lake Superior. A stream near the present northern boundary-line of the United States is called ‘R. des Grossillers,’ after the first explorer of Minnesota. The river entering Lake Superior at the present Fort William is ‘Kamanistigouian, ou Les Trois Rivières.’ Isle Royale is called ‘Minong;’ upon the northeast part of ‘Lac Alepimigon’ is Du Lhut’s post, ‘Fort La Tourette.’ At the portage between the sources of the St. Croix and a stream entering Lake Superior is ‘Fort St. Croix,’ which Bellin says was afterward abandoned. The St. Croix River is called ‘R. de la Magdelaine.’ At the lower extremity of Lake Pepin is ‘Fort St. Antoine;’ and the site of the present town of Prairie du Chien, near the mouth of the Wisconsin, appears as ‘Fort St. Nicolas,’ named in compliment to the baptismal name of Perrot. The Minnesota River is marked ‘Les Mascoutens Nadouescioux,’ indicating that it ran through the country of the Prairie Sioux. After Pierre Le Sueur had explored this river, De l’Isle, in his map of 1703, gives it the name of St. Pierre, as it is supposed in compliment to Le Sueur.”

A map of the next year (1689), also in the Archives, claims to be based on “Mémoires et relations qu’il a eu soin de recueillir pendant pres de 17 années.” Harrisse thinks this also a copy by De la Croix, and notes others of the probable dates of 1692 and 1699 respectively.[620] Harrisse also records[621] a manuscript map, “composée, corrigée, et augmentée sur les journaux, mémoires, et observations les plus justes qui en ont été f^tes. en l’année 1685 et 1686,” which is also preserved in the French Archives; and a Carte Gēralle du voyage que Mons^r De Meulles ... a fait; ... commencé le 9^e Novembre et finy le 6^e Juillet, 1686,[622] which was dedicated to Seignelay in the same year.

Parkman[623] says of the maps of Franquelin subsequent to his Great Map of 1684, that they all have more or less of its features, but that the 1684 map surpasses them all in interest and completeness.

It is convenient to complete here this enumeration of the maps of the western lakes and the Mississippi basin before we turn to La Salle’s explorations from the Gulf side.

One of the earliest of the printed maps is that called Partie occidentale du Canada, ou de la Nouvelle France, ou sont les nations des Ilinois, de Tracy, les Iroquois, et plusieurs autres peuples, avec la Louisiane nouvellement découverte, ... par le P. Coronelli, corrigée et augmentée par le Sr. Tillemon à Paris, 1688, of which the annexed sketch follows a copy in Harvard College Library. This was united with the Partie orientale in 1689 in a single smaller map.[624]

 

The routes of several of the early explorers, like those of Du Lhut, Joliet, and Marquette (1672), and La Salle (1679-1680), are laid down on a manuscript map, Carte des parties les plus occidentales du Canada, par le Père Pierre Raffeix, S. J.,[625] which is preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale, and of which a sketch as “Raffeix, 1688,” is given on the next page.

A map of Lakes Ontario and Erie, by the Père Raffeix, is in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris;[626] and from a copy in the Kohl Collection at Washington the sketch on page 234 is taken. It is called, Le Lac Ontario avec les lieux circonvoisins et particulierment les cinq Nations Iroquoises.

Another map, thought to be the work of Raudin, Frontenac’s engineer,[627] should be found in the Archives of the Marine, but according to Harrisse it is not there.[628] The Barlow Collection, however, has a map which Harrisse believes to be the lost original; a sketch of the western part is given herewith.[629] It also gives the eastern seaboard with approximate accuracy, but represents Lake Champlain as lying along the headwaters of the Connecticut and the Hudson. Lake Erie is a squarish oblong, larger than Ontario, and of a shape rarely found in these early maps. In the upper lakes it resembles the map of 1672-1673, which Harrisse[630] also found missing from the Bibliothèque Nationale.

The maps which pertain to Hennepin and Lahontan are separately treated on a later page.

La Salle once in Paris (1684) succeeded in obtaining an interview with the King, to whom he then and subsequently in Memorials,[631] which have been saved to us, presented an ambitious scheme of fortifying the Mississippi near its mouths, and of subjugating the neighboring Spanish colonies, of whose propinquity he had very confused notions, as Franquelin’s map showed.

Peñalosa was at the same time pressing on the Court a plan for establishing a French colony at the mouth of the Rio Bravo. La Salle’s personal address, too, turned the scales against La Barre.

Accordingly, La Forest, the rejected commander of Fort Frontenac, was sent back to Canada with letters from the King commanding the Governor to make restitution to La Salle’s lieutenant both of Fort Frontenac and of Fort St. Louis. La Salle’s shining promises so affected Louis, that the King gave him more vessels than he asked for; and of these one, the “Joly,” carried thirty-six guns, and another six.[632] Among his company were his brother Cavelier and two other Sulpitian priests, and three Recollects, Membré, Douay, and Le Clercq.

A captain of the royal navy, Beaujeu, was detailed to navigate the “Joly,” but under the direction of La Salle, who was to be supreme. La Salle’s distrust and vacillation, and Beaujeu’s jealousy and assumptions boded no good, and a dozen warm quarrels between them were patched up before they got to sea.[633]

There was not a little in all this to point to a state of mental unsoundness in La Salle. At a late day Joutel, a fellow-townsman of La Salle, destined to become the expedition’s historian, joined the fleet at Rochelle, and on the 24th of July (1684) it sailed, only to put back, four days later, to repair a broken bowsprit of the “Joly.” Once again they put to sea.

Everything still went wrong. The leaders chafed and quarrelled as on land.[634] The Spaniards captured their smallest vessel.[635] At Santo Domingo the Governor of the island and his officers joined in the quarrel on the side of La Salle, who now fell prostrate with disease. When he recovered he set sail again with his three remaining ships on the 25th of November, coasted the southern shore of Cuba, and on New Year’s Day (1685) sighted land somewhere near the River Sabine. He supposed himself east of the Mississippi mouths, when in fact he was far to the west of them. He knew their latitude, for he had taken the sun when there on his canoe voyage in 1682; but he had at that time no means of ascertaining their longitude. The “Joly” next disappeared in a fog, and La Salle waited for her four or five days, but in vain. So he sailed on farther till he found the coast trending southerly, when he turned, and shortly after met the “Joly.” Passages of crimination and recrimination between the leaders of course followed.[636] La Salle all the while was trying to make out that the numerous lagoons along the coast were somehow connected with the mouths of the Mississippi, while Beaujeu, vexed at the confusion and indecision of La Salle’s mind, did little to make matters clearer. They were in reality at Matagorda Bay. Trying to make an anchorage within, one of the vessels struck a reef and became a total wreck, and only a small part of her cargo was saved.[637] La Salle suspected it was done to embarrass him; and landing his men, he barricaded himself on the unhealthy ground, amid a confusion of camp equipage, including what was saved from the wreck. A swarm of squalid savages looked on, and saw a half-dozen of the Frenchmen buried daily. The Indians contrived to pilfer some blankets, and when a force was sent to punish them they killed several of the French. Beaujeu offered some good advice, but La Salle rejected it; and finally, on the 12th of March the “Joly” sailed, and La Salle was left with his forlorn colony.[638] Beaujeu steered, as he thought, for the Baye du St. Esprit (Mobile Bay [?]); but his belief that he was leaving the mouths of the Mississippi made him miss that harbor, and after various adventures he bore away for France, and reached Rochelle about the 1st of July. With him returned the engineer, Minet, who made on the voyage a map of the mouths of the Mississippi doubly interpreted,—one sketch being based on the Franquelin map of 1684, as La Salle had found it in 1682; and the other conformed to their recent observations about Matagorda, into whose lagoons he made this great river discharge.[639]

It soon dawned upon La Salle that he was not at the Mississippi delta; and it was imperative that he should establish a base for future movements. So he projected a settlement on the Lavaca River, which flowed into the head of the bay; and thither all went, and essayed the rough beginnings of a post, which he called Fort St. Louis.[640] He was also constrained to lay out a graveyard, which received its tenants rapidly. As soon as housing and stockades were finished, La Salle, on the last day of October (1685), leaving Joutel in command, started with fifty men to search for the Mississippi.

The first tidings Joutel got of his absent chief was in January (1686), when a straggler from La Salle’s party appeared, and told a woeful story of his mishaps. By the end of March La Salle himself returned with some of his companions; others he had left in a palisaded fort which he had built on a great river somewhere away. While on his return he detached some of his men to find his little frigate, the “Belle,” which he had left at a certain place on the coast. These men also soon appeared, but they brought no tidings of the vessel. The loss of her and of what she had on board made matters very desperate, and La Salle determined on another expedition, this time to the Illinois country and to Canada, whence he could send word to France for succor. On the 22d of April they started,—La Salle, his brother Cavelier, the Friar Douay, and a score or so others.

Joutel was still left in command; and a few days later the appearance of six men, who alone had been saved from the wreck of the “Belle,” and reached the fort, confirmed the worst fears of that vessel’s fate. Meanwhile La Salle was experiencing dangers and evils of all kinds,—the desertion and death of his men, and delays by sickness, and the spending of ammunition. Once again there was nothing for him to do but to return to Joutel, and so with eight out of his twenty men he came back to the fort. The colony had dwindled from one hundred and eighty to forty-five souls, and another attempt to secure succor was imperative. So in January (1687) a new cheerless party set out, Joutel this time accompanying La Salle; and with the rest were Duhaut, a sinister man, and Liotot the surgeon. For two months it was the same story of suffering on the march and of danger in the camp. Then quarrels ensued; and the murder of La Salle’s nephew and two others who were devoted to him compelled the assassins to save themselves by killing La Salle himself; and from an ambuscade Duhaut and Liotot shot their chief. The party now succumbed to the rule of Duhaut. They ranged aimlessly among the Indians for a while, and fell in with some deserters of La Salle’s former expedition now living among the savages. One of these conspired with Hiens, one of those privy to La Salle’s death, and killed the assassins Duhaut and Liotot. Joutel with the few who were left now parted amicably with Hiens and the savage Frenchmen, and pushed their way to find the Great River. At a point on the Arkansas not far from its confluence with the Mississippi, they were rejoiced to find the abode of two of Tonty’s men. This sturdy adherent of La Salle’s fortunes had been reinstated, as we have seen, by the King’s order, in the command of the fortified rock on the Illinois, and had in due time, after the return of Beaujeu to Rochelle, got the news of La Salle’s landing on the Gulf. In February, 1686, he had started down the river with a band of French and Indians to join his old commander. He reached the Gulf,[641] but of course failed to find La Salle; and returning, had left several men in the villages of the Arkansas, of whom Couture and another now welcomed Joutel and his weary companions. After some delay the wanderers floated their wooden canoe down the Arkansas, and then began their weary journey up the Great River, and by the middle of September they reached the Fort St. Louis of the Illinois. They found Tonty absent, and Bellefontaine in command. They foolishly thought to increase their welcome by presenting themselves as the forerunners of La Salle, who was on the way,—tidings which kept all in good spirits except the Jesuit Allouez, who happened to be in the fort, and was ill, for he was conscious of his machinations against La Salle, and dreaded to encounter him.[642] Cavelier and Joutel soon started for the Chicago portage. A storm on the lake impeded them subsequently, and they came back to the fort to find Tonty returned from Denonville’s campaign against the Senecas.[643] The same deceit regarding La Salle’s fate was practised on Tonty, and he gave them money and supplies as to La Salle’s representatives, only to learn a few months later, when Couture came up from the Arkansas, of La Salle’s murder. The wanderers, however, had now passed on, had reached Quebec in safety, still concealing what they knew, and not disclosing it till they reached France; and even in France there is a suspicion that Cavelier held his peace till he had secured some property against the seizure of La Salle’s creditors. Why Joutel connived at the deception is less comprehensible, for otherwise he bears a fair name. No representations of his, however, could induce the King to send succor to the hapless colony; and all the result, so far as known, of the tardy acknowledgment of La Salle’s death was an order sent to Canada for the arrest of his murderers.

The story which Couture told to Tonty in September inspired that hero with a determination to try to rescue La Salle’s colony on the Gulf. So in December he left his fortified rock, with five Frenchmen and three others. Late in March he was on the Red River, where all but two of his companions deserted him. He was himself finally, by the loss of his ammunition, compelled to turn back, but not till he had learned of the probable death of Heins.[644] In September he reached his fort on the Illinois; and here, with La Forest, he continued to live, holding the seigniory jointly under a royal patent, and trading in furs, till 1702, when the establishment was broken up.[645] Tonty now joined D’Iberville in Louisiana, and of his subsequent years nothing is known. The French again occupied his rocky fastness; but when Charlevoix saw it, in 1721, it was only a ruin.

The fate of the Texan colony is soon told. The Spaniards who had searched for it by sea had always missed it, though they had found the wrecked vessels.[646] A Frenchman, probably a deserter from La Salle, fell into the Spaniards’ hands in New Leon. From him they learned its position, and despatched under the Frenchman’s guidance a force to capture it. They found the fort deserted, and three dead bodies a little distance off. From the Indians they learned of two Frenchmen who were living with a distant tribe. They sent for them under a pledge of good treatment; and when they came, they proved to be L’Archevêque, one of Duhaut’s accomplices, and one of the stray deserters whom Joutel had discovered after the murder. They told a story of ravages from the small-pox and of slaughter by the savages. A few of the colonists had been saved by the Indian women; but these were subsequently given up to the Spaniards, and they added their testimony to the sad and ignominious end of the colony.

It is necessary to define the historical sources regarding this hapless Texan expedition, about the purpose of which there have been some diverse views lately expressed. It is clear that under cover of a grand plan of Spanish conquest, La Salle had dazed the imagination of the King in memorials,[647] which may possibly have been only meant to induce the royal espousal of his more personal schemes. Shea contends that La Salle’s real object was not to settle in Louisiana, but to conquer Santa Barbara and the mining regions in Mexico, and to pave the way for Peñalosa’s expedition.[648]

For the broader relations of the expedition to the earlier explorations of 1682, we must go to a source of the first importance preserved in the Archives of the Marine. It is entitled Mémoire envoyé en 1693 sur la découverte du Mississipi et des nations voisines par le Sieur de la Salle, en 1678, et depuis sa mort par le Sieur de Tonty, and is printed by Margry;[649] and Parkman calls it excellent authority. Out of this and an earlier paper, written in Quebec in 1684,[650] a book, disowned by Tonty, as Charlevoix tells us, was in part fabricated, and appeared at Paris in 1697 under the title of Dernières découvertes dans l’Amérique septentrionale de M. de la Salle, mises au jour par M. le Chevalier Tonti, gouverneur du Fort St. Louis, aux Islinois.[651] Parkman[652] calls it “a compilation full of errors,” and does not rely upon it. Shea says of it that, “although repudiated by Tonti, it must have been based on papers of his.” It has been held apocryphal by Iberville and Margry; but Falconer, La Harpe, Boimare, and Gravier put trust in it.

It is thought that a Journal by Joutel was written in part to counteract the statements of the Dernières découvertes. This Joutel paper was given first in full by Margry,[653] and Parkman[654] says of it that it seems to be “the work of an honest and intelligent man.”[655] It was printed in Paris in 1713, but abridged and changed in a way which Joutel complained of, and bore the title, Journal historique du dernier voyage que feu M. de la Salle fit dans le Golfe du Mexique, pour trouver l’embouchure du Mississipi. Par M. Joutel.[656]

To these there are various supplemental narratives, with their interest centring in the death of La Salle.[657] Joutel gives an account of the scene as he learned it at the time.[658] Tonty’s account was at second hand. Douay saw the deed, and what he reported is given in Le Clercq’s Établissement de la Foi.[659] A document in the Archives of the Marine—Relation de la mort du Sr. de la Salle, suivant le rapport d’un nommé Couture, à qui M. Cavelier l’apprit en passant au pays des Akansa—is given by Margry;[660] and Harrisse thinks that it merits little confidence.

Cavelier is known to have made a report to Seignelay; and his rough draft of this was recovered in 1854 by Parkman,[661] who calls it “confused and unsatisfactory in its statements, and all the latter part has been lost,” the fragment closing several weeks before the death of his brother.[662]

The character of Beaujeu has certainly been put in a more favorable light by the publication of Margry, and the old belief in his treachery has been somewhat modified.[663]

The Spanish account of the fate of the colony is translated from Barcia’s Ensayo cronologico de la Florida,[664] in Shea’s Discovery of the Mississippi;[665] and Margry[666] adds to our knowledge, as does Buckingham Smith in his Coleccion.[667]

It remains now to speak of the Collections which have been formed, and the theories regarding these Western explorations which have been maintained, by M. Pierre Margry, who has occupied till within a few years the office of archivist of the Marine and Colonies in Paris, having been for a long period assistant and principal. Margry may be said to have discovered what that department contained in manuscripts relating to the explorations of the Mississippi Valley and River, particularly as regards La Salle’s agency. On more than one occasion he has done good service in helping to enrich the archives of New York[668] and Canada with copies of documents known to him,—so far, apparently, as they did not interfere with his own projects of publication. His position created relations for him with other departments of the French Government, and his eager discernment found an abundance of manuscript treasures even in private hands. These he assiduously gathered, and on a few occasions he published papers[669] which seemed to indicate more than he chose to disclose explicitly; for his fellow-students were not quite satisfied, and longed for the documents which had yielded so much. As the guardian of the public archives, he was by office the agent and servant of the public; but other investigators, it is feared, failed, through obstacles thrown in their way, to profit as they might by what that office contained. There is in the Sparks Collection of Manuscripts in Harvard College Library a volume of copies of such documents as could be found in the Paris Archives which that historian intended to use in another edition of his Life of La Salle. While Mr. Sparks was regretting that not a single document or letter in the hand of the great explorer had come down to us, enough to fill a large volume was immured in these Paris Archives. At a later day Mr. Parkman, in turn, failed of access to documents which were of the first importance to him, and he was obliged to make the best use he could of what it was possible to obtain. Environed by these disadvantages Mr. Parkman published, in 1869, his Discovery of the Great West. In his Preface, speaking of the obscurity which had enshrouded the whole subject, he referred to the “indefatigable research of M. Pierre Margry, Assistant-Custodian of the Archives of the Marine and Colonies at Paris, whose labors as an investigator of the maritime and colonial history of France can be appreciated only by those who have seen their results.”

Gravier about the same time referred to the twenty years of study which had made M. Margry the most learned of students of La Salle’s history.

It was evident that investigators could not profit by this accumulation of material, unless M. Margry’s hopes of publication were realized. He refused offers to purchase. In conjunction with M. Harrisse, an effort was made by him in 1870-1871 to enlist the aid of the United States Congress; but a vote which passed the Senate failed in the House. The great fire at Boston in 1872 stayed the progress which, under Mr. Parkman’s instigation, had been made to insure a private publication. At last, by Mr. Parkman’s assiduous labors in the East, and by those of Colonel Whittlesey, Mr. O. H. Marshall, and others in the West, and with the active sympathy of the Hon. George F. Hoar, a bill was passed Congress in 1873, making a subscription for five hundred copies of the intended work.[670]

With this guaranty M. Margry put to press the series of volumes entitled Mémoires et documents pour servir à l’histoire des origines Françaises de pays d’outre-mer: découvertes et établissements des Français dans l’ouest et dans le sud d’Amérique septentrionale. The first volume appeared in 1876. It contained an Introduction by M. Margry, and was prefixed by a very questionable likeness of La Salle,—the picture (of which nothing was said by the editor) having no better foundation than the improbable figure of the explorer in a copperplate, published some years after his death, representing the scene of his murder, and of which a fac-simile is annexed.[671] Of the intended volumes, three are devoted to La Salle, and appeared between 1876 and 1878: vol. i., Voyages des Français sur les grands lacs, et découvertes de l’Ohio et du Mississippi, 1614-1684; vol. ii., Lettres de La Salle, et correspondance relative à ses entreprises, 1678-1685 (these include letters also preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale); vol. iii., Recherche des bouches du Mississipi et voyage à travers le continent depuis les côtes du Texas jusqu’à Québec.

The later volumes (the Editor has seen in Mr. Parkman’s hands the proofs of vols. iv. and v., and there is to be one more) pertain to Iberville and the following century; but a volume of the early cartography is promised as a completion of the publication. On the issue of these three volumes Mr. Parkman in considerable part rewrote his Discovery of the Great West, and republished it in 1879 as La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West. In his Preface he speaks of the collection of documents in Margry’s keeping “to which he had not succeeded in gaining access,” and which, besides the papers in his official charge, included others added by him from other public archives and from private collections in France. “In the course of my inquiries,” says Mr. Parkman, “I owed much to [M. Margry’s] friendly aid; but his collections as a whole remained inaccessible, since he naturally wished to be the first to make known the results of his labors.”

It was fortunate that in regard to one point only this deprivation had led Mr. Parkman astray in his earlier edition; and that was upon La Salle’s failure to find the mouth of the Mississippi in 1684, and the conduct therewith of Beaujeu. Mr. Parkman has testified to the authenticity of the La Salle letters in the North American Review, December, 1877, where (p. 428) he says: “The contents of these letters were in good measure known through a long narrative compiled from them by one of the writer’s friends, who took excellent care to put nothing into it which could compromise him. All personalities are suppressed. These letters of La Salle have never been used by any historical writer.” Margry’s publication has been reviewed by J. Thoulet in the Bulletin de la Société de Géographie, November and December, 1880, where a modern map enables the reader to track the explorer’s course. A sketch of this map is given on an earlier page.

The severest criticism of Margry’s publication has come from Dr. Shea, in a tract entitled The Bursting of Pierre Margry’s La Salle Bubble, New York, 1879,—a paper which first appeared in the New York Freeman’s Journal. Margry is judged by his critic to have unwarrantably extended the collection by repeating what had already elsewhere been printed, sometimes at greater length.[672] The “bubble” in question is the view long entertained by Margry that La Salle was the real discoverer of the Mississippi, and which he has set forth at different times in the following places:—

1. “Les Normands dans les vallées de l’Ohio et du Mississippi,” in the Journal general de l’instruction publique, July-September, 1862, placing the event in 1670-1671.

2. Revue maritime et colonial, Paris (1872), xxxiii. 555.

3. La priorité de La Salle sur le Mississipi, Paris, 1873,—a pamphlet.

4. The preface to his Découvertes, etc., 1876.

5. A letter in the American Antiquarian (Chicago, 1880), ii. 206, which was addressed to the Wisconsin Historical Society (Collections, ix. 108), and which first appeared in J. D. Butler’s translation in the State Journal, Madison, Wisconsin, July 30, 1879.

Margry, who has wavered somewhat, first claimed that La Salle reached the Mississippi by the Ohio in 1670; and later he has contended for the route by the Illinois in 1671. He bases his claim upon four grounds:—

First, upon a Récit d’un ami de l’Abbé de Galinée, 1666-1678 (printed in the Découvertes, etc., i. 342, 378),[673] which is without date, but which Margry holds to be the work of Abbé Renaudot, derived from La Salle in Paris in 1678, wherein it is stated that La Salle, after parting with Dollier and Galinée, made a first expedition to the Ohio, and a second by the Illinois to the Mississippi.

Second, upon a letter of La Salle’s niece, dated 1756 (i. 379), which affirms that the writer of it possessed maps which had belonged to La Salle in 1676, and that such maps showed that previous to that date he had made two voyages of discovery, and that upon these maps the Colbert (Mississippi) is put down.

Third, upon a letter of Frontenac in 1677 to Colbert (i. 324), which places, as is alleged, the voyage of Joliet after that of La Salle; but at the same time (ii. 285) he prints a paper of La Salle virtually admitting Joliet’s priority.

Fourth, upon the general antagonism between the Jesuits, who espoused Joliet’s claim, and the merchants, who were, with La Salle, the adherents of the Sulpitians and Recollects.

Sides have been taken among scholars in regard to the irrefragability of these evidences, but with a great preponderance of testimony against their validity.

The principal supporter of Margry’s view (though Henri Martin has adopted it) has been Gabriel Gravier in the following publications:—

1. Découvertes et établissements de la Cavelier de la Salle de Rouen dans l’Amérique du nord, Paris, 1870.

2. Cavelier de la Salle de Rouen, Paris, 1871, p. 23. This work is in good part a commentary on Parkman, to whom it is dedicated.

3. “La route du Mississipi,” in the Compte rendu, Congrès des Américanistes, Nancy, 1878, placing it in 1666.

4. In Magazine of American History, viii. 305 (May, 1882).

Views in support of the prior discovery of Joliet and Marquette, and opposed to the claim for La Salle, are given in the following places, without enumerating Charlevoix, Sparks, and the other upholders of the Joliet discovery, before Margry’s theory was advanced:—

1. Tailhan, as editor of Perrot’s Sauvages, Paris, 1864, p. 279.

2. Verreau, Voyage de MM. Dollier et Galinée, p. 59.

3. Parkman, La Salle.

4. Faillon, in his Colonie Française en Canada, iii. 312; while at the same time he testifies to Margry’s labors in vol i. p. 24.

5. Harrisse, Notes, etc., sur la Nouvelle France, 1872, p. 125, where he reviews the controversy; and again in the Revue maritime et coloniale (1872), xxxii. 642.

6. J. Brucker, Jacques Marquette et la découverte de la vallée du Mississipi, Lyons, 1880, taken from Les études réligieuses, vol. iv.

7. H. H. Hurlbut, in Magazine of American History, September, 1882.

8. John G. Shea, in the Wisconsin Historical Society’s Collections, vii. 111; and in the Bursting of the La Salle Bubble, already referred to. In his edition of Le Clercq, ii. 89, he speaks of the theory as “utterly absurd.”

AND HIS REAL OR DISPUTED DISCOVERIES.

BY THE EDITOR.

THE life of this Recollect missionary is derived in its particulars mainly from his own writings; and the details had never been set forth in an orderly way till Dr. J. G. Shea in 1880 prefixed to a new translation of Hennepin’s first book a satisfactory sketch. He seems to have been born in Hainault, though precisely when does not appear. Felix Van Hulst, in the title of his tract, gives the date approximately: Notice sur le Père Louis Hennepin, né à Ath (Belgique) vers 1640. Liege, 1845. He early joined the Franciscans, served the Order in various places, travelled as he could, was inspired with a desire to see the world, and felt the impulse strongest when, at Calais, he listened to the narratives of sea-captains who had returned from long voyages. This inclination prompted him to continued missionary expeditions, and to attendance upon armies in their campaigns. In 1675 Frontenac succeeded in his attempt to recall to Canada the Recollects, as a foil to the Jesuits; and among the first of that Order to go was Hennepin, who crossed the ocean in the same ship with La Salle, the ambitious explorer, and De Laval, the new Bishop of Quebec. According to his own account, Hennepin had his first quarrel with La Salle about some girls who were on their way to reinforce the family life of the new colony.[674]

La Salle enjoyed their dances, and Hennepin, as their spiritual guide, kept them under restraint. This, at least, is the Recollect story of the origin of La Salle’s enmity for the missionary.

From Quebec Hennepin continued his missionary wanderings, sometimes to remote stations, and at one time, in the spring of 1677, among the Iroquois,—not going, however, to Albany, as has been sometimes asserted. (Cf. Brodhead’s New York, ii. 307; Hist. Mag. x. 268.) Next he accompanied La Salle in his explorations west. Of Niagara he offers us the earliest picture in his 1697 publication,—of which a reduced fac-simile is here given. Others are in Gay’s Pop. Hist. U. S., ii. 511; Shea’s Hennepin, p. 379, and in his Le Clercq, ii. 112; and in the Carter-Brown Catalogue, vol. ii. no. 561. The original cut was repeated in the later editions and translations of Hennepin. These Falls had been indicated on Champlain’s map, in 1632, with the following note: “Sault d’eau au bout du Sault [Lac] Sainct Louis fort hault, où plusiers sortes de poissons descendans s’estourdissent.” This was from the natives’ accounts. Ragueneau, in the Relation of 1648, was the first to describe them, though they had been known by report to the Jesuits some years earlier (Parkman’s Jesuits, p. 142). Lalemant, in 1641, called them Onguiaahra. Ragueneau gave them no definite altitude, but called them of “frightful height.” Hennepin, in his 1683 book, calls them five hundred feet, and in 1697 six hundred feet high, and describes a side-shoot on their western verge which does not now exist. Sanson, in his map of 1657, had somewhat simplified Ragueneau’s name into Ongiara; but Hennepin gives the name in its present form. There is a great variety in the early spelling of the name. (See Canadian Journal, 1870, p. 385.) The word is of Iroquois origin, and its proper phonetic spelling is very like the form now in use (Parkman, La Salle, p. 126; O’Callaghan, Col. Doc., index, 465). Hennepin had also been anticipated in a brief notice by Gendron, in his Quelques Particularites, etc., 1659. Hennepin’s account is also translated in the Mag. of Amer. Hist., v. 47. His engraving was reproduced, in 1702, in Campanius’ work on New Sweden.

Hennepin accompanied La Salle to the point where Fort Crèvecœur was built, on the Illinois, and parting from La Salle here in February, 1680, he pursued his further wandering down the Illinois to the Mississippi, and thence up to the Falls of St. Anthony, which were named by him in reference to his being a Recollect of the province of St. Anthony in Artois. On the 3d of July, 1880, the bi-centenary of the discovery of these Falls was observed, when C. K. Davis delivered an historical address. Thence, after being captured by the Sioux and rescued by a party under Du Lhut,[675] Hennepin made his way to the Wisconsin, passed by Green Bay, and reached Quebec. He soon after returned to France, where, on the 3d of September, 1682, he obtained the royal permission to print his first book, which was issued from the press Jan. 5, 1683.

From this point his story[676] can be best followed in connection with the history of his books, and as they are rare and curious, it has been thought worth while to point out a few of the repositories of copies, which are indicated by the following heavy-faced letters:—

BA.	Boston Athenæum.
BPL.	Boston Public Library.
C.	Library of Congress.
CB.	Carter-Brown Library, Providence.
HC.	Harvard College Library.
HCM.	Henry C. Murphy.
L.	Lenox Library, New York.

For full titles, see the Bibliography in Shea’s edition of the Description of Louisiana, and the article “Hennepin,” in Sabin’s Dictionary. Cf. also Brunet, Supplément, 598.

I. DESCRIPTION DE LA LOUISIANE.

This first book was entitled Description de la Louisiane nouvellement découverte au Sud-Oüest de la Nouvelle France. Les Mœurs des Sauvages. Par le R. P. Louis Hennepin, Paris, 1683. Pages 12, 312, 107. Some copies are dated 1684.

Copies: BA., C., CB., HC., L. (both dates).

References: Shea (ed. of Hennepin), nos. 1, 2; Sabin, Dictionary, no. 31,347; Ternaux, Bibliothèque Amér. no. 985; Harrisse, Notes sur la Nouv. France, nos. 150, 352; Carter-Brown Catalogue, vol. ii. no. 1,266, with fac-simile of title; Hist. Mag., vol. ii. no. 24 (by Mr. Lenox), 346; Dufossé, Americana, 70 francs, with genuine map, and 40 or 50 francs with fac-simile; Leclerc, Bibl. Americana, nos. 897, 898 at 90 and 150 francs; Rich, Catalogue (1832), no. 402, 12s.

The map, of which a section is herewith given in fac-simile, measures 10.2 X 17.2, “Guerard inven. et fecit. Roussel sculpsit,” and is often wanting. Cf. Harrisse, no. 352; Hist. Mag., vol. ii. 24.

Harrisse (no. 219; also see no. 238) cites a map preserved in the Dépôt des Cartes de la Marine, which seems to embody the results of Hennepin’s discoveries.

The next edition (Paris, 1688) shows the same pagination, with some verbal changes in the text, and is accompanied by the same map.

Copies: B.A., CB., HC.

References: Shea, no. 3; Sabin, no. 31,348; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,354; Hist. Mag. vol. ii. p. 346; Harrisse, no. 160; O’Callaghan, Catalogue, no. 1,068; Beckford, Catalogue, no. 674, bought by Quaritch, who advertised it at £3 3s.

The following translations may be noted:—

English.—Some portions of Hennepin’s first work had been translated in Shea’s Discovery of the Mississippi, pp. 107-145; but no English translation of the whole work appeared till Dr. Shea edited a version in 1880, comparing Hennepin’s text with the second publication of that missionary (issued in 1697) with the La Salle documents, published by Margry, and with other contemporaneous papers.

Dutch.—The engraved title, Ontdekking van Louisania; the printed title, Beschryving van Louisania. It appeared at Amsterdam in 1688, under the same covers with a Dutch version of Denys’ Coast of North America, accompanied by a map which is a reduction of the map of the 1683 edition, and is called “Kaart van nieuw Vrankrijk en van Louisania;” together with four plates.

Copies: CB., HC., L.

References: Shea, no. 5; Sabin, no. 31,357; Harrisse, no. 161; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,355, with fac-simile of title; Historical Magazine, vol. ii. p. 24; O’Callaghan, no. 1,069; Stevens, Historical Collections, vol. i. no. 1,433; Muller, Books on America, 1870, no. 908, and 1877, no. 1,395.

It is usually priced at from $8 to $10.

German.—There were two editions,—Beschreibung der Landschaft Louisiana, to which was appended a German version of Marquette’s and Joliet’s exploration, published at Nuremberg in 1689. It should have two maps.

Copies: CB., L.

References: Shea, no. 6; Ternaux, no. 1,041; Carter-Brown, vol. ii no. 1,379; O’Callaghan, no. 1,071; Muller, 1877, no. 1,399.

The other German edition of the same title appeared at Nuremberg in 1692.

Copies: CB., L.

References: Shea, no. 7; Harrisse, no. 163; Historical Magazine, vol. ii. p. 24; Sabin, no. 31,364.

Italian.—Descrizione della Luigiana. Rendered by Casimiro Freschot, and published at Bologna in 1686, with a map.

Copies: CB.

References: Shea, no. 4; Harrisse, no. 157; Sabin, no. 31,356; Historical Magazine, vol. ii. p. 346; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,326; Ternaux, no. 1,012; Leclerc, no. 900; 60 francs.

An abridgment was printed in Il Genio Vagante, Parma, 1691, with a map, “Nuova Francia e Luigiana.” Cf. Harrisse, no. 365.

In this earliest work of Hennepin the Mississippi, it will be seen by the map, forms no certain connection with the Gulf of Mexico, but is connected by a dotted line, and there is no claim for explorations further south than the map indicates. Hennepin’s later publications have raised doubts as to the good faith of his narrative of discoveries on the Upper Mississippi. Harrisse (no. 150), for instance, says “Cette Relation de 1683 n’est en réalité qu’une pâle copie d’un des mémoires de Cavelier de la Salle;” and goes on to deny to Hennepin the priority of giving the name of Louisiana to the country. La Salle and others of his contemporaries threw out insinuations as to his veracity, or at least cautioned others against his tendency to exaggerate. (Cf. Neill, Writings of Hennepin.) The publication of an anonymous account of La Salle’s whole expedition in Margry’s Découvertes et Établissements des Français, has enabled Dr. Shea, in his edition of Hennepin, to contest Margry’s views of Hennepin’s plagiarism, and to compare the two narratives critically; and he comes to the conclusion that probably Hennepin was La Salle’s scribe before they parted, and that he certainly contributed directly or indirectly to La Salle’s despatches what pertains to Hennepin’s subsequent independent exploration,—thus making the borrowing to be on the part of the anonymous writer, who, if he were La Salle, did certainly no more than was becoming in the master of the expedition to combine the narratives of his subordinates. It is Shea’s opinion, however, that the Margry document was not written by La Salle, but by some compiler in Paris, who used Hennepin’s printed book rather than his notes or manuscript reports. Margry claims that this Relation officielle de l’enterprise de La Salle, de 1678 à 1681, was compiled by Bernou for presentation to Colbert. Parkman thinks, as opposed to Shea’s view, that Hennepin knew of the document, and incorporated many passages from it into his book (La Salle, pp. 150, 262). Dr. Shea sided with the detractors of Hennepin in his earlier Discovery of the Mississippi; but in this later book he makes fair amends for what he now considers his hasty conclusions then. Cf. further Sparks’s Life of La Salle, and the North American Review, January, 1845. Mr. Parkman’s conclusion is that this early book of Hennepin is “comparatively truthful.”

II. NOUVELLE DÉCOUVERTE.

According to Hennepin’s own story, some time after his first book was published, he incurred the displeasure of the Provincial of his Order by refusing to return to America, and was in more ways than one so pursued by his superior that in the end he threw himself on the favor of William III. of England, whom he had met at the Hague. Hennepin searched Amsterdam for a publisher of his new venture, but had to take it to Utrecht, where it came out, in 1697, with a fulsome dedication to the English king. It is called in the printed title (the engraved title is abridged): Nouvelle Découverte d’un très grand Pays, situé dans l’Amérique, entre le Nouveau Mexique et la Mer glaciale, Utrecht, 1797, pp. 70, 506, with two maps and two plates, one being the earliest view of Niagara Falls, as given on p. 86.

 

Copies: BA., CB., HC.

References: Shea, no. 1; Sabin, no. 31,349; Ternaux, no. 1,095; Harrisse, no. 175; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,513; Historical Magazine, vol. ii. p. 346; Beckford, no. 675, bought by Quaritch, and advertised by him at £4 4s.; Stevens, vol. i. no. 1,434; Leclerc, no. 902, 80 francs; Harrassowitz, Catalogue, 1883, no. 58, 50 marks; Brinley, Catalogue, no. 4,491. It is usually priced in English catalogues at two or three guineas.

The portions repeated in this book from the Description de la Louisiane are enlarged, and the “Mœurs des Sauvages” is omitted.

It will be observed that in both of the maps of 1697, extracts from which are given herewith, the Mississippi River is marked as continuing its course to the Gulf. This change is made to illustrate an interpolation in the text (pp. 249-312), borrowed from Father Membré’s Journal of La Salle’s descent of the river, as given in Le Clercq’s Premier Établissement de la Foi, p. 153. Sparks, in his Life of La Salle, was the first to point out this correspondence. Mr. J. H. Perkins, reviewing Sparks’s book in the North American Review in January, 1839 (reprinted in his Memoir and Writings, vol. ii.), on the “Early French Travellers in the West,” referring to the partial statements of the distrust of Hennepin in Andrew Ellicott’s Journal, and in Stoddard’s Sketches of Louisiana, makes, for the first time, as he thinks, a thorough critical statement of the grounds “for thinking the Reverend Father so great a liar.” Further elucidation of the supposed theft was made by Dr. Shea in his Discovery of the Mississippi, etc., p. 105, where, p. 83, he translated for the first time into English Membré’s Journal. The Membré narrative is much the same as a Relation de la Découverte de l’Embouchure de la Rivière Mississippi, faite par le Sieur de la Salle, l’année passée, 1682, preserved in the Archives Scientifiques de la Marine, and printed in Thomassy’s Géologie pratique de la Louisiane. Gravier, p. 180, holds it to be the work of La Salle himself (Boimare, Text explicatif pour accompagner la première planche historique relative à la Louisiane, Paris, 1868; cf. Gravier’s Appendix, no. viii). That there was a fraud on Hennepin’s part has been generally held ever since Sparks made his representations. Bancroft calls Hennepin’s journal “a lie.” Brodhead calls it an audacious falsehood. Parkman (La Salle, p. 226) deems it a fabrication, and has critically examined Hennepin’s inconsistencies. Gravier classes his narrative with Gulliver’s.

The excuse given in the Nouvelle Découverte for the tardy appearance of this Journal is, that fear of the hostility of La Salle having prevented its appearance in the Description de la Louisiane, that explorer’s death rendered the suppression of it no longer necessary. It is, moreover, proved that passages from Le Clercq are also appropriated in describing the natives and the capture of Quebec in 1628. The reply to this was that Le Clercq stole from a copy of Hennepin’s Journal, which had been lent to Le Roux in Quebec. These revelations led Shea seriously to question in his Mississippi if Hennepin had ever seen the upper parts of that river, and to suspect that Hennepin may have learned what he wrote from Du Lhut. Harrisse, p. 176, brings forward some new particulars about Hennepin’s relations with Du Lhut.

Dr. Shea’s later views, as expressed in his English translation (1880) of the Description de la Louisiane (1683), is that Hennepin’s manuscript or revamped copy of his earlier book, as prepared for the printer by himself, was subjected to the manipulations of an ignorant and treacherous editor, who made these insertions to produce a more salable book, and that Hennepin was not responsible for it in the form in which it appeared. Shea’s arguments to prove this opposite of the generally received opinion are based on inherent evidence in the insertions that Hennepin could not have written them, and on the material evidences of these questionable portions of the book having been printed at a later time than the rest of it, and in different type. The only rejoinder yet made to this exculpation is by Mr. E. D. Neill, in a tract on The Writings of Louis Hennepin, read before the Minnesota Historical Society in November, 1880, in which the conclusion is reached that “nothing has been discovered to change the verdict of two centuries, that Louis Hennepin, Recollect Franciscan, was deficient in Christian manhood.”

The Nouvelle Découverte was reset and reissued in 1698 at Amsterdam, with the same maps and a new title.

Copies: CB., L.

References: Shea, no. 2; Sabin, no. 31,350; Harrisse, no. 176; Ternaux, no. 1,110; O’Callaghan, no. 1,073; Muller, 1877, no. 3,666; Sparks, Catalogue, no. 1,211; Rich, 1832, 12s.; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. 1,538; Historical Magazine, vol. ii. pp. 24,346.

There was another edition, Voyage ou Nouvelle Découverte, at Amsterdam in 1704, with the same maps and additional plates, to which was appended La Borde’s Voyage.

Copies: BA., CB.

References: Shea, no. 3; Sabin, no. 31,352; Rich, 1830, no. 8; Historical Magazine, vol. ii. p. 347; Beckford, no. 676; Leclerc, no. 905, 60 francs; Stevens, vol. i. no. 1,436; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 52.

The Hague and Leyden editions of the same year (1704) had an engraved title, Voyage curieux ... qui contient une Nouvelle Découverte, but were evidently from the same type, and also have the La Borde appended.

Copies: CB., L., HCM.

References: Shea, nos. 4, 5; Sabin, no. 31,353; Historical Magazine, vol. ii. 25.

The Amsterdam edition of 1711 was called Voyages curieux et nouveaux de Messieurs Hennepin et de la Borde, with oblong title, folded in, which seems to be the only difference from the 1704 editions.

Copies: BA., CB., HC.

References: Shea, no. 6; Sabin, no. 31,354; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 153.

In 1712 another Amsterdam edition was called Voyage ou Nouvelle Découverte.

Copy: CB.

References: Shea, no. 7; Sabin, no. 31,355; Historical Magazine, vol. ii. p. 347; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 168; Stevens, vol. i. no. 1,438.

Hennepin’s book also appeared in the third edition, at Amsterdam (1737), of Bernard’s Recueil de Voyages au Nord, vol. ix., with a map called “Le Cours du fleuve Mississipi, 1737.” Cf. Shea, no. 8; Sabin, no. 4,936; Historical Magazine, ii. 25. It also appeared at Amsterdam in 1720, in Relations de la Louisiane et du Fleuve Mississippi (Dufossé, 1878, no. 4,577), and again in 1737 in connection with a translation of Garcilasso de la Vega (Dr. O’Callaghan in Historical Magazine, ii. 24). An abridgment appeared in Paris, in 1720, under the title, Description de la Louisiane, par le Chevalier Bonrepos, pp. 45 (Lenox in Historical Magazine, ii. 25).

The following translations may be noted:—

Dutch.—1. Nieuwe Ontdekkinge, etc., Amsterdam, 1699.

Copy: CB.

References: Shea, no. 9; Sabin, no. 31,359; Harrisse, no. 183.

2. Nieuwe Entdekkinge, etc., Amsterdam, 1702. It follows the 1697 French edition, with the same maps and plates, and has Capiné’s book on the Spanish West Indies appended.

Copies: BA., CB., L.

References: Shea, no. 10; Sabin, no. 31,360; Lenox in Historical Magazine, vol. ii. p. 25; Muller, 1870, no. 912, and 1877, no. 1,397; Brinley, no. 4,493; O’Callaghan, no. 1,076; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 23.

3. Aenmerkelyke Voyagie, etc., Leyden, 1704.

Copy: CB.

References: Shea, no. 11; Sabin, no. 31,361; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. nos. 53, 54; Stevens, vol. i. no. 1,437; Muller, 1870, no. 913, and 1877, no. 1,398.

4. Aanmerkkelyke Voyagie, etc., Rotterdam, 1704. It is usually found with Benzoni’s West-Indise Voyagien, and also in Van der Aa’s Collection of Voyages, 1704.

Copies: C., CB., L.

References: Shea, nos. 12, 13; Sabin, no. 31,362; Lenox in Historical Magazine, vol. ii. p. 25.

5. Nieuwe Ontdekkinge, etc. Amsterdam, 1722.

Copy: CB.

References: Shea, no. 14; Sabin, no. 31,363.

English.—Discovery of a Large, Rich, and Plentiful Country, etc., London, 1720.

Copies: BA., CB., HC.

References: Shea, no. 2; Sabin, nos. 20,247, 31,373; Historical Magazine, vol. i. p. 347; Rich, no. 12; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 267.

This is an abridgment.

German.—1. Neue Entdeckung, etc. Bremen, 1699.

Copies: CB., L.

References: Shea, no. 15; Historical Magazine, vol. i. p. 347, vol. ii. p. 25; Sabin, no. 31,367; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,572; Harrisse, no. 185; Stevens, vol. i. no. 1,435.

2. Beschreibung der Grosser Flusse Mississipi. Dritte Auflage, Leipzig, 1720.

Copy: L.

References: Lenox in Historical Magazine, vol. ii. p. 25.

3. Neue Reise Beschreibung, etc., Nürnberg, 1739.

Copy: CB.

References: Shea, no. 16; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 604.

4. Neue Entdeckung, etc., Bremen, 1742.

Copy: CB.

Reference: Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 708.

Spanish.—Relaçion, etc., Brusselas, 1699.

Copies: HC., CB., L. An abridgment by Sebastian Fernandez de Medrano.

References: Shea, no. 1; Sabin, no. 31,374; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,573; Lenox in Historical Magazine, vol. ii. p. 25; Ternaux, no. 1,126.

It has the same map with the 1697 French edition, with an Italian label, “Carta geografica de un Pais,” etc., pasted over the French title.

III. NOUVEAU VOYAGE.

It has been customary to bestow upon this volume a similar distrust as upon the preceding; but Dr. Shea contends that the luckless treatment of the Nouvelle Découverte by a presumptuous editor was also repeated with this. It was entitled, Nouveau Voyage d’un Pais plus grand que l’Europe, Utrecht, 1698. The work was made up from Le Clercq, and included the treatise on the Indians which had been omitted in the Nouvelle Découverte, of which this volume may be considered the supplement.

Copies: BA., CB.

References: Shea, no. 1; Sabin, no. 31,351; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,537; Harrisse, no. 177; Beckford, no. 677, bought by Quaritch, who priced it at £4 4s.; Leclerc, no. 904, 70 francs; Rich, no. 455; Ternaux. no. 1,111.

The Nouveau Voyage was also included in an abridged form in the second (1720) and third (1734) editions of the Recueil de Voyages au Nord, published by Bernard at Amsterdam. Cf. Shea, 2 and 3.

It was also issued in the following translations:—

Dutch.—Engraved title, Reyse door nieuwe Ondekte Landen. Printed title, Aenmerckelycke Historische Reijs Beschryvinge, Utrecht, 1698. The map reads, “Carte d’un Nouveau Monde entre Le Nouveau Mexique et la Mer glaciale. Gasp. Bouttals fecit.”

Copies: BA., CB.

References: Shea, no. 4; Sabin, no. 31,358; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,539, with fac-simile of title; Historical Magazine, vol. ii. p. 347; Harrisse, no. 179; Trömel, no. 425; O’Callaghan, no. 1,075; Muller, 1877, no. 1,396.

English.—In the Archæologia Americana, vol. i.

German, I.—Neue Reise Beschreibung, übersetzt durch M. J. G. Langen, Bremen, 1698.

Copy: CB.

References: Shea, no. 5.; Sabin, no. 31,365; Ternaux, no. 1,049, of doubtful date; Harrisse, no. 165; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,540.

2. Reisen und seltsehme Begebenheiten, etc., Bremen, 1742.

References: Shea, no. 6; Sabin, no. 31,369.

IV. COMBINATION.

The Nouvelle Découverte and the Nouveau Voyage were combined in an English translation issued under the following title: A new Discovery of a Vast Country in America, extending above four thousand miles between New France and New Mexico, etc., London, 1698. It contains—part i., a translation of the Nouvelle Découverte; part ii., in smaller type and new paging, a version of the Nouveau Voyage; the rest of the volume in the type of part i. and continuing its paging, being an account of Marquette’s voyages. Another edition of the same year shows a slight change of title, with alterations in part i. and part ii. rewritten. Still another issue conforms in title to the earliest, but in body, with a slight correction, to the second edition. The engraved title of the first edition is given herewith. This picture is a re-engraving reversed of the one on the title of the Nouvelle Découverte of 1697.

Copies: BPL., CB., HC.

References: Shea, nos. 1, 2, 3; Sabin, nos. 31,370, 31,371; Ternaux, nos. 1,010, 1,119; Historical Magazine, vol. i. p. 347; Field, Indian Bibliography, no. 685; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. nos. 1,535, 1,536; Rich, no. 456; Brinley, no. 4,492; Harrisse, no. 181; Menzies Catalogue, no. 915.

In the next year (1699) there was a reprint of the second issue of the preceding year.

Copy: BA.

References: Shea, no. 4; Sabin, no. 31,372; O’Callaghan, no. 1,074; and Historical Magazine, vol. ii p. 74; Menzies, no. 916.

A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL NOTE BY THE EDITOR.

LA HONTAN, a young Gascon, born about 1667, had come to Canada in 1683, and from being a common soldier, had by his ability risen to an officer’s position. He became a favorite of Frontenac, and was selected by him to bear the despatch to Paris which conveyed an account of Phips’s failure before Quebec in 1690. He was not long after made deputy-governor of Placentia, where he quarrelled with his superior and fled to France; and here, fearing arrest, he was obliged to escape beyond its boundaries. After the Peace of Ryswick he sought reinstatement, but was not successful; and it is alleged that his book, which he now published, was in some measure the venting of his spleen. It appeared in 1703, at La Haye, as Nouveaux Voyages dans l’Amérique septentrionale, qui contiennent une Relation des différens Peuples que y habitent, in two volumes (the second entitled Mémoires de l’Amérique septentrionale, ou la suite des Voyages), with twenty-six maps and plates (Sabin, vol. x. nos. 38,635-38,638; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 36; Quaritch, 25 shillings; Leclerc, no. 737, 40 francs). Another edition, in somewhat larger type and better engravings, with a vignette in place of the sphere on the title, appeared the same year. Dr. Shea is inclined to think this the authorized edition, and the other a pirated one, with reversed cuts. La Hontan, being in London, superintended an edition published there the same year in English, called New Voyages to North America (in Harvard College Library; cf. Brinley Catalogue, no. 101; Field, Indian Bibliography, no. 852; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 39), likewise in two volumes, but containing in addition a Dialogue between La Hontan and a Huron Indian (the Rat), which had not been included in the Hague edition, and which was the vehicle of some religious scepticism. There were thirteen plates in vol. i., and eleven in vol. ii., and La Hontan speaks of them as being much better than those of the Holland edition (Sabin, vol. x. no. 38,644). This same Dialogue was issued separately the next year (1704) at Amsterdam in French,—Dialogue du Baron de La Hontan et d’un Sauvage dans l’Amérique; and also, with a changed title (Supplément aux Voyages du Baron La Hontan), as the third volume or “suite” of the Voyages, and sometimes with added pages devoted to travels in Portugal and Denmark (Sabin, vol. x. nos. 38,633, 38,634, 38,637; Field, no. 853; Leclerc, nos. 738, 739; Muller, Books on America, 1872, no. 864). These editions are found with the dates also of 1704 and 1705. What is called a “seconde Édition, revue, corrigée, et augmentée,” with twenty-seven plates (but not from the same coppers, however, with the earlier issues), and omitting the “Carte générale,” appeared likewise at La Haye in 1705 and 1706. This is professedly “almost recast, to make the style more pure, concise, and simple, with the Dialogues rewritten.” The Denmark and Portugal voyage being omitted, it is brought within two volumes, the second of which is still called Mémoires, etc. (Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 68). There were later French editions in 1707, 1709, and 1715, and at Amsterdam in 1721, with the “suite,” dated 1728, three volumes in all, and sometimes all three are dated 1728; and still other editions are dated 1731 and 1741 (Sabin, vol. x. no. 38,640, who says it is quite impossible to make a clear statement of all the varieties of these several editions; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 689). The English version appeared again at London in 1735 (Menzies, no. 1,178; Brinley, no. 101; Sabin, vol. x. nos. 38,645, 38,646, who says there are various imprints; and it is also included in Pinkerton’s Voyages, vol. xiii.). There are also a German edition, Des beruhmten Herrn Baron de La Hontan Neueste Reisen, 1709 (Sabin, vol. x. no. 38,647; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 123; Stevens, Bibl. Hist., no. 2,505), and a Dutch, Reizen van den Baron van La Hontan, 1739 (Sabin, vol. x. no. 38,648; Stevens, no. 2,506).

The book is thought to have been edited by Nicolas Gueudeville; or at least his hand is usually recognized in the customary third volume of some of the editions. Faribault (p. 76) says that a bookseller in Amsterdam knew that the Dialogue was added by Gueudeville, in whose Atlas, Amsterdam, 1719, as well as in Corneille’s Geographical Dictionary, the accounts given of La Hontan’s Rivière Longue are incorporated.

As early as 1715-1716 there was a general discrediting of the story of La Hontan, as will be seen by letters addressed by Bobé to De l’Isle, the French geographer, and printed in the Historical Magazine, iii. 231, 232; but the English geographer, Herman Moll, in his maps between 1710 and 1720, was under La Hontan’s influence. Another English cartographer, John Senex (1710), accepted the La Hontan story with considerable hesitation, and later rejected it. Daniel Coxe, in his Carolana (1727), quite unreservedly accepted it; and the Long River appears as Moingona in Popple’s Atlas, in 1733.

The German geographer, Homann, of Nuremberg, was in some degree influenced; and the French cartographer De l’Isle sometimes accepted these alleged discoveries, and again discarded them; but the careful work of Bellin, in Charlevoix’s Nouvelle France, did much to relegate La Hontan to oblivion. Charlevoix himself says: “The great liberty which La Hontan gives his pen has contributed greatly to make his book read by people not informed to separate truth from falsehood. It fails to teach the well-informed, and confuses others. The episode of the voyage up the Long River is as fabulous as the Barataria of Sancho Panza.” (Cf. Shea’s ed., i. 86, with Shea’s note, iii. 286.) The Long River some years later, however, figured in the map which illustrates Samuel Engel’s Extraits raisonnés des Voyages faits dans les parties septentrionales, published at Lausanne, and again in 1765, and again in 1779, and of which there is also a German translation. At a later date Carver accepted the accounts of this western river as genuine, and identified it with the St. Peter’s,—a belief which Long again, in his Expedition to St. Peter’s River, wholly rejected. (Cf. also J. H. Perkins in the North American Review (1839), vol. xlviii. no. 98, where it is thought possible; and the paper by H. Scadding in the Canadian Journal, 2d series, vol. xiii. pp. 240, 396.) Parkman expresses the present view of scholars when he says (La Salle, p. 458) that La Hontan’s account of the Long River is a sheer fabrication; but he did not, like Hennepin, add slander and plagiarism to mendacity. Again, in his Frontenac (p. 105), he calls La Hontan “a man in advance of his time, for he had the caustic, sceptical, and mocking spirit which a century later marked the approach of the great Revolution. He usually told the truth when he had no motive to do otherwise, and yet was capable at times of prodigious mendacity,” for his account of what “he saw in the colony is commonly in accord with the best contemporary evidence.” There are some exceptions to this view. Gravier speaks of La Hontan as “de bonne foi et de jugement sain”!

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THE JESUITS, RECOLLECTS, AND THE INDIANS.

BY JOHN GILMARY SHEA, LL.D.

AT the time of the discovery of this portion of the northern continent, the missionary spirit was active in the Catholic Church. The labors of the earlier monks had been revived and continued in the East by the new zeal of the orders of friars, especially of the Franciscan and Dominican Fathers. The earlier voyages of explorations from Cabot’s day were accompanied by priests; and as soon as the condition and character of the inhabitants were known, projects were formed for their conversion. This work was looked upon as a duty by the kings of Spain, Portugal, and France, as well as by the hierarchy and religious orders. Coeval with the Spanish and French attempts to settle on the coast, were missionary efforts, often pushed with wonderful zeal and courage far into the interior by intrepid apostles, who, trusting their lives to Indian guides, sought fields of labor.

The mission lines on the map meet and cross, as, undeterred by the death of pioneers, others took up the task. In 1526, Dominicans reared a chapel on the banks of the James in Virginia; in 1539, the Italian Franciscan Mark, from Nice, penetrated to New Mexico; and soon after, Father Padilla, of the same order, died by the hands of the Indians near the waters of the Missouri. By 1559 Dominicans were traversing the territories of the Mobilian tribes from Pensacola to the Mississippi; and when Melendez founded St. Augustine, it became a mission centre whence the Jesuit missionaries threaded the Atlantic coast to Chesapeake Bay and the banks of the Rappahannock, before they left that field to the Franciscans, who dotted Florida and Georgia with their mission chapels.

The same spirit was seen pervading France, where the conversion of the Indians of the New World was regarded as a duty of the highest order. One of the first traces that we find of French voyages to the northern coast is the mention in an early edition of the Chronicle of Eusebius, in 1508, that Indians who had been brought from the new-found land received baptism within the walls of a cathedral in France.

Though the introduction of Calvinism led to the destruction of many a convent and shrine, and thinned by death the ranks of the mission orders, the zeal for the conversion of the Indians survived the wars of religion. Soon after Poutrincourt began his settlement in Acadia, it was made a reproach to him that nothing had been done for the conversion of the natives. He addressed a letter to the Pope, as if to put the fact of his orthodoxy beyond all question; and when it was proposed to send out Jesuit missionaries to labor among the Indians, he caused twenty-five of the natives to be baptized in token of his zeal for their spiritual welfare.

The establishment of a Jesuit mission was, however, decided upon. On the 12th of June, 1611, Fathers Peter Biard and Enemond Masse reached Port Royal. Some difficulties had been thrown in their way, and others met them in the petty settlement. They turned at once to study the Micmac language, so as to begin their mission labors among that nation of Algonquins. The aged Membertou, who had acquired some French, was their interpreter and first convert. Biard visited all the coast as far as the Kennebec, and tried to give some ideas of Christianity to the Abenakis on that river. Finding that little could be done at Port Royal, where the settlers hampered rather than aided their efforts, the Jesuits projected an independent mission settlement elsewhere. Their protector, Madame de Guercheville, obtained from the French king a grant of all the coast from the St. Lawrence to Florida. A vessel was sent out, the missionaries were taken on board, and a settlement was begun on Mount Desert Island. There a cross was planted, and Mass said at a rustic altar. But the Jesuits were not to carry out their mission projects. English vessels under Argall, from Virginia, attacked the ship and settlement of St. Savior; a Jesuit laybrother was killed; the rest of the settlers were sent to France or carried prisoners to Virginia. Thus ended the first Jesuit mission begun under French auspices.[677]

Meanwhile Champlain had succeeded in establishing a settlement on the St. Lawrence, and had penetrated to Lake Champlain and the rapids of the Ottawa. On all sides were tribes “living like brute beasts, without law, without religion, without God.” His religious zeal was quickened; for Quebec itself was destitute of ministers of religion. The Recollects, a reformed branch of the Franciscan order, were invited to enter the field. They accepted the mission, and in May, 1615, four of the Gray Friars landed at Quebec. Father John Dolbeau at once began a mission among the Montagnais,—the tribe occupying that portion of the St. Lawrence valley,—and wintered with them in their wandering hunter life, enduring all its hardships, and learning their language and ideas. The friendly Wyandots, from the shores of a far distant lake, were the tribe assigned to Father Joseph le Caron, and to the palisaded towns of this more civilized race he boldly ventured, without waiting for Champlain. In the summer of 1615 he set up his altar in a new bark lodge in the Huron town of Caragouha, near Thunder Bay, and began to learn a new strange tongue, so as to teach the flock around him.

The Recollects had thus undertaken to evangelize two races, who, with their kindred, extended from the ocean to the Mississippi, from the Chesapeake and Ohio to the frozen lands of the Esquimaux. Their languages, differing from all known to European scholars in vocabulary, forms, and the construction of sentences, offered incredible difficulties. The ideas these Indians held of a future state were so obscure, that it was not easy to find enough of natural religion by which to lead them to the revealed. Progress was naturally slow,—there was more to discourage than to cheer. Still the Franciscans labored on; and though their number was limited to six, they had in 1625 five missions at Tadousac, Quebec, Three Rivers, among the Nipissings, and in the Huron country.

Finding that the mission field in New France required an order bound to less scrupulous poverty than their own, the Recollects of Paris invited the Jesuits to aid them. Enemond Masse, of the unfortunate Acadian mission, with Charles Lalemant and John de Brebeuf, came over in 1625. The old opposition to the order was renewed. The Jesuits were homeless, till the Recollects opened the doors of their convent to them. Commanding resources from influential friends, they soon began to build, and brought over men to swell the settlement and cultivate the ground. They joined the Recollects in the missions already founded, profiting by their experience. This enabled the Church to extend its missions. Father Joseph de la Roche d’Aillon, leaving the Hurons, struck southwesterly, and founded a mission among the Neutral Nation, apparently on the eastern bank of the Niagara, and urged his countrymen to open direct communication by way of Lake Ontario with that fertile part of the country.

The little colony at Quebec was, however, on the verge of starvation; and after once baffling the English, Champlain surrendered in 1629, and the missions of the Recollects and Jesuits came to a close. A mere handful of converts was all the reward of their long and zealous labors, and these they were compelled to leave exposed to the danger of lapsing back into their original heathendom.

We cannot trace very distinctly the system adopted by the Recollects and their Jesuit auxiliaries during this first period of mission labor in Canada. Their usual course was to remain during the pleasant months at the French posts,—Quebec, Three Rivers, and Tadousac,—attending to the spiritual wants of the French and of the Indians who encamped near by for trade, and then to follow an Indian band on its winter hunt. The Recollects spoke despondingly. Some young men were taken to France and instructed there,—one, Peter Anthony, having the Prince de Guimené as his sponsor in baptism. But they found it almost impossible to keep the young for any prolonged instruction, and they hesitated to baptize adults, except in case of danger of death.

In the Huron country Father Nicholas Viel succeeded Le Caron, and had his little chapel at Quieunonascaran, cultivating a small patch of ground around his bark lodge. His success does not seem to have exceeded that of his fellow religious in the more nomadic tribes. While on his way to Quebec in 1625 he was treacherously hurled from his canoe by a Huron guide, and perished in the rapid waters near Montreal that still bear the name of Sault au Récollet.

Another Recollect, Father William Poullain, while on his way with some Frenchmen from Quebec to Sault St. Louis, fell into the hands of the Iroquois, who were about to torture him at the stake, when he was saved by an offer of an exchange made by his countrymen.

The Jesuits adopted the system of the Recollects, but we have no details of their labors,—one Huron boy taken to France, where he was baptized by the name of Louis de Sainte Foy, being the result of the joint labors to which most allusion is made.

The Court of France seems to have considered that both Recollect and Jesuit had failed to acquire the languages of the country sufficiently to do the work of God and of his most Christian Majesty. At all events, each order hastened to put in print evidence of its proficiency in American linguistics. The Recollect Sagard published a Huron Dictionary; the Jesuit Brebeuf, a translation of Ledesma’s Catechism into Huron, with the Lord’s Prayer and other devotions rendered into Montagnais by Father Enemond Masse.[678]

When England reluctantly yielded up her Canadian conquest, the all-powerful Cardinal Richelieu seems to have looked with no kindly eye on either of the bodies who had already labored to evangelize New France. He offered the mission to his favorite order, the Capuchins, and only when they declined it did he permit the Jesuits to return.

With the restoration of Canada to France by the treaty of Saint Germain in 1632, the history of the great Jesuit missions begins. For some years the Fathers of the Society of Jesus were, almost without exception, the only clergy in the colony in charge of all the churches of the settlers and the missions to the Indian tribes. When a pious association, under the inspiration of the Venerable Mr. Olier, founded Montreal, members of the Society of Priests which he had formed at Saint Sulpice became the clergy of that town; and they gathered near it a double-tongued Indian mission, which still continues to exist under their care. They made no attempt to extend their labors, except in the missionary voyage of Dollier de Casson and Galinée in the mission of the Abbés Fénelon and Trouvé at Quinté Bay, and the later labors of the Abbé Picquet at Ogdensburg.

When Bishop Laval was appointed for Canada in 1658, he founded a seminary at Quebec, which was aggregated to the Seminary of the Foreign Missions in Paris. The Jesuits then resigned all the parishes which they had directed in the colony, and confined themselves to their college and their Indian missions. The priests of the Seminary of Quebec, beside their parish work, also undertook missions among the Indians in Acadia, Illinois, and on the lower Mississippi.

A collision between the Governor of Canada and the Bishop with his clergy and the Jesuits, in regard to the sale of liquor to the Indians, led the Government to send back the Recollects to resume their early labors. They did not, however, undertake any important missions among the Indian tribes. Their efforts were confined almost exclusively to the period and course of La Salle’s attempts at settlement and exploration, and to a mission at Gaspé and a shorter one on the Penobscot.

When the colony of Louisiana took form, the Indian missions there were confided to the Jesuits, who directed them till the suppression of the order terminated their existence in the dominions of France. Spain, in her colonies, sent other orders to continue the work of the Jesuits, and this was done successfully in some places; but there was no effort made to sustain those of the Jesuits in Canada and Louisiana, and amid the political changes which rapidly ensued the early French missions gradually dwindled away.

These Jesuit missions embraced the labors of the Fathers among the Micmacs, chiefly on Cape Breton Island and at Miscou; the missions among the Montagnais, Bersiamites, Oumamiwek, Porcupine Indians, Papinachois, and other tribes of the lower St. Lawrence and Saguenay, the centre being at Tadousac; the missions of which Quebec was the immediate centre, comprising the work among the Montagnais of that district and Algonquins from the west. Of this Algonquin mission, Sillery soon became the main mission; but as the Algonquins disappeared, Abenakis came to settle there, and remained till the chapel was removed to St. François de Sales. Then Three Rivers was a mission station for the Indians near it, and for the Attikamegues inland, till a separate mission was established for that tribe. Beyond Montreal was the mission to the Nipissings, and the great Huron mission, the scene of the most arduous and continued labors of the Fathers among the palisaded towns of the Wyandots and Dinondadies. After the ruin of these nations, the Jesuits led one part of the survivors to Isle Orleans, and subsequently gathered a remnant of them at Lorette, where their descendants still remain. The rest fled towards the Mississippi, and were zealously followed by the energetic missionaries, who gathered them at Mackinac, whence they removed in time to Detroit, and ultimately to Sandusky, the last point where the Jesuits ministered to them.

Beyond Lake Huron was the great Ottawa mission, embracing the attempts to christianize the Ottawas on Lake Superior, the Chippewas at Sault Ste. Marie, the Beaver Indians and Crees; at Green Bay was another post for the Menomonees, Pottawatamies, Foxes, and Mascoutens; while south of Lake Michigan came in time Jesuit labors among the Miamis and Illinois. The missions attempted among the Sioux beyond the Mississippi mark the western limit of the old Jesuit efforts to convert the native tribes.

With the establishment of Louisiana came the missions of the Society among the Yazoos, Arkansas, Choctaws, Alibamons, and other tribes.

The Micmac Mission.—The Jesuit missions among the Micmacs never attained any remarkable development, and most of the territory occupied by this branch of the Algonquin family was attended by other bodies of missionaries. Father Julian Perrault began his labors on Cape Breton in 1634; Charles Turgis, with others, was at Miscou in the following years. Most of the Jesuits, however, were compelled to withdraw with shattered health; and Turgis, devoting himself to the care of the sick, died at his post in 1637. Father John Dolebeau became paralyzed, and while returning to France was blown up at sea. At last, however, Father Andrew Richard and Martin de Lyonne succeeded in founding a mission; they learned the language, and extended their labors to Chaleurs Bay, Ile Percée, Miramichi, and Chédabuctou, finding one old woman who had been baptized by Biard at Port Royal. Lyonne died, devotedly attending the sick, in 1661; Richard continued his labors some years later, aided for a time by James Fremin, and cheered by visits from his superior, Jerome Lalemant. They made some converts, although they did not banish the old superstitions and savagery of the tribe; but when Bishop Laval visited Gaspé in 1659, the missionaries presented one hundred and forty Indian Christians for confirmation.

When Richard’s labors ceased, the Recollects took charge of the mission at Isle Percée, where French and Indians were attended from about 1673 by Fathers Hilarion Guesnin and Exuperius Dethune. They were succeeded in 1675 by Father Christian Le Clercq, who took up the Indian mission with zeal, and has left ineffaceable traces of his twelve years’ labor. He acquired the Micmac language; and finding that some Indians, to aid their memory in retaining his instructions, employed a system of hieroglyphics on bits of bark, he studied and improved it, till he had the daily prayers, mass, and catechism in this form. The Indians readily adopted these hieroglyphics, and taught them to their children and later converts. They have been retained in use till the present, and the Rev. Christian Kauder, a Redemptorist, had type cut in Austria, and published a catechism, hymn and prayer book, in them at Vienna in 1866. In 1685 land was given to the priests of the Seminary of Quebec; gentlemen of that body, with some Recollects and occasionally a Jesuit Father, served the coast from Gaspé to Nova Scotia, and all the Micmacs became Catholics. They seem to have been attended with the French, and not as a distinct mission. The Micmac territory included not only the coast, but Cape Breton, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland. Of these missionaries, Messrs. Thury and Gaulin and the Recollect Felix Pain seem to have been the most prominent. The Abbé Anthony S. Maillard, who was missionary to the Micmacs in Cape Breton and Acadia till his death in 1768, exercised great influence; and his mastery of the language is shown in his Grammar of the Micmac, which was printed at New York in 1864.

The Montagnais Mission.—Tadousac was from the commencement of French settlement on the St. Lawrence an anchoring-place for vessels and a trading-station which attracted Indians from the west and north. Missionaries made visits to the spot from an early period, but the Jesuit mission there is regarded as having been founded in 1640. It received charitable aid from the Duchess d’Aiguillon, who maintained for a time the Fathers employed there. Father John de Quen may be said to have established the first permanent mission, from which gradually extended efforts for christianizing the tribes on the shores down to Labrador and on the upper waters of the Saguenay.

The first mission was the result of the effort of Charles Meiachkwat, a Montagnais who had visited Sillery and induced the Jesuit Fathers to send one of their number to Tadousac. Charles erected the first chapel; and may be regarded as the first native Christian of that district, and first native catechist, for he visited neighboring tribes to impart what religious knowledge he had learned.

The missionaries encountered the usual difficulties,—great laxity of morals, a deep-rooted belief in dreams, the influence of the medicine-men, and vices introduced by the traders, especially intoxication. Father Buteux, who replaced De Quen for a time, seems to have been the first to give his neophytes the kind of calendar still in use among the wandering Indians, with spaces for each day, to be marked off as it came, and Sundays and holidays so designated by symbols that they could recognize and observe them.

The missionaries at first went down from Quebec in the spring, and continued their labors till autumn, when the Indians scattered for the winter hunt; but as the neophytes felt the want of a regular ministry during the winter, they attempted, in 1645, to supply it by performing some of the priestly functions themselves. This led to fuller instruction; and to impress them, the missionaries left marked pieces of wood of different colors, called massinahigan, a word still in use in all the Catholic missions among Algonquin nations for a book of prayers.

In 1646 De Quen ascended the Saguenay, and penetrated, by way of the Chicoutimi, to Lake St. John, in order to preach to the Porcupine tribe, who had already erected a cross in their village. Three years later, Father Gabriel Druillettes visited the same tribe and reared his bark chapel among them. In 1651 De Quen made another missionary excursion, reaching various villages on the lake, and subsequently, returning to Tadousac, sailed down the St. Lawrence till he reached bands of the Oumamiwek or Bersiamites, among whom he began mission work.

The mission of the Holy Cross at Tadousac was, however, the scene of the most assiduous labors, as often a thousand Indians of different tribes would be encamped there; and though nothing could be done to check the errant life of these Algonquins, ideas of Christian morality and faith were inculcated, and much reformation was effected. In 1660 Father Jerome Lalemant, superior of the missions, continued the labors of his predecessors on Lake St. John, and ascending the Mistassini, reached Nekouba, then a gathering-place for the Algonquin tribes of the interior. Here they hoped to reach several nations who had never seen a missionary, and especially the Ecureuil, or Squirrel tribe; but the Iroquois war-parties had penetrated farther than missionary zeal, and the Jesuits found the Algonquins of these remote cantons fleeing in all directions after sustaining a series of defeats from the fierce men-hunters from the Mohawk and Oswego. The great aim was to reach the Crees, but that nation was subsequently approached by way of the great lakes, when the route in that direction was opened by Menard.

Bailloquet and Nouvel wintered in successive years with bands of Montagnais, travelling in snow-shoes, and drawing their chapel requisites on a sled, as they followed the hunters, pitching their tents on encountering other parties, to enable them to fulfil their religious duties. Then, in the spring of 1664, while Druillettes visited the tribes on the upper waters of the Saguenay, Nouvel ascended the Manicouagan to the lake of that name in the country of the Papinachois, a part yet untrodden by the foot of the white man. Some of the tribe were already Christians, converted at the mission posts; but to most the missionary was an object of wonder, and his rude chapel a never-ceasing marvel to them and to a more northerly tribe, the Ouchestigouetch, who soon came to camp beside the mission cross.

Nouvel cultivated this tribe for several years, wintering among them, or pursuing them in their scattered cabins, till the spring of 1667, when all the Christians of these Montagnais bands gathered at Tadousac to meet Bishop Laval, who, visiting his diocese in his bark canoe, was coming to confer on those deemed sufficiently grounded in the faith the sacrament of confirmation. He reached Tadousac on the 24th of June, and was welcomed by four hundred Christian Indians, who escorted him to the temporary bark chapel, for the church had been totally destroyed by fire. The bishop confirmed one hundred and forty-nine.

Beaulieu, Albanel, and Druillettes labored there in the following years; but small-pox and other diseases, with want caused by the Iroquois driving them from their hunting-grounds, had reduced the Indians, so that, as Albanel states, in 1670 Tadousac was almost deserted,—not more than one hundred Indians assembled there, whereas he remembered the time when one could count a thousand or twelve hundred encamped at the post at once; and of this petty band some were Micmacs from Gaspé, and Algonquins from Sillery.

In 1671, while Father de Crépieul remained in charge of the missions near Tadousac, with which he was for years identified, Albanel, with the Sieur Denys de St. Simon, ascended the Saguenay, and wintering near Lake St. John pushed on by Lake and River Nemiskau, till they reached the shores of Hudson’s Bay, where the Jesuit planted his cross and began a mission. On his way to revisit it in 1674, he was crippled by an accident, and Albanel found him helpless in mid-winter in the woods near Lake St. John. Crépieul then visited the Papinachois in their country, as Father Louis Nicolas did the Oumamis at the Seven Islands. Boucher, a few years later, aided Crépieul, and from their chapels at Chicoutimi and Metabetchouan as centres, missionary excursions were made in all directions.

Dalmas, a later auxiliary of Crépieul, after wintering at Chicoutimi, was killed in the spring of 1694 on the shores of Hudson’s Bay.

De Crépieul clung to his arduous mission till 1702, when, broken by his long and severe labors, he retired to Quebec, where he died soon after.

Peter Michael Laure, who occupied the same field from 1720 to 1737, drew up a Montagnais grammar and dictionary, greatly aided, as his manuscript tells us, by the pious Mary Outchiwanich.

Father John Baptist La Crosse was the last of the old Jesuit missionaries at Tadousac and Chicoutimi, dying at the former post in 1782, after the suppression of his order and the disasters of his countrymen. He taught many of his flock to read and write, and they handed down the knowledge from parent to child, clinging to the religious books and Bible selections made for them by this missionary, of whom they still recount wonderful works.

The Missions at Quebec, Three Rivers, and Sillery.—The Jesuit missionaries on returning to Canada in 1632 resumed the instruction of the wandering Montagnais near Quebec, Father Le Jeune taking the lead; and when a post was established at Three Rivers, Father Buteux began there the devoted labors which ended only with his life. The missionaries during the time of trade when Indians gathered at the French posts endeavored to gain their good-will, and instructed all who evinced any good disposition; during the rest of the year they made visits to wandering bands, often wintering with them, sharing the dangers and privations of their hunting expeditions amid mountains, rapids, and forests.

It was soon evident that their precarious mode of life, the rapid diminution of game when they began to kill the animals for their furs and not merely for food, small-pox and other diseases introduced by the French, and the slaughters committed by the Iroquois, would soon sweep away the Upper Montagnais, unless they could be made sedentary. A few endeavored to settle near the French and maintain themselves by agriculture, but in 1637 the missionaries began a kind of reduction at a place above Quebec called at first St. Joseph, but soon known as Sillery, from the name of the pious and benevolent Commander de Sillery in France, who gave means for the good work. Two families, comprising twenty souls in all, settled here, in houses built for them, and began to cultivate the ground. Others soon joined them, and plots were allotted to the several families. Of this settlement Noel Negabamat may be regarded as the founder. Though Sillery was ravaged by disease, which soon broke out in the cabins, the project seemed full of promise; the Indians elected chiefs, and a form of government was adopted. The nuns sent out in 1639 to found a hospital, for which the Duchesse d’Aiguillon gave the necessary means, aided the missionaries greatly. From the day they landed, these self-sacrificing nuns opened wards for the reception of sick Indians, and they decided to establish their hospital at Sillery. They carried out this resolution, and opened it on the first of December, 1640, receiving both French and Indian patients. Their services impressed the natives more deeply than did the educational efforts of the Jesuit Fathers and of the Ursuline nuns, who had schools for Indian children of various tribes at Quebec.

This mission was an object of especial care, and great hopes were entertained of its effecting much in civilizing and converting the Montagnais and Algonquins, both of which nations were represented in the first settlers at St. Joseph’s. These Indians were induced to cultivate the ground, but they still depended on their fishing, and the winter hunt carried them off to the woods. This the missionaries could not prevent, as the hunts supplied the furs for the trade of the company which controlled Canada.

The hopes of the Jesuits were not to be realized. Some progress was made, and converts like Noel Negabamat and Charles Meiachkwat exercised great influence; but the Iroquois war-parties soon drove the new agriculturists from their fields, the nuns removed their hospital to Quebec in 1646, and the neophytes were scattered. “We behold ourselves dying, exterminated every day,” wrote Negabamat in 1651. Some years after, an accidental fire destroyed St. Michael’s church with the mission house, and from that time the Indian settlement at Sillery languished. Disease and excess aided the work of war, and the Algonquins and Montagnais dwindled away.

As early as 1643 some Abenakis from the banks of the Kennebec had visited Sillery, and one chief was baptized. Father Druillettes soon after visited their towns, and founded a mission in their country. This was at first continued, but the Christians of the tribe and those seeking instruction visited Sillery from time to time. This was especially the case after 1657, when the Jesuits suspended their labors in Maine, for fear of giving umbrage to the Capuchin Fathers who had missions on the coast.

Sillery revived as an Abenaki mission, but the soil at last proved unfit for longer cultivation by Indians. By this time, Fathers James and Vincent Bigot had been assigned to this tribe. They looked out for a new mission site, and by the aid of the Marchioness de Bauche bought a tract on the Chaudière River, and in 1683 established near the beautiful falls the mission of St. Francis de Sales. Sillery was abandoned, and there was nothing to mark the famous old mission site, till a monument was erected a few years ago to the memory of Masse and De Noue, who lie there.

With the chapel of St. Francis as a base, a new series of missions gradually spread into Maine. The Jesuits resumed their ministry on the banks of the Kennebec; the Bigots, followed by Rale, Lauverjeat, Loyard, and Sirenne, keeping up their work amid great danger, their presence exciting the most fearful animosity in the minds of New Englanders, who ascribed all Indian hostilities to them. Rale was especially marked out. Though a man of cultivation and a scholar,—his Abenaki dictionary being a monument of his mastery of the language,—a price was set on his head, his chapel was pillaged by one expedition, which carried off his manuscript dictionary[679] (now one of the curiosities in Harvard College Library), and in a later expedition he was slain at the foot of his mission cross, August 23, 1724. He knew his danger, and his superior would have withdrawn him, but the Canadian authorities insisted on his remaining.

Besides this Jesuit mission at Norridgewock, the priests of the seminary at Quebec, anxious to do their part in the mission-work of which their parent institution, the Seminary of the Foreign Missions at Paris, did so much, founded a mission on the Penobscot. This was long directed by the Rev. Peter Thury, who acquired great influence over the Indians, accompanying them in peace and war till his death in 1699. A Recollect, Father Simon, had a mission at Medoktek, on the St. John’s, which was subsequently directed by the Jesuits, as well as that on the Penobscot.

Meanwhile the mission on the Chaudière had been transferred to the site still known as St. François, and on the death of Rale bands of the Kennebec Indians emigrated to it, forming a strong Indian village, which sent many a vindictive war-party on the frontiers of New England. This drew on it fierce retaliation from Rogers and his partisan corps, who captured the village, killed many, and fired church and dwellings.[680]

The Missions at Three Rivers and Montreal.—Ascending the St. Lawrence, the next mission centre was Three Rivers, where the Jesuit missionaries Le Jeune and Buteux resumed, in 1633, the labors of the Recollect Brother Du Plessis and Fathers Huet and Poullain. It was a place of trade where Indians gathered, so that the missionaries found constant objects of their care. Many were instructed, and returned to impart to others their newly acquired knowledge of God’s way with man, and the consolations of Christianity.

Gradually the Indians who had settled near Three Rivers were almost entirely won; while the Attikamegues, or White Fish Indians, dwelling far inland, came to ask a missionary to reside among them. They were of the Montagnais tongue, and remarkable for their gentle character. Father Buteux, charmed with their docility, instructed them; and at last, in 1651, ascended the river, and after a toilsome journey of fifty-three days, reached their country. All who had not become Christians already were anxiously awaiting his arrival; a rude chapel was raised, and the neophytes in their fervor crowded to it to listen or to pray. The next year Buteux set out once more to make a missionary visit to this interesting race; but the Iroquois were on their track, and the missionary while making a portage received two fatal wounds, and died amid his arduous duties. The tribe was soon nearly annihilated, the survivors seeking refuge among the remote lodges of the scattered Montagnais.

Among the converts at Three Rivers was Pieskaret, the most famous warrior of the Montagnais or Adirondacks, whose bravery was the terror of the Iroquois. But the Indians of that portion of the St. Lawrence valley were doomed,—nearly all were swept away by the Iroquois; and after the death of Buteux the Montagnais mission at Three Rivers seems to have numbered few Indians, nearly all the survivors having fled to their kindred tribes near Tadousac.

When the settlement at Montreal was formed in 1641 by Maisonneuve acting under the Society of Montreal, the Jesuits were the first clergymen of the new town, and began to labor among the Indians who gathered there from the St. Lawrence and Ottawa. This mission of the Jesuits was not, however, a permanent one. The Sulpitians,—a community of priests established in Paris by the Rev. John James Olier, one of the members of the Montreal society,—became the proprietors of the new settlement, and they continue still in charge of churches, institutions, and missions on or near Montreal island, after a lapse of more than two centuries. An Indian mission for Algonquins was begun on the mountain at a spot now known as the Priests’ Farm, chiefly by the liberality and zeal of the Rev. Mr. Belmont. Iroquois and Hurons also came, and the mission was removed to Sault au Récollet, and then to the Lake of the Two Mountains. Here it still exists, embracing an Iroquois village and one of Algonquin language, made up in no small part of Nipissings from the lake of that name. This is the oldest mission organization in Canada, the Sulpitians having been unmolested by the English Government, which put an end to the communities of the Jesuits and Recollects.

Above Montreal no permanent missions were attempted among the Algonquin bands dotted along the line of the Ottawa,—the Indians seeking instruction on their visits to the French posts and missions, or receiving missionaries from time to time, as their river was the great highway to the West.

The Huron Mission.—The Huron nation in Upper Canada, a confederacy of tribes allied in origin and language to the Iroquois, had been already the field of a mission conducted by Recollects, aided after a time by the Jesuits. When Canada was restored to France by the treaty of St. Germain, Brebeuf penetrated to his old mission, in 1634, accompanied by Fathers Daniel and Davost, and in September erected a log chapel in the town of Ihonatiria. Thus began the greatest of the Jesuit missions in Canada, which called forth the most intrepid courage of the heralds of Christianity, and triumphed over the heathen hostility in the tribes, only to perish at last by the hands of the terrible Iroquois.

The Hurons lived in palisaded towns, their bark cabins clustering within, while the fields where they cultivated corn, beans, pumpkins, and tobacco lay near. Their hunting and fishing excursions were comparatively short, and they laid up stores of provisions for winter. The opportunity for instructing the people was accordingly much greater than among the nomadic tribes of the Algonquin family. Brebeuf, already versed in the language, extended his studies and initiated his associates into its intricate peculiarities. The young were the first care, and catechetical instructions were daily given to all whom they could gather. The Lord’s Prayer and other devotions were taught; but it was not easy to secure continuous attendance. This led to the project of a school at Quebec, to which some of the most promising boys were sent. There, with less to tempt them, more progress was made; yet the result was but temporary, for the pupils on returning to the upper country threw aside their slight civilization.

As other missionaries arrived, the labors of the Fathers in the Huron country extended; but they found that the medicine-men were bitter enemies, foreseeing a loss of all their influence. The march of Europeans through America always spread new diseases. In the Huron country the ravages were severe. The medicine-men ascribed all to the missionaries. Cabins were closed against them; their lives were in constant peril. Their house was set on fire, and a council of the three tribes met to decide whether they should all be put to death. The undaunted missionaries prepared to meet their fate, committing their chapel service and the fruit of their Indian studies to Peter Tsiwendeentaha, their first adult convert. Their fearless conduct at last triumphed. Adults came to solicit instruction; Ossossare and Teananstayae became mission stations, four Fathers laboring in each, while Garnier and Jogues proceeded to the towns of the Tionontates, a kindred tribe, who from their cultivation and sale of tobacco were generally called by the French the Petun, or Tobacco tribe. As new stations were formed and chapels built in the Huron towns, the missionaries in 1639 erected on the River Wye the mission-house of St. Mary’s, to serve as a centre from which priests could be sent to any of the towns, and where they could always find refuge. They extended their labors to the Neutral Nation and to the Algonquin tribes lying near the Huron country, reaching as far as Sault Ste. Marie. The missionaries endured great hardships and sufferings on these journeys from hunger, cold, and accident,—Brebeuf having broken his collar-bone by a fall, and reaching his lodge only by a long and weary progress on his hands and knees. Their efforts seemed almost vain. In 1640 they could claim only one hundred Christians out of sixteen thousand Hurons; a few prominent chiefs had joined them, but the young braves would not submit to the law of the gospel. Christian families, and still more Christians in heathen families, were subjected to much persecution, till the number of catechumens in a town enabled them to take a firm stand.

Meanwhile the Five Nations, freely supplied with firearms by the Dutch, were annihilating the Huron tribes, already weakened by disease. The war interrupted intercourse between the Huron country and Quebec. Father Jogues, sent down in 1642 to obtain supplies for the mission, while journeying back, fell with many Hurons into the hands of the Mohawks, who killed most of the party, and led the rest with the missionary to their towns. The missionary and his attendant, René Goupil, were tortured and mutilated, reduced to the rude slavery of Indian life, and witnessed the execution of most of their Hurons. Full of missionary zeal, they endeavored to impart some ideas of Christianity; but the effort cost Goupil his life, and Jogues was with difficulty rescued by the Dutch, and sent to Europe.

The missionaries in the Huron country, by the loss of the supplies in the Huron flotilla, were reduced to great straits, till Brebeuf reached them with two assistants, Garreau and Chabanel, whom no dangers could deter. Father Bressani, returning to his western labors, was less fortunate; he too was captured, and endured all but death at the hands of the Mohawks. His sufferings led the charitable Dutch to effect his release. Yet neither Jogues nor Bressani faltered; both returned to Canada to continue their perilous work.

When a temporary peace gave the Huron mission a respite, there were five churches in as many towns, and one for Algonquins living in the Huron country. The voice of the missionary seemed to find more hearers, and converts increased; but the end was at hand.

In July, 1648, the Iroquois attacked Teananstayae. As the braves manned the palisades, Father Daniel was among them to give them the consolations of religion, to confess and baptize; then he hurried to the cabins to minister to the sick and aged. He found his chapel full, and urging them to flight from the rear, he closed the front portal behind him, and awaited the Iroquois braves, who had stormed the palisade and were swooping down on the cross-crowned church. Riddled by arrows and balls, he fell dead, and his body was flung into the burning church of St. Joseph.

The capture of this town seemed a death-blow to hope in the bosoms of the Hurons. They abandoned many of their towns, and fled to the islands of Lake Huron or the towns of the Petuns. They could not be aroused to any system of defence or precaution.

On the 16th of the ensuing March, a force of a thousand Iroquois stormed, at daybreak, the Huron town which the missionaries called St. Ignatius. So general and complete was the massacre, that only three escaped to the next large town, St. Louis. Here were stationed the veteran Brebeuf, companion of the early Recollect missioners in the land, friend of Champlain, and with him as associate the young Gabriel Lalemant. The Hurons urged the missionaries to fly; but, like Daniel, they remained, exercising their ministry to the last, and attending to every call of zeal. The Hurons repelled the first assault; but their palisade was carried at last, and the victorious Iroquois fired the cabins. The missionaries, while ministering to the wounded and dying, were captured. They were taken, with other captives, to the ruined town of St. Ignatius, and there a horrible torture began. They were bound to the stake; Brebeuf’s hands were cut off; Lalemant’s body bristled with awls and iron barbs; red-hot hatchets were pressed under their arms and between their legs; and around the neck of Brebeuf a collar of these weapons was placed. But the heroic old missionary denounced God’s vengeance on the savages for their cruelty and hatred of Christianity, till they cut off his nose and lips, and thrust a firebrand into his mouth. They sliced off his flesh and devoured it, and, scalping him, poured boiling water on his head, in mockery of baptism; then they hacked off his feet, clove open his chest, and devoured his heart. Lalemant was wrapped in bark to which fire was applied, and underwent many of the same tortures as the older missionary; he too was baptized in mockery, his eyes torn out and coals forced into the sockets. After torturing him all the night, his tormenters clove his head asunder at dawn.

St Mary’s was menaced; but the Huron fugitives there sent out a party which repulsed the Iroquois, who then retired, sated with their vengeance. The Huron nation was destroyed. Fifteen towns were abandoned. One tribe, the Scanonaenrat, submitted to the Iroquois, and removed to the Seneca country in a body, with many Hurons of other tribes. Some bands fled to the Petuns, Neuters, Eries, or Susquehannas. A part, following the first fugitives to the islands in Lake Huron, roamed to Lake Michigan and Lake Superior. These were in time brought back by later missionaries to Mackinac.

The Huron mission was overthrown. A few of the Jesuit missionaries followed the fugitives to St. Joseph’s Island; others joined Garnier in the Petun mission. But that too was doomed. Echarita was attacked in December, the Iroquois avoiding the Petun braves who had sallied out to meet them. Garnier, a man of singularly attractive character, earnest and devoted, though mortally wounded, dragged himself along on the ground to minister to the wounded, and was tomahawked as he was in the act of absolving one. Another missionary, Chabanel, was killed by an apostate Huron. Their comrades accompanied the fugitive Petuns as they scattered and sought refuge in the islands. The number of the Hurons and Petuns was too great for the limited and hasty agriculture to maintain. Great misery ensued. In June, 1650, the missionaries abandoned the Huron country, and descended to Quebec with a number of the Hurons. This remnant of a once powerful nation were placed on Isle Orleans; but the Iroquois swept many of them off, and the survivors found a home at Lorette, where their descendants still remain.

Thus ended the Huron mission in Upper Canada, which was begun by the Recollect Le Caron in 1615, and which had employed twenty-nine missionaries, seven of whom had yielded up their lives as the best earnest of their sincerity and devotion to the cause of Christian progress.

The Jesuit missions were by this time reduced to a most shadowy state. The Iroquois had almost entirely swept away the Montagnais tribes on the St. Lawrence above the Saguenay; they had cut to pieces most of the bands of Algonquins on the Ottawa, while the country of the Hurons, Petuns, and Neuters was a desert. The trading-posts of the French at Montreal, Three Rivers, and Quebec were almost forsaken; no longer did flotillas come laden with peltries to gladden the merchants, and give missionaries an opportunity to address distant tribes. Several missionaries returned to Europe, as there seemed no field to be reached in America.

Suddenly, however, such a field presented itself. The Iroquois, who had carried off a missionary—Father Poncet—from near Quebec, proposed peace. They were in a fierce war with the Eries and Susquehannas, and probably found that in their bloodthirsty march they were making the land a desert, cutting off all supplies of furs from Dutch and French alike. At all events, they restored Poncet, and, proposing peace, solicited missionaries.

The Iroquois Mission.—War with the Iroquois had been almost uninterrupted since the settlement of Canada. Champlain found the Canadian tribes of every origin arrayed against the fierce confederation which in their symbolic language “formed a cabin.” The founder of Canada had gone to the very heart of the Iroquois country, and at the head of his swarthy allies had given them battle on the shores of Lake Champlain and on the borders of Lake Oneida. But the war had brought the French colony to the brink of ruin, and swept its allies from the face of the earth.

Now peace was to open to missionary influence the castles of this all-conquering people, and a foothold was to be gained there; and not only this, but, relieved from war, Canada was to open intercourse with the great West, and new missions were to be attempted in the basin of the upper lakes and in the valley of the Mississippi. The missionaries of Canada were thus to extend their labors within the present limits of our republic on the north, as the Franciscans of Spain were doing along the southern part from Florida to New Mexico.

The Recollect Joseph de la Roche d’Allion had already in early days crossed the Niagara from the west; Jogues and Raymbault had planted the cross at Sault Ste. Marie; Father Jogues had attempted to found a mission on the banks of the Mohawk; but his body, with the bodies of Goupil and Lalande, had mouldered to dust in our soil.

Father Simon le Moyne, who had succeeded to the Indian name of Jogues, and who inherited his spirit, was the interpreter in the recent negotiations, and had been invited to Onondaga and the Mohawk. For the former, the seat of the council-fire of the Iroquois league, he set out from Quebec July 2, 1654, and reached Onondaga by a route then new to the French, passing through the St. Lawrence, Lake Ontario, and the Oswego. He was favorably received at Onondaga, and the sachems, formally by a wampum belt, invited the French to build a house on Lake Ontario.

There was already a Christian element in the Iroquois cantons. Each of the cantons contained hundreds of Hurons, all instructed in the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, and not a few openly professing it; while in the Seneca country was a town made up of the Scanonaenrat Hurons, Petuns, and Neuters. Le Moyne found wherever he went Christians eager to enjoy his ministry.

His embassy filled all with hope; and the next year, as the Onondagas, through a Christian chief, solicited the establishment of a mission by the Jesuit Fathers, Peter Joseph Chaumonot and Claude Dablon were selected. They reached Onondaga, and after a formal reception by the sachems with harangues and exchange of wampum belts, the missionaries were escorted to the spot given to them for their house and chapel. Two springs, one salt and one of clear, sparkling fresh water, still known as the Jesuits’ well, mark the knoll where St. Mary’s of Ganentaa was speedily erected. The Canadian missionaries, from their resources and alms contributed in France, spent large amounts to make this new central mission adapted for all the fond hopes planned for its future work in diffusing the gospel.

The missionaries found the greatest encouragement in the interest manifested, and in the numbers who came to solicit instruction. They labored assiduously to gather the unexpected harvest; but mistrust soon came, with reports of hostile action by the French. Dablon returned to Canada, and a party of French under Captain Dupuis set out to begin a settlement at Onondaga, while Fathers Le Mercier and Menard went to extend the missions. They were welcomed with all the formalities of Indian courtesy; and while Dupuis and his men prepared to form the settlement, the missionaries erected a second chapel at the Onondaga castle, which was attended from Ganentaa. Then René Menard began a mission among the Cayugas, and Chaumonot, passing still farther, visited the Seneca town of Gandagare, and that occupied by the Scanonaenrat, many of whom were already Christians, and more ready to embrace the faith. The Senecas themselves showed a disposition to listen to Christian doctrines. Finding the field thus full of promise, Chaumonot and Menard returned to Onondaga, whence they were despatched to Oneida. Here they found less promise, but there were captive Hurons to profit by their ministry.

Meanwhile Father Le Moyne had visited the Mohawk canton from Canada, and prepared the way for a mission in that tribe.

Thus at the close of 1656 missionaries had visited each of the Five Nations, and all seemed ready for the establishment of new and thriving missions. The next year signs of danger appeared. A party of Hurons compelled to remove to Onondaga were nearly all massacred on the way, the missionaries Ragueneau and Duperon in vain endeavoring to stay the work of slaughter, which was coolly ascribed to them. The Mohawks, though they received Le Moyne, were openly hostile. They attacked a flotilla of Ottawas at Montreal, and slew the missionary Leonard Garreau, who was on his way to the far West, to establish missions on the upper lakes.

The missionaries in the cantons and the little French colony at Onondaga were soon evidently doomed to a like fate. So evident was the hostility of the Five Nations, that Governor d’Ailleboust arrested all the Iroquois in Canada to hold them as hostages. The missionaries at Ganentaa saw their danger, and through the winter formed plans for escape. At last, in March, they prepared for a secret flight, and to cover their design gave a banquet to the Onondagas, adopting the kind in which, according to Indian custom, all the food must be eaten. Dances and games were kept up till a late hour; and when the weary guests at last departed, the French, who had amid the din borne to the water’s edge boats and canoes secretly prepared in their house, embarked, and, plying oar and paddle all night long, reached Lake Ontario unseen and undiscovered even by a wandering hunter. It was not till the following evening that the Onondagas, finding the house at Ganentaa still and quiet, discovered that the French had vanished. But the mode of escape was long a mystery to them, so cautiously and adroitly had all the preparations for flight been made.

Le Moyne, in similar peril on the Mohawk, wrote a farewell letter, which he committed to the Dutch authorities; but the sachems of the tribe suddenly sent him to Montreal in the care of a party, so that in March, 1657, the Jesuit missionaries had all withdrawn from the territory of the Five Nations, after their short but laborious effort to open the eyes of the people to the truths of religion.

The Iroquois then dropped the mask, and war parties swept through the French colony, filling it with fire and blood. Yet the influence of the missionaries had not been in vain. One able man, Garakonthié, had listened and studied, though his unmoved countenance gave no token of interest or assent. He became the protector of the Indian Christians and of French prisoners, as well as an open advocate of peace. Saonchiogwa, the Cayuga sachem, embraced his views, and in the summer of 1660 appeared at Montreal as an envoy of peace, restoring some prisoners and demanding a missionary for Onondaga. The Governor of Canada hesitated to ask any of the Jesuit Fathers to undertake so perilous a duty; but as the lives of the French at Onondaga depended on it, Father Le Moyne intrepidly undertook the mission. He was waylaid by Oneidas, but escaped, and reached Oswego. Garakonthié came out to meet him. Once more peace was ratified. Nine prisoners accompanied Garakonthié to Montreal, Le Moyne remaining; but so frail was the newly established peace, that war parties from Mohawk and Onondaga slew, near Montreal, two zealous Sulpitians, the Rev. Messrs. Vignal and Le Maître. Though aware that any moment might be his last, Le Moyne labored on at Onondaga and Cayuga among Huron captives and native Iroquois, many, especially women, having become Christians, and instructing others whom they brought to the missionary. His labors ended in the spring of 1661, when he returned to Canada with the rest of the French captives.

Again war was resumed, and though there were negotiations for peace, and even applications for missionaries, the French Government, weary of being the sport of Indian treachery, resolved to humble the Iroquois. Regular troops and a body of colonists were sent from Europe, and preparations made for a vigorous war. Forts were erected on the Sorel River and Lake Champlain to cover Canada and aid in operations against the Mohawks and Oneidas. The western cantons, influenced by Garakonthié, proposed peace, and their proposals were accepted. Then, in 1665, De Courcelles led a force, on snow-shoes, to the very castles of the Mohawks, and though the tribe was warned in time to escape, their flight had its effect on the other cantons. The Oneidas asked for peace, and the Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas renewed their request. De Tracy, the Viceroy of Canada, led in person a force of twelve hundred French and one hundred Indians to the Mohawk country, and laid it waste, burning all their towns and destroying all their stores of provisions.

This exhibition of strength compelled the Mohawks to sue for peace. All the cantons united in the treaty, and all solicited missionaries. Once more were the Jesuits to undertake to propagate Christianity in the towns of the Iroquois league, which had been so uniformly hostile to the French and their allies. In July, 1667, Fathers Fremin, Bruyas, and Pierron set out for the field of their mission work, trusting their lives to a Mohawk party. They reached Gandawagué, and there and elsewhere found Christians. A chapel in honor of St. Mary was raised, and Fremin, sending Bruyas to Oneida, began his labors seriously. Pierron, after visiting Albany, returned to Quebec, and in May, 1668, Onondaga was assigned to Father Julian Garnier. Then De Carheil began St. Joseph’s mission at Cayuga; and Fremin, leaving Pierron on the Mohawk, set out for the Seneca country to establish a mission there.

Missionaries were thus at their labors in all the cantons, reviving the faith of the captive Hurons, and winning the better disposed to the faith. At Onondaga, Garakonthié during his life was the great stay of the missions. He did not at once embrace Christianity; but after mature deliberation was baptized with great solemnity in the cathedral of Quebec in 1669, and persevered to his death, respected by English, Dutch, and French, and by the Indians of the Five Nations, as a man of remarkable ability and virtue. The Mohawk canton gave to the faith Catharine Ganneaktena, an Erie captive, who founded subsequently a mission village on the St. Lawrence; Catharine Tehgahkwita, a Mohawk girl whom Canada reveres to this day as a saint; the Chief Assendasé; and subsequently Kryn, known as the Great Mohawk: Oneida gave the Chief Soenrese. Everywhere the missionaries found hearers, and among them many with courage enough to throw off the old ideas and accept Christianity with the strict obligations it imposed. The liquor which was sold without check at Albany made drunkenness prevalent throughout the castles of the Five Nations, brutalizing the braves; and these degraded men became tools of the medicine-men, who, clinging to the old belief, rallied around them the old Pagan party. But it is a remarkable fact that the Jesuit missionaries, while they did not succeed in making the Five Nations Christian, overthrew the worship of Agreskoué, or Tharonhiawagon, their old divinity, so completely that his name disappeared; and even those Iroquois who to this day refuse to accept Christianity, nevertheless worship Niio or Hawenniio, God or the Lord, who is no other than the God preached by the Jesuits in their almost hopeless struggle in the seventeenth century.

The Christians in the cantons were subjected to so many annoyances and petty persecutions, that gradually some sought homes with the Hurons at Lorette; but when, in 1669, the Jesuits offered La Prairie de la Magdelaine, a tract owned by them opposite Montreal, the Iroquois Christians began there the mission of St. Francis Xavier. The opportunity of being free from all molestation, of enjoying their religion in peace, led many to emigrate from the castles in New York, and a considerable village grew up, which the French fostered as a protection to Canada. This mission in time was moved up to Sault St. Louis, and became the present village of Caughnawaga, of which St. Regis is an offshoot. About the same time Iroquois Christians gathered at the Sulpitian Mission of the Mountain formed a village there beside that of the Algonquins, and this, removed to the Lake of the Two Mountains, still subsists, the same church serving for the flock divided in language.

These missions, continually recruited by accessions of converts from New York, afforded the missionaries the best opportunity for improving the Indians, and the spirit of religious fervor prevailed. The daily devotions, the zeal and piety of these new Christians, won encomiums from the bishop and clergy and from the civil authorities.

The sachems of the league saw with no favorable eye this emigration which was building up Iroquois settlements in Canada; for at Quinté Bay, Lake Ontario, was a third, chiefly of Cayugas, among whom the Sulpitians became missionaries. Finding their own efforts to recall the emigrants fruitless, the sachems complained to the English authorities. Dongan, the able governor of New York, whose great object was to exclude the French from the territory south of the great lakes, took up the matter in earnest. He brought over English Jesuits to replace those of France in the missions in the cantons from the Mohawk to Seneca Lake, and offered the Christian Iroquois in Canada a tract at Saratoga, promising them a missionary and special protection. The fall of James II. prevented the successful issue of this plan; but the opposition made manifest in the English policy roused the old feeling in the Iroquois, and when De la Barre, and subsequently Denonville, marched to attack the Iroquois, the missionaries, no longer safe, abandoned their missions. John de Lamberville, at Onondaga, was the last of the missionaries, and he remained in his chapel till news arrived that Denonville had seized many of the Iroquois in order to send them to the galleys in France, and was advancing at the head of an army. His life was forfeited, but the magnanimous sachems would not punish him for the crime of another. They sent him safely back under an escort.

Thus the Jesuit missions in New York ended virtually in 1687. Father Milet, captured at Fort Frontenac, was a prisoner at Oneida from 1689 to 1694; and in spite of a severe law passed by New York in 1700, Bruyas, the very next year, endeavored to revive the Iroquois missions; but they never recovered any of their old importance, and were finally abandoned in 1708, when the last Jesuit missionary retired to Albany. Thenceforth the Jesuits devoted themselves to their mission at Sault St. Louis; though at a later period the Sulpitian Picquet gathered a new mission at the Presentation, now Ogdensburg, in 1748.

During the period of the main missions in the tribes from 1668 to 1687, the baptisms—chiefly of infants, and adults in danger of death—were about two hundred and fifty a year in the Five Nations; no permanent church or mission-house was erected, and the result of their teachings was the only monument. This was not slight: many were sincere Christians, frequenting Montreal and Philadelphia for the practice of their religion, while the Moravian and other later missionaries found these converts, from a knowledge of Christian thought and prayers, valuable auxiliaries in enabling them to reach the heathen Iroquois. Pennsylvania, which had English Jesuit missionaries in her borders, wisely employed their influence to attract Catholic Iroquois to the chapel in Philadelphia, in order to win through them the good-will of the cantons.

Towards the close of the Jesuit missions in New York, the Recollects appeared within the Iroquois limits at Quinté Bay and Niagara, during La Salle’s sway; but they made no serious effort to found a mission, though Father Hennepin obtained Bruyas’ works on the Mohawk language, in order to fit himself for the task. After the extinction of the Jesuits, secular priests continued the missions at Sault St. Louis and St. Regis, which still exist.

The Ottawa Missions.—In the geographical distribution of the country, the district around Lake Superior acquired at an early period the name of the country of the Ottawas, from the first tribe which opened intercourse with the French. The Jesuits, after establishing their missions among the Hurons, soon extended their care to the neighboring Algonquin tribes, and in 1641 Father Jogues and Father Raymbault visited the Chippewas of Sault Ste. Marie. But the overthrow of the Wyandots and the desertion of their country interrupted for years all intercourse between the French on the St. Lawrence and the tribes on the upper lakes. Yet in 1656 an Ottawa flotilla reached the St. Lawrence, and the missionaries Garreau and Druillettes set out with them for the West; but near Montreal Island they were ambushed by the Iroquois, and Garreau was left weltering in his blood. Undeterred by his fate or by the hardships and perils of the long journey, the aged Menard, a veteran of the Huron and Cayuga missions, set out, encouraged by Bishop Laval, with another Ottawa flotilla, in July, 1660, expecting no fate but one that would appall most men. “Should we at last die of misery,” he wrote, “how great our happiness will be!” Paddling all day, compelled to bear heavy burdens, deprived of food, and even abandoned by his brutal Ottawa guides, Menard at last reached a bay on the southern shore of Lake Superior on the festival of St. Teresa, and named it in her honor. It was apparently Keweenaw Bay. “Here,” he wrote, “I had the consolation of saying mass, which repaid me with usury for all my past hardships. Here I began a mission, composed of a flying church of Christian Indians from the neighborhood of the settlements, and of such as God’s mercy has gathered in here.” A chief at first received him into his wigwam, but soon drove him out; and the aged priest made a rude shelter of fir branches piled up, and in this passed the winter laboring to instruct and console some as wretched as himself. In the spring his zeal led him to respond to a call from some fugitive Hurons who were far inland. He set out, but was lost at a portage, and in all probability was murdered by a Kickapoo, in August, 1661.

Claude Allouez was the next Jesuit assigned to this dangerous post. In the summer of 1665 he set out, and reaching Chegoimegon Bay on Lake Superior on the first of October, began the mission of La Pointe du St. Esprit, content to labor there alone with no mission station and no countrymen except a few fur-traders between his chapel and Montreal. For thirty years he went from tribe to tribe endeavoring to plant the faith of which he was the envoy. He founded the mission at Sault Ste. Marie, those in Green Bay, the Miami, and, with Marquette, the Illinois mission. He was the first of the missionaries to meet the Sioux and to announce the existence of the great river Mesipi. His first labors were among the Chippewas at Sault Ste. Marie, the Ottawas at La Pointe, and the Nipissings at Lake Alimpegon. When reinforced by Fathers Nicolas, Marquette, and Dablon, the last two took post at Sault Ste. Marie; and Allouez, leaving the Ottawa mission to Father Marquette, who soon had the Hurons also gather around him at La Pointe, proceeded to Green Bay, where he founded, in December, 1669, the mission of St. Francis Xavier and a motley village of Sacs and Foxes, Pottawatamies, and Winnebagoes. His visits soon extended to other towns on the bay and on Fox River.

At these missions the Jesuits, after their daily mass, remained for a time to instruct all who came; then they visited the cabins to comfort the sick, and to baptize infants in danger of death. Study of the dialects of the various tribes cost hours of patient toil; and reaching the western limit of the Algonquin tribes, they were already in contact with the Winnebagoes and Sioux of a radically different stock,—the Dakota.

Marquette was preparing the way to the lodges of the Sioux, when the folly of the Hurons and Ottawas provoked that tribe to war. The Hurons fled to Mackinac, the Ottawas to Manitouline, and Marquette was compelled to defer his projected Sioux and Illinois missions.

The field seemed full of promise, and other missionaries were sent out. They labored amid great hardships, and suffered much from the brutality of the Indians. With tribes that were constantly shifting their camping-grounds, it was difficult to maintain any regular system of instruction for adults, or to bring the young to frequent the chapel with any assiduity. Lay brothers, skilled as smiths and workers in metal, were powerful auxiliaries in winning the good-will of the Indians, as they repaired guns and other weapons and utensils. They were the first manufacturers of the West, visiting the copper deposits of Lake Superior, to obtain material for crucifixes, medals, and other similar objects, which the missionaries distributed among their converts. Yet even these lay brothers and their helpers, the volunteer donnés, were not free from danger, and tradition claims that one of them was killed by the brutal men whom they had so long served so well.

Of these missions, that at Mackinac, with its Hurons and Ottawas, became the largest and most fervent. The former were more easily recalled to their long-forgotten Christian duties, and the Ottawas benefited by their example. Between 1670 and 1680 this mission, then at Point St. Ignace, numbered five hundred Hurons and thirteen hundred Ottawas.

The missions at Green Bay could show much less progress among the Sacs and Foxes, Mascoutens, Pottawatamies, and Menomonees.

Father Marquette, setting out in June, 1673, from Mackinac with Louis Jolliet, ascended the Fox, and reaching the Wisconsin by a portage, entered the Mississippi, which they descended to the villages of the Quappas or Arkansas. Returning by way of the Illinois River, the Jesuit gave the Kaskaskias the first instructions, and was so encouraged that he returned to found a mission, but died before he could reach his chapel at Mackinac. This Illinois mission was continued by Allouez, who visited it regularly for several years from his headquarters among the Miamis.

There had arisen by this time a strong government opposition to the Jesuits, based partly on a hostility to the order which had always prevailed in France, but heightened in Canada by the fact that in the struggle between the civil authorities and the bishop with his clergy in regard to the selling of liquor to the Indians, the Jesuits were regarded as the most stanch and active adherents of the bishop. This feeling led to the recall of the Recollects. They found, however, few avenues for their labors. Several were assigned to Cavelier de la Salle, to accompany him on his explorations. One was stationed at Fort Frontenac, and Father Hennepin made some attempt to acquire a knowledge of Iroquois; but no mission work is recorded there or at Niagara, where Father Watteau was left.

Father Gabriel de la Ribourde, with Hennepin and Zenobius Membré, proceeded westward, and when La Salle established his post on the Illinois, which he called Fort Crèvecœur, the three Franciscans attempted a mission. Then Father Zenobius took up his residence in an Illinois wigwam. He found great difficulty, and was not destined to continue the experiment long. Hennepin, sent off by La Salle, descended to the Mississippi, and fell into the hands of the Sioux, who carried him up to the falls which still bear the name he conferred, “St. Anthony’s.” He was rescued after a time by Du Lhut, but can scarcely be said to have founded a mission. The Iroquois drove the French from Fort Crèvecœur by their attack on the Illinois, Father Gabriel was killed on the march by wandering Indians, and the attempted Recollect mission closed. After La Salle’s descent of the Mississippi and departure from the west, Allouez resumed his labors in Illinois, and was followed by Gravier, who placed the mission on a solid basis, and reduced the language to grammatical rules. Binneteau, the Marests, Mermet, and Pinet came to join in the good work. The Illinois seemed to show greater docility than did the tribes on Lake Superior and Green Bay. The missionaries were stationed among the Kaskaskias, Cahokias, Peorias, and Tamaroas. French settlements grew up in the fertile district, and marriages with converted Indian women were not uncommon. These missions flourished for several years, and a monument of the zeal of the Jesuits exists in a very extensive and elaborate dictionary of the language, with catechism and prayers, apparently the work of Father le Boulanger.

When Iberville reached the mouth of the Mississippi he was accompanied by Jesuit Fathers; but at that time no regular mission was attempted at the mouth of the river.

The Seminary of Quebec resolved to enter the wide field opened by the discovery of the Mississippi. Under the authority of the Bishop of Quebec, the Rev. Francis de Montigny, the Rev. Messrs. St. Côme and Davion were sent to Louisiana in 1698. They took charge of the Tamaroa mission on the Illinois, and attempted missions among the Natchez, Taensas, and Tonicas; but the Rev. Mr. St. Côme, who was stationed at Natchez, and the Rev. Mr. Foncault were killed by roving Indians. Then the priests of the Quebec Seminary withdrew from the lower Mississippi, but continued to labor at Tamaroa, chiefly for the French, till the closing years of French rule.

The Indian missions of Louisiana were then assigned to the Jesuits, who were allowed to have a residence in New Orleans, but were excluded from all ministry among the colonists. Their principal missions, among the Arkansas, Yazoos, Choctaws, and Alibamons were continued till the suppression of the order. At the time of the Natchez outbreak, the Jesuit Father du Poisson, who had stopped at the post to give the settlers the benefit of his ministry in the absence of their priest, was involved in the massacre; Father Souel was butchered by the Yazoos whom he was endeavoring to convert, and Father Doutreleau escaped in a most marvellous manner. In the subsequent operations of the French against the Chickasaws, Father Sénat, accompanying a force of French and Illinois as chaplain, was taken and put to death at the stake, heroically refusing to abandon the wounded and dying.

These Louisiana missions extended to the country of the Sioux, where several attempts were made by Father Guignas, who was long a prisoner, and by other Jesuit Fathers. Aubert died by the hands of the Indians while trying to reach and cross the Rocky Mountains with La Verenderye.

The increasing hostility to the Jesuits naturally weakened their missions, which received a death-blow from the suppression of the order in France,—a step carried out so vindictively in Louisiana, that all the churches at their Indian missions were ordered to be razed to the ground.

As Canada fell to England and Louisiana to Spain, the work of the Jesuit missionaries in French North America ended. Their record is a chapter of American history full of personal devotedness, energy, courage, and perseverance; none can withhold the homage of respect to men like Jogues, Brebeuf, Garnier, Buteux, Gravier, Allouez, and Marquette. Men of intelligence and education, they gave up all that civilized life can offer to share the precarious life of wandering savages, and were the first to reveal the character of the interior of the country, its soil and products, the life and ideas of the natives, and the system of American languages. They made known the existence of salt springs in New York, and of copper on Lake Superior; they identified the ginseng, and enabled France to open a lucrative trade in it with China; they planted the first wheat in Illinois and the first sugar in Louisiana. Their missions did not equal in results those of the Franciscans in Florida, Texas, New Mexico, and California,—not from any lack of personal ability or devotion to their work, but because they were at the mercy of trading companies, which allowed them a stipend just sufficing for their moderate wants; but neither company nor government made any outlay for such mission-work as would have enabled the missionaries to carry out any general plan for civilizing the natives. The Spanish Government, on the contrary, dealt directly with the missionaries, and did all to insure the success of their teaching. When a mission was to be established in Texas, New Mexico, or California, with the missionaries went a party of soldiers to erect a presidio or garrison-house as the nucleus of a settlement. These soldiers took their families with them; civilized Indians from Mexico who had acquired some European arts and trades were also sent, as being able to understand the character of the Indians better. With the party went horses, cattle, sheep, swine, agricultural implements, grain and seeds for planting, looms, etc. Then a mission was established, and as converts were made in the neighboring tribes, they were brought into the mission, and there taught to read and write in Spanish, instructed religiously, and trained to agriculture and trades. The mission was under discipline like a large factory, and each family shared in the profit.

The defect of the system was that no provision was made for the gradual settling apart from the mission of those who showed ability and judgment, allowing them to manage for themselves, and replacing them by others. They were kept too long in the degree of vassals, with no incentive to acquire manhood and independence. Accordingly, when the missions were suppressed, the Indians, who had never acted for themselves, were left in a state of helplessness.

Such a system in Canada would have saved the Indians of the St. Lawrence Valley and Upper Canada. What was accomplished, was effected by the indomitable energy of individuals,—the Jesuits, laboring most earnestly and continuously, effecting most; the Sulpitians ranking next; then the Priests of the Foreign Missions, and the Recollects. In our time the work of winning the Indians to the Catholic faith, or retaining them among its adherents, has devolved almost entirely on the Oblates of Mary Immaculate in Canada and Oregon, the Jesuits and Benedictines in the United States.

THE works bearing directly or mainly on the history of the Catholic missions in Canada and the other parts of the northern continent once claimed by France embrace so large a collection, that, instead of the missions being an incident in the civil history, the civil history of French America for much of its first century has to be gleaned from the annals of its missionary work.

For the first Recollect mission,—1615-1629,—the main authority is Sagard, Le Grand Voyage du Pays des Hurons, situé en l’Amérique vers la Mer douce, és derniers confins de la Nouvelle France, dite Canada, Paris, Denys Moreau, 1632; enlarged a few years later, and published as Histoire du Canada et Voyages que les Frères Mineurs Recollects y ont faicts pour la conversion des infidelles, Paris, Claude Sonnius, 1636. To each of these works is appended a Dictionnaire de la Langve Hvronne, Paris, 1632. Sagard’s work is very diffuse, rich in details on Indian life and customs, but gives little as to the civil history of Canada.[681]

Le Clercq, Établissement de la Foi, 2 vols. 12mo, 1691, translated as Establishment of the Faith, 2 vols. 8vo, New York, 1881,[682] gives in the first volume a clearer and more definite account of the ecclesiastical history of Canada for the period embraced in the first Recollect mission.

The Voyages de Champlain, Paris, 1619, gives some account of the introduction of the Recollects into Canada.[683] In Margry, Découvertes et Établissements des Français, Paris, 1875, there are two memoirs by the Recollects, drawn up to obtain permission to return to Canada,—one made in 1637 (vol. i. p. 3), the other in 1684 (p. 18),—both bearing on their earlier labors.

Le Clercq refers in two places[684] to “an ample Relation given to the public” by the Recollects of Aquitaine for an account of their labors in Acadia; but the work is still unknown to bibliographers and students.

For the later Recollect missions, the sources to be consulted are Father Christian Le Clercq, Nouvelle Relation de la Gaspésie, Paris, 1691, and the second volume of his Établissement de la Foi. Hennepin, in his Description de la Louisiane, Paris, 1683, 1688, translated as Description of Louisiana, New York, 1881, gives an account of his own missionary career; but his Nouvelle Découverte expands his former work, and introduces matter of doubtful authenticity, while his Nouveau Voyage is based on the second volume of Le Clercq.[685]

As bearing on the Recollect missions, cf. the Voyage au Nouveau Monde of Father Crespel, Amsterdam, 1757; in English in Perils of the Ocean and Wilderness, Boston.[686]

On the Jesuit missions, the works to be consulted are, for the first attempt in Acadia, Biard, Relation de la Nouvelle France, de ses Terres, Naturel des Terres, et de ses Habitans, Lyons, 1616, reprinted in the Relations des Jésuites, Quebec, 1858, and in fac-simile by Dr. O’Callaghan; the accounts in the Annuæ Litteræ Societatis Jesu for 1612, Lyons, 1618, and for 1611, Douay, 1618; Biard’s letter in Carayon’s Première Mission des Jésuites au Canada, pp. 1-105; and an adverse view in Lescarbot, Histoire de la Nouvelle France, 3d ed., Paris, 1618.

For the missions of Canada proper, the series of Jesuit Relations, as they are generally called, volumes issued in Paris, beginning with the “Lettre du Père Charles l’Allemant,” Paris, 1627 (also vol. xiii. of the Mercure Français), as Relation de ce qui s’est passé en la Nouvelle France en l’année MDCXXVI, and continued annually from the Briève Relation du Voyage de la Nouvelle France, by Father Paul le Jeune, printed by Cramoisy at Paris in 1632, down to the year 1672, comprising in all a series of forty-one volumes. Besides the religious information which it was their main object to convey, in order to interest the pious in France in their mission work, the Jesuits in these Relations give much information as to the progress of geographical discovery, the resources and fauna of the country, the Indian nations, their language, manners, and customs, their wars and vicissitudes. The volumes have been much sought by collectors, and the whole series was reprinted by the Canadian Government at Quebec in 1858, in three large octavo volumes, under the title of Relations des Jésuites. Though some Relations were reprinted and translated into Latin, complete sets have never been common. In Le Clercq’s Établissement de la Foi there is a bitter and satirical review of these Jesuit Relations, but the writer evidently had only eight or nine of the volumes; and Arnauld, the great enemy of the Jesuits, having his attention drawn to them by Le Clercq’s work, found great difficulty in getting copies of any, but finally discovered fourteen in “a great library.” Dr. E. B. O’Callaghan drew attention to them in a paper before the New York Historical Society, and several collectors endeavored to complete sets. Mr. James Lenox obtained nearly all, reprinting two that exist in almost unique copies. Matter was prepared for subsequent volumes by the Superiors of the Canada missions, and the Relations for 1672-73, 1675, 1673-79, 1696, and separate Relations bearing on the Abenaki, Illinois, and Louisiana missions have been printed to correspond with the old Relations; and many of these were reprinted under the title of Relations Inédites de la Nouvelle France, 2 vols., 12mo, Paris, 1861. The autobiography of the missionary Chaumonot has also been issued (New York, 1858; Paris, 1869); and Lives of Father Isaac Jogues and Brebeuf, by Father Felix Martin (Paris, 1873, etc.). One work called forth by the Jesuit missions in Canada is the Mœurs des Sauvages Amériquains comparées dux mœurs des premiers Temps, by Father Lafitau, long a missionary at Sault St. Louis, and author also of a treatise on the Ginseng.[687]

For the Louisiana mission there are some letters in the Lettres Édifiantes, which are also given in Rt. Rev. W. I. Kip, Early Jesuit Missions in North America, New York, 1847. The close of that mission is described in Carayon, Bannissement des Jésuites de la Louisiane, Paris, 1865. Besides the works in French, there is a Breve Relatione d’alcune Missione, by Father Joseph Bressani, a Huron missionary captured and tortured by the Mohawks. It appeared at Macerata in 1653, and a French translation of it by F. Félix Martin was issued in Montreal in 1852. The work of Du Creux, Historia Canadensis, Paris, 1664, gives a summary of the mission work of the Jesuits in Canada. Father Marquette’s account of his voyage down the Mississippi was first printed by Thevenot, Recueil de Voyages, Paris, 1681, and was translated into Dutch and issued by Vander Aa. It was printed from the original manuscript by Mr. James Lenox,—Récit des Voyages et des Descouvertes du R. Père Jacques Marquette,—and had been previously translated and published by J. G. Shea in his Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley, New York, 1852.

The history of the Sulpitian missions is to be found chiefly in recent works: Faillon, Histoire de la Colonie Française en Canada, 3 vols., Montreal, 1854; Vie de la Sœur Bourgeoys, 1853; Vie de Mlle. Mance, 2 vols., 1854. Belmont, Histoire du Canada, Quebec, 1840; Dollier de Casson, Histoire de Montreal, Montreal, 1869; and Voyage de MM. Dollier et Galinée, Montreal, 1875, are printed from manuscripts of early missionaries of that body.

Of the missions founded by the Seminary of Quebec nothing has been printed except the Relation de la Mission du Mississippi du Séminaire de Québec en 1700, New York, 1861. The vast and successful Spanish missions, extending from the Chesapeake to the Gulf of California, have a literature of their own, of which it is not our province to treat.

NOTE.—The map on the preceding page is a reproduction of a part of a map by Gen. John S. Clark, showing the missionary sites, 1656-1684, in the Iroquois country. It appeared in Dr. Charles Hawley’s Early Chapters of Cayuga History, Auburn, 1879, which had an Introduction on the Jesuit Relations by Dr. Shea.

AND OTHER MISSION RECORDS.

A CHRONOLOGICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY BY THE EDITOR.

THE main bibliographical sources for this study pertain to the Jesuit missions, as follows:—

Le Père Auguste Carayon: Bibliographie historique de la Compagnie de Jésus, ... depuis leur Origine jusqu’à nos jours, Paris, 1864, 4º.

Henry Harrisse: Notes sur la Nouvelle France, 1545-1700, Paris, 1872. He says, no. 49, that no library (1870-71) has a complete set of the Jesuit Relations; and adds that, including those of 1616 and 1627, a full set consists of fifty-four volumes, nine of which are second editions, and one a Latin translation. He had inspected all but one.

E. B. O’Callaghan: a catalogue raisonnée (1632-1672), in the N. Y. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1847, p. 140, also printed separately. Field (Indian Bibliography, no. 1,146), in noticing this essay, says that Dr. O’Callaghan enumerates only forty titles, of which the Carter-Brown Collection had thirty-six; Harvard College, thirty-five; Henry C. Murphy, twenty-nine. “Of the forty-eight now [1873] known to exist, Mr. Murphy has secured all but three.” Dr. O’Callaghan at that time named twenty libraries, public and private, in the United States which had sets more or less imperfect. The volumes of some years were not very scarce, those of 1648-1649 and 1653-1654 being known in ten copies in these libraries, while there were at that time no copies at all of the years 1655 and 1659; and these, marked by titles varying from the usual form, are still the rarest of the series.

The O’Callaghan pamphlet was reissued at Montreal in 1850 in a French translation by Father Martin, the superior of the Jesuits in Canada, who amended the text in places, and included the Biard Relation of 1613. He also gave an account of unprinted ones still preserved in Canada which were written subsequent to 1672, when the annual printing of them ceased.

Deriving help from this and other sources, Dr. O’Callaghan issued privately, in 1853, a broadside, with an amended list of the Relations and their several principal repositories,—State Library, Albany; Harvard College Library; the Parliamentary Library, Quebec; and the private libraries of Mr. Carter-Brown of Providence, Mr. Lenox of New York, Rev. Mr. Plante, Mr. O. H. Marshall of Buffalo, and Mr. George Bancroft.

In June, 1870, Dr. O’Callaghan issued a circular asking information of owners of the volumes for a second edition of his tract; but I cannot learn that the new edition was ever published. At the sale of Dr. O’Callaghan’s library December, 1882, his Catalogue, p. 105, showed 31 of the series; and they brought $1,068.45. Dr. O’Callaghan contributed a paper on the Relations to the International Magazine, iii. 185.

Carter-Brown Library: Catalogue, vol. ii. p. 164.

Lenox Library: Contributions, no. ii., The Jesuit Relation, etc., New York, 1879. The Relation of 1659, of which the copy in the Library of the Canadian Parliament was supposed to be unique, was reprinted in fac-simile by Mr. Lenox. In 1854, at the destruction of the Parliamentary Library at Montreal, its series of these Relations, forty-three in number (except eight), and including this unique volume, was destroyed. This Contribution shows the Lenox Library to possess forty-nine out of the series of fifty-five, counting different editions of the forty-one titles, from 1632 to 1672, making the fifty-five to include two translations and twelve second or later editions. The Lenox series lacks nos. 1, 28, and 35, as enumerated, and of no. 35 the Carter-Brown Library has the only copy known in America. The Lenox Library also lacks the first issue of no. 2, and the second issue of nos. 3 and 5. It has four duplicates, with slight variations.

These Relations will also be found entered under their respective authors in Sabin’s Dictionary and in Field’s Indian Bibliography.

The reason of the rarity of these books may lie in part in the smallness of the editions, but probably most in the avidity of readers, and consequent destruction; for Charlevoix says, “They were at the time extremely relished in France.” Of their character, the same authority says: “There is no other source to which we can apply for instruction as to the progress of religion among the savages, or for a knowledge of these people, all of whose languages the Jesuits spoke. The style of these Relations is extremely simple; but this simplicity itself has not contributed less to give them a great celebrity than the curious and edifying matter they contain.” Father Martin, in his translation of Bressani, speaks (p. 8) Of these Relations as the most precious monument, and sometimes the only source, of the history of Canada, and praises the impartial use made of them by Bancroft and Sparks. Parkman says of them: “Though the productions of men of scholastic training, they are simple and often crude in style, as might be expected of narratives hastily written in Indian lodges or rude mission-houses in the forest, amid annoyances and interruptions of all kinds. In respect to the value of their contents, they are exceedingly unequal.... The closest examination has left me no doubt that these missionaries wrote in perfect good faith, and that the Relations hold a high place as authentic and trustworthy historical documents. They are very scarce, and no complete collection of them exists in America.” Shea (Le Clercq, i. 381) has a note of the contemporary discrediting of the Relations by rival orders.

The series was reprinted by the Canadian Government in 1858 in three octavo volumes, with bibliographical notes and synopses, containing—vol. i. 1611, 1626, 1632 to 1641; ii. 1642 to 1655; iii. 1656 to 1672. These reprinted volumes are not now easy to find, and have been lately priced at £7 10s. and 100 francs. Field, Indian Bibliography, no. 1,177; Lenox, Jesuit Relations, p. 14.

There have been three supplemental and complemental issues of allied and later Relations; one was printed at the expense of Mr. Lenox, and the others had the editorial care of Dr. O’Callaghan and Dr. Shea, of which notice will be taken under their respective dates. See the lists of Shea’s “Cramoisy Series” (100 copies printed) in the Lenox Contributions, p. 15; Field, Indian Bibliography, nos. 129 and 1,397; and Menzies Catalogue, no. 1,811; and the O’Callaghan Catalogue for Dr. O’Callaghan’s series (25 copies printed). Dr. Shea’s acquaintance with the subject was first largely evinced by his History of the Catholic Missions among the Indian Tribes of the United States, 1529-1854, published, at the instance of Jared Sparks, in New York in 1855 (Field, no. 1,392); and he published a list of early missionaries among the Iroquois in the Documentary History of New York, iv. 189.

The earliest summarizing of these Relations or of those before 1656, was by the Père du Creux (or Creuxius, b. 1596, d. 1666) in his Historiæ Canadensis, sev Novæ Franciæ, libri decem, Paris, 1664 (pp. xxvi, 810, 4, map and thirteen plates). There are copies in Harvard College, Carter-Brown, Lenox, and New York Historical Society libraries. Cf. Rich (1832), no. 333, £1 16s.; Brinley, no. 82, $80; Carayon, no. 1,322; Harrisse, no. 120; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 945, with fac-simile of title; Leclerc, Bibl. Amér. no. 706, 500 fr.; Ternaux, no. 823; Lenox, p. 10; O’Callaghan, no. 699; Huth, i. 367; Sunderland, vol. ii. no. 3,561; Charlevoix (Shea’s edition), i. 81, who says: “This extremely diffuse work was composed almost exclusively from the Jesuit Relations. Father du Creux did not reflect that details read with pleasure in a letter become unsupportable in a continuous history.” “It contains, however,” says Dr. Shea, “some curious statements, showing that he had other material.” The map, Tabula Novæ Franciæ anno 1660, extends so as to include Hudson’s Bay, Newfoundland, the Chesapeake, and Lake Superior; and it has a corner-map, “Pars regionis Huronum hodie desertæ.” The map has been reproduced in Martin’s translation of Bressani’s Relation of 1653, and is given in part on another page of the present volume.

The Relations were not much noticed by writers at the time, and few allusions to them appear in contemporaneous works. One of the few books which drew largely from them is Le Nouveau Monde ou l’Amérique Chrestienne.... Par M^e Charles Chavlmer, Historiographe de France. Paris, 1659.

The story of the missions of New France necessarily makes part of the general works of Charlevoix and the other Catholic historians, particularly the Histoire du Canada of Brasseur de Bourbourg, Paris, 1859, who depends largely upon Bancroft for his facts. Mr. Parkman, not bound by the same ties, gives a view of the Jesuits’ character, in his Jesuits in North America, which has been questioned by their adherents. His book, however, is of the first importance; and Dr. George E. Ellis, in the Atlantic Monthly, September, 1867, recounts, in a review of the book, the historian’s physical disability, which has from the beginning of his labor sadly impeded the progress of his work. Cf. also Dr. Ellis’s sustained estimate of Parkman, in his Red Man and White Man in North America, p. 259. The story of the Jesuits’ trials contained in the Lettres Edifiantes is translated in Bishop W. I. Kip’s Early Jesuit Missions in North America, 1846, and again, 1866. Cf. also Magazine of American History, iii. 767; M. J. Griffin in Canadian Monthly, i. 344; W. B. O. Peabody’s “Early Jesuit Missionaries in the Northwest,” in Democratic Review, May, 1844, reprinted in Beach’s Indian Miscellany; Judge Law on the same subject, in Wisconsin Historical Society’s Collections, iii. 89; and Thébaud on the natives and the missions, in The Month, June, 1877; Poole’s Index gives other references, p. 683. Dr. Shea, at the end of his Catholic Missions, p. 503, gives a list of his sources printed and in manuscript.

Of the tribes encountered by the Jesuits, there is no better compact account than Mr. Parkman gives in the Introduction to his Jesuits in North America, where he awards (p. liv) well-merited praise to Lewis H. Morgan’s League of the Iroquois, and qualified commendation to Schoolcraft’s Notes on the Iroquois, and gives (p. lxxx) a justly severe judgment on his Indian Tribes. Mr. Parkman’s Introduction first appeared in the North American Review, 1865 and 1866.

This sketch follows one by Mr. C. C. Baldwin, accompanying an article on “Early Indian Migrations in Ohio,” in the American Antiquarian, i. 228 (reprinted in Western Reserve Historical Society’s Tracts, no. 47), in which he conjecturally places the position of the tribes occupying that valley at the opening of the seventeenth century. The key is as follows: 1, Ottawas; 2, Wyandots and Hurons: 3, Neutrals; 4, Iroquois; 5, Eries; 6, Andastes, or Susquehannahs; 7, Algonquins; 8, Cherokees; 9, Shawnees; 10, Miamies; 11, Illinois; 12, Arkansas; 13, Cherokees. (On the Andastes see Hawley’s Cayuga History, p. 36.)

There is another map of the position of the Indians in 1600 in George Gale’s Upper Mississippi, Chicago, 1867, p. 49; and Dr. Edward Eggleston gives one of wider scope in the Century Magazine, May, 1883, p. 98. Cf. Henry Harvey’s History of the Shawnee Indians, 1681-1854, Cincinnati, 1855; and a paper by D. G. Brinton on the Shawnees and their migrations, in the Historical Magazine, x. 21. Judge M. F. Force, in Some Early Notices of the Indians of Ohio, Cincinnati, 1879, an address before the Philosophical and Historical Society of Ohio, has tracked the changing habitations of the tribes of that region. There is a paper by S. D. Peet on the location of the Indian tribes between the Ohio and the Lakes, in the American Antiquarian, i. 85. William H. Harrison controverted the view that the Iroquois ever conquered the valley of the Ohio, in his “Discourse on the Aborigines of the Valley of the Ohio,” which was printed at Cincinnati in 1838, at Boston in 1840, and in the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio’s Transactions, vol. i. part 2d, p. 217; but compare C. C. Baldwin’s “Iroquois in Ohio, and the Destruction of the Eries,” in Western Reserve Historical Society’s Tracts, no. 40. David Cusick (a Tuscarora) published Sketches of Ancient History of the Six Nations, at Tuscarora Village, 1825, and again at Lockport, N. Y., 1848. An historical sketch of the Wyandots will be found in the Historical Magazine, v. 263; and Peter Clarke (a Wyandot) has published the Origin and Traditional History of the Wyandots. See references in Poole’s Index under Hurons, Iroquois, Indians, etc.]

There is a rare book containing contemporary accounts of the savages, which was written at Three Rivers in 1663, by the governor of that place, the Sieur Pierre Boucher, and published in Paris in 1664, under the title, Histoire veritable et naturelle des Mœurs et Productions du Pays de la Nouvelle France, vulgairement dite le Canada. The author, says Charlevoix (Shea’s edition, i. p. 80), should not be confounded with the Jesuit of the same name; and he calls the book under consideration a “superficial but faithful account of Canada.” There are copies in the Harvard College, Lenox (Jesuit Relations, p. 10), and Carter-Brown (Catalogue ii. 941) libraries.[688]

Another early account is the Mémoire sur les Mœurs ... des Sauvages, by Nicholas Perrot, which remained in manuscript till it was edited by Father Tailhan, and printed in 1864.[689]

The Jesuit Lafitau published at Paris in 1724 his Mœurs des Sauvages Amériquains in two volumes, with various plates, which in the main is confined to the natives of Canada, where he had lived long with the Iroquois. Charlevoix said of his book, twenty years later, “We have nothing so exact upon the subject;” and Lafitau continues to hold high rank as an original authority, though his book is overlaid with a theory of the Tartaric origin of the red race. Mr. Parkman calls him the most satisfactory of the elder writers. (Field, no. 850; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. nos. 344, 345, 472; Sabin, vol. x. p. 22.) There was a Dutch version, with the same plates, in 1731.

Bacqueville de la Potherie’s Histoire de l’Amérique Septentrionale, in four volumes, with a distinctive title to each (1722 and 1753), is mainly a history of the Indians with which the French came in contact. He wrote early in the last century, and his book saw several editions, evincing the interest it created. His information is at second hand for the early portions of the period covered (since Cartier); but of the later times he becomes a contemporary authority. (Field, no. 66,)

Of less interest in relation to the seventeenth century is Le Beau’s Voyage Curieux et Nouveau parmi les Sauvages de l’Amérique Septentrionale, published at Amsterdam in 1738,—a work, however, of a semi-historical character, (Field, no. 901.)

Cadwallader Colden’s History of the Five Indian Nations was printed by Bradford in New York in 1727, and is now very rare. Dr. Shea reprinted it in 1866, and in his introduction and notes its somewhat curious bibliographical history is learnedly traced. (Carter-Brown, vol. iii. nos. 393, 394; Field, Indian Bibliography, 341; Menzies, 429, $210; Sabin, vol. v. p. 222.) The three later London editions (1747, 1750, 1755) were altered somewhat by the English publishers, without indicating the variations they introduced. (Carter-Brown, vol. iii. nos. 847, 922, 1,049.) A portrait of Colden is given in the Historical Magazine, ix. 1. Sulte, in his Mélanges, p. 184, has an essay on the respective positions of the Iroquois and Algonquins previous to the coming of the Europeans.

D. G. Brinton, at the end of chap. i. of his Myths of the New World, characterizes the different writers on the mythologies of the Indians; and Mr. Parkman, Jesuits, etc., p. lxxxviii, notes some of the repositories of Iroquois legends.

A valuable paper on the origin of the Iroquois confederacy, by Horatio Hale, is printed in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., xix. 241; and Mr. C. C. Baldwin has a paper on the Iroquois in Ohio in the Western Reserve Historical Society, no. 40, and another paper on the early Indian migrations, in no. 47. Mr. Hale has further extended our knowledge by the curious learning of his Iroquois Book of Rites, Cincinnati, 1883; and he also printed in the American Antiquarian, January and April, 1883 (also separately Chicago, 1883), a scholarly paper on Indian Migrations as evidenced by Language.

So far as relates to the more easterly tribes coming within the range of the Jesuits’ influence, Parkman’s description can be compared with the plain matter-of-fact enumerations which make up the picture in Palfrey’s New England, which are derived from authorities enumerated in his notes. See various papers in the Canadian Journal.

The general historians of New France necessarily give more or less attention to the study of the Indians as the Jesuits found them; and such a study is an integral part of Dr. George E. Ellis’s learned monograph, The Red Man and the White Man in North America, whose account of the different methods of converting the natives, pursued by the French and the English, may be compared with that in Archbishop Spalding’s Miscellanea, i. 333.

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[In the enumeration below the initials of the repositories of copies signify: C., Library of Congress; CB., Carter-Brown Library, Providence; F., Mrs. J. F. Fisher, Alverthorpe, Penn.; GB., Hon. George Bancroft, Washington; HC., Harvard College; J., Jesuits’ College, Georgetown, D.C.; K., Charles H. Kalbfleisch, New York; L., Lenox Library, N.Y.; M., the late Henry C. Murphy, Brooklyn, L.I.; OHM., O. H. Marshall, Buffalo; NY., New York State Library, Albany; SJ., St. John’s College, Fordham, N.Y.; V., Catholic Bishop of Vincennes, Indiana.

Space is not taken in these notes to give full titles nor exhaustive collations, which can be found in the authorities referred to, the figures following them being to numbers; but the references to the Lenox Contributions is necessarily to pages.]

1580.—The Lenox bibliography begins the series of allied works with A Shorte and briefe narration of the two Navigations and Discoveries to the northweast partes, called Newe France, London, 1580. Harrisse, Notes sur la Nouvelle France, no. 5.

1605.—De Monts’ Commission. See chapter iv.

1609.—Coppie d’une lettre envoyée de la Nouvelle France, par le Sieur Cōbes, Lyons. (Harrisse, no. 20; Lenox, p. 3; Sabin, xiii. no. 56,083.) Dated “Brest-en-Canada, 13 Février, 1608.” The Carter-Brown Catalogue (vol. ii. no. 80) shows only a manuscript copy. Brunet speaks of a single copy, sold and bought for America.

1610.—La Conversion des Savages ... baptizés en la Nouvelle France, Paris. Harrisse, no. 21; Lenox, p. 3; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 99.

1610.—Lettre missive, touchant la conversion ... du grand Sagamos, Paris. Lenox, p. 3; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 103 (manuscript only.)

1611.—Missio Canadensis. Epistola ex Porturegali in Acadia. This is a reprint, made for Dr. O’Callaghan at Albany in 1870 (25 copies), following the letter as given in the Annuæ litteræ Societatis Jesu, 1611 and 1612. (Cf. Lenox, p. 18; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 119.) Carayon says that this Annual extends from 1581 (imprint, 1583) to 1614; and then again, 1650-1654. There are incomplete sets in the Harvard College and Carter-Brown libraries. From the same source Dr. O’Callaghan also reprinted Relatio rerum gestarum in Nova Francia, 1613, which relates to Biard’s mission.

1613.—Contract d’association des Jésuites au trafique de Canada, Lyons. (Harrisse, no. 28.) Tross’s reprint on vellum (12 copies only) is in the Lenox (p. 4) and Carter-Brown (vol. ii. no. 148) Collections.

1611-1613.—Canadicæ Missionis Relatio ab anno 1611 usque ad annum 1613, auctore Josepho Juvencio. Dr. O’Callaghan’s reprint, no. 4. (O’Callaghan, no. 1,980; Lenox, p. 18.)

1612.—Relation dernière de ce qui s’est passé au voyage du Sieur de Poutrincourt en la Nouvelle France, Paris. A description of the voyage of Biard and Masse from Dieppe, Jan. 26, 1611. (Cf. Harrisse, no. 26.)

Copy: HC.

Upon this early mission, see Carayon, Première mission des Jésuites au Canada, lettres et documents inédits, Paris, 1864. (Sabin, vol. iii. no. 10,792.) These letters and others are cited by Harrisse, nos. 397-400, 404-406. (Cf. Parkman’s Pioneers, p. 263.) Charlevoix (Shea’s ed., p. 87) cites Juvency’s Historiæ Societatis Jesu pars quinta, book xv., Rome, 1710, as elucidating events in Acadia in 1611. (Harrisse, no. 402.) For the trading relations of the Jesuits, see Lescarbot (1618), p. 665; Champlain (1632), p. 100, and references in Harrisse, no. 28, and Parkman’s Old Régime, p. 328. These early Acadian missions are treated in the Catholic World, xii. 628, 826; xxii. 666, and in Historical Magazine, xv. 313, 391; xvi. 41.

The subject of the Capuchins and other Catholics on the Maine coast at an early date is followed in Historical Magazine, viii. 301, and in Maine Historical Collections, i. 323. Cf. Poor’s Gorges, p. 98.

1613-1614.—Relatio rerum gestarum in Nova-Francia Missione annis 1613 et 1614. Lugduni. No. 6 of Dr. O’Callaghan’s reprints, Albany, 1871. Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 170; O’Callaghan, no. 1,250; Lenox, p. 19.

1616.—Relation de la Nouvelle France ... faicte par le P. Pierre Biard, Lyons. Chaps. i. to viii. are on the country and its inhabitants. Chap. xi. is on the arrival of the Jesuits in 1611; and in Harrisse’s opinion, it constitutes a reply to the Factum escrit et publié contre les Jésuites,—a publication of which we can find no other trace. It also describes the labors of the missionaries and the cruelties of Argall. See chap. iv.

See Harrisse, no. 30, on the question of an earlier edition in 1612. The Supplément of Brunet calls this 1612 edition spurious. (Carayon, p. 178; Lenox, p. 4, for a copy, with title in fac-simile by Pilinski, which yet cost 1,000 francs, as per Leclerc, no. 2,482.) A reprint, “presque en fac-simile,” was made at Albany in 1871 from a copy owned by Rufus King, of Jamaica, L. I. The Carter-Brown (vol. ii. no. 178) has only this fac-simile, and it is noted in O’Callaghan, nos. 1,207, 1,971, where it is stated only twenty-five were printed, at $25 per copy.

1626.—Coppie de la lettre escripte par le R. P. Denys Jamet, Commissaire des PP. Recollestz de Canada. Dated Quebec, Aug. 15, 1626.

References: Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 315. Dr. Shea thinks the date should be 1620. It is from Sagard, p. 58.

1626.—Relation de ce qui s’est passé en la Nouvelle France, 1626. Envoyée au Père Hierosme L’Allemant par Charles L’Allemant. Paris, 1629. Reprinted (no. 7) in O’Callaghan’s series, from the text in Mercure François, vol. xiii.

References: Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 351; O’Callaghan, nos. 1,210, 1,250, 1,982; Lenox, p. 19. Le Clercq doubts L’Allemant’s authorship; but see Shea’s Le Clercq, i. 329.

1627.—Lettre du Père Charles l’Allemant, Supérieur de la mission de Canadas, Paris, 1627. It bears date Aug. 1, 1626.

References: Sabin, vol. x. no. 38,680; Harrisse, no. 41; Faribault, no. 361; Ternaux, no. 496; Carayon, p. 179; Lenox, p. 4; O’Callaghan, no. 1,250.

It was reprinted in 1871 in O’Callaghan’s series. (Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 328; O’Callaghan, no. 1,208.) It first appeared in the Mercure François, xiii. 1. This last publication appeared in Paris, 1611-1646, in twenty-three volumes, and contains much illustrative of these early missions. There are sets of the Mercure in the Boston Athenæum, Harvard College, Carter-Brown, Boston Public libraries, etc. The reprint of L’Allemant’s Lettre in the Quebec edition of the Relations, follows the text of the Mercure, which corresponds, as is not always the case of these early Relations, with the contemporary separate text, as Mr. Lenox has pointed out in the Historical Magazine, iii. 19. Carayon, in his Première Mission, translates from another letter of L’Allemant, preserved at Rome, and of the same date, another account of these early Jesuit labors, which he sent to Père Vitelleschi. L’Allemant’s name in the contemporary publications is spelled with a single or double l, indifferently.

Another of O’Callaghan’s series (Albany, 1870), was Copie de trois Lettres escrittes en 1625 et 1626 par le P. Charles Lallemand. O’Callaghan, nos. 1,209, 1,250; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 316.

1629.—Lettre du Rev. Père l’Allemand au Rev. Père Supérieur du Collège des Jésuites à Paris, 22 Novembre, 1629. It is found in Champlain’s Voyages, and a reprint (no. 3) is in O’Callaghan’s series, Albany, 1870. O’Callaghan, nos. 1,250, 1,979; Sabin, vol. x. no. 38,681; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 390; Carayon, p. 179; Lenox, p. 18. It is translated in Shea’s Perils of the Ocean and Wilderness.

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[The regular series of so-called Relations, addressed to the Provincial of the order in France, begins here.]

1632.—Le Jeune. Brieve Relation du Voyage de la Nouvelle France, fait au mois d’Avril dernier, par le P. Paul le Jeune. Paris, 1632. Pages 68, one leaf for the Privilege.

It was reprinted in the Mercure François for 1633.

1633.—Le Jeune. Relation de ce qui s’est passé en la Nouvelle France en l’année 1633. Paris, 1634. Pages 216 and Privilege, with a cupid in the vignette, and errors of pagination. A second issue has a ram’s head for a vignette, and some typographical variations. These vignettes are at the top of p. 3; that with two storks is on the titlepage.

There is an abridgment in the Mercure François for 1633.

1634.—Le Jeune. Relation ... en l’année 1634. Paris, 1635. Pages 4, 342, with pp. 321-22 numbered 323-24. A second issue corrects p. 321, but makes 337 to be 339.

1635.—Le Jeune. Relation ... en l’année 1635. Paris, 1636. Pages 4, 246, 2.

1635.—Le Jeune. Relation, etc. Avignon, 1636.

1636.—Le Jeune. Relation ... en l’année 1636. Paris, 1637. Pages 8, 272, 223.

1636.—Le Jeune. Relation, etc. Paris, 1637. Pages 199 in smaller type than the preceding edition; the Huron report sometimes wanting, though mentioned in the title, while it was not mentioned in the preceding edition; but Sobolewski describes a copy which has this Huron report, occupying 163 pages.

References: Harrisse, no. 66; Lenox, p. 5.

1637.—Le Jeune. Relation ... en l’année 1637. Rouen, 1638. Pages 10,336 (pp. 193-196 omitted in paging), 256, with vignette of I. H. S. supported by two angels on the title. A second issue has the I. H. S. surrounded by rays, and there are other typographical changes in the title only. A folding woodcut of fireworks between pp. 18 and 19.

Harrisse, p. xiv, says the oldest original document he has found is a memorandum of a gift, August 16, 1637, by the Duchesse d’Aiguillon to the Réligieuses Hospitalières of Quebec (cf. also his no. 457).

1638.—Le Jeune. Relation ... en l’année 1638. Paris, 1638. Pages 4, 78, 2, 68. A second edition has pp. 4, 78, 76. Harrisse says it is distinguishable by the last page being marked 67, correctly, and page 39 of the Huron report having the word fidelle instead of fidèle; but the whole volume is reset.

Harrisse, p. 62, says a Latin version is included “dans le recueil du P. Trigaut, Cologne, 1653.”

1639.—Le Jeune. Relation ... en l’année 1639. Paris, 1640. Pages 8, 166, 2, 174. A second edition was a page-for-page reprint, with typographical changes on almost every page. The Privilege on the first reads, Par le Roy en son Conseil, and is signed March 26, 1638; the word son is omitted in the second, and the date of this is Dec. 20, 1639.

1640.—Vimont. Relation ... en l’année M. DC. XL. Paris, 1641. Pages 8, 197, 3, 196; but 191 and 192 are repeated.

We derive the earliest mention of Jean Nicolet’s explorations about Green Bay from this Relation, and what it says is translated in Smith’s Wisconsin, vol. iii. See chapter v. of the present volume.

1640-1641.—Vimont. Relation ... ès années 1640 et 1641. Paris, 1642. Pages 8, 216, 104. Chap. vi. is numbered viii., and there are other irregularities.

1642.—Vimont. Relation ... en l’année 1642. Paris, 1643. Pages 8, 191, 1, 170; pp. 76, 77, omitted in paging.

On Jogues’ exploration to the Sault Ste. Marie, see Margry, Découvertes, i. 45; Shea’s Charlevoix, i. 137.

For references on the founding and early history of Montreal, see Harrisse, p. 79. The Abbé Faillon’s Histoire de la Colonie Française en Canada, Paris, 1865-1866, three volumes, with maps, pertains chiefly to Montreal, and was left incomplete at the author’s death.

He derives new matter from the public archives in France, goes over afresh the whole history of Champlain’s career, and throws light on points left dark by Charlevoix and the earlier narrators, and is in some respects the best of the recent French historians; but Parkman (Jesuits, p. 193) cautions us that his partisan character as an ardent and prejudiced Sulpitian should be well kept in mind (cf. Field, p. 518; and chap. vii. of the present volume). Dollier de Casson’s Histoire de Montréal, 1640-1672, is a manuscript in the Mazarin Library in Paris, of which Mr. Parkman has a copy. It was printed in 1871 by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, in the third series of their historical documents. Parkman refers to (Jesuits, p. 209), and gives extracts from, Les véritables Motifs ... de la Société de Notre Dame de Montréal pour la Conversion des Sauvages, which was published in 1643 as a defence against aspersions of the “Hundred Associates.” It was probably printed at Paris. A copy some years since passed into an American collection at 800 francs. A transcript of a copy, collated by Margry, was used in the reprint issued in the Mémoires de la Société historique de Montreal, in 1880, under the editing of the Abbé Verreau, who attributes it to Olier, while Faillon has ascribed it to Laisné de la Marguerie. The editor adds some important “notices bibliographiques et documentaires;” some “notes historiques par le Commandeur Viger,” from an unpublished work,—Le Petit Registre; a “liste des premiers Colons de Montreal.” Of the older authorities, Le Clercq and Charlevoix (Shea’s edition, note, ii. 129) are useful; but Charlevoix, as Parkman says, was not partial to Montreal. The Société historique de Montreal began in 1859 the publication of Mémoires et Documents relatifs a l’histoire du Canada. The first number, “Dè l’Esclavage en Canada,” was the joint work of J. Viger and L. H. Lafontaine, but it has little matter falling within the present period; the second, “De la Famille des Lauson,” the governor of New France after 1651, by Lafontaine, with an Appendix on the “Vice-Rois et Lieutenants Generaux des rois de France en Amerique,” by R. Bellemare; the third, “Ordonances de M^r Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, premier gouverneur de Montreal,” etc; the fourth, “Règne Militaire en Canada;” the fifth, “Voyage de Dollier et Galinée.” See a paper on Montreal and its founder, Maisonneuve, in the Canadian Antiquarian, January, 1878. Concerning the connection of M. Olier with the founding of Montreal and the schemes connected with it for the conversion of the savages, see Faillon, Vie de M. Olier, Paris, 1873, iii. 397, etc., and references there cited; and also see Faillon, Vie de Mdlle. Mance, Paris, 1854, and Parkman in Atlantic Monthly, xix. 723.

1642-1643.—Vimont. Relation ... en l’années 1642 et 1643. Paris, 1644. Pages 8, 309, 3.

References: Carayon, no. 1,272; Harrisse, no. 81; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 552; Lenox, p. 6; O’Callaghan, no. 1,222.

Copies: CB., F., GB., HC., L. (two copies, slightly different), M., SJ., V.

Nicolet’s explorations, which have usually been put in 1638-39, were fixed by Sulté in 1634; cf. his Mélanges, Ottawa, 1876, and Draper’s annotations in the Wisconsin Historical Collections, viii. 188, and Canadian Antiquarian, viii. 157. This view is sustained in C. W. Butterfield’s Jean Nicolet, Cincinnati, 1881. Cf. Margry, Découvertes, i. 47; Creuxius, Historia Canadensis, and the modern writers,—Parkman, La Salle: Harrisse, Notes; Margry, in Journal de l’Instruction publique, 1862; Gravier, La Salle; etc. See also chap. v. of the present volume.

1643-1644.—Vimont. Relation ... ès années 1643 et 1644. Paris, 1645. Pages 8, 256, 4, 147 (marked 174).

Father F. G. Bressani was in the country from 1642 to 1645, and in his Breve Relatione d’alcune missioni de PP. della Compagnia di Giesu nella Nuova Francia, Macerata, 1653, pp. iv, 127, he gave an account of the rise and progress of the Huron mission. He promised a map and plates, but they do not appear in the copies known, of which two are in the Carter-Brown (Catalogue, vol. ii. no. 750) and Lenox (Contributions, p. 8) libraries; and others were sold in the Brinley (no. 67) and O’Callaghan (no. 1,232) sales. Cf. Carayon, p. 1,317; Leclerc, no. 684 (350 francs); and Shea’s Charlevoix, p. 80. Père Martin had to bring a copy from Rome to make his French translation, Relation abrégée de quelques missions ... dans la Nouvelle France, Montreal, 1852. This version had the Creuxius map, as already stated; another of the Huron country (p. 280), and numerous notes, with a memoir of Bressani by the editor. Cf. Parkman’s Jesuits, p. 253, with references; Shea’s Charlevoix, ii. 174, with note, and his Perils of the Ocean and Wilderness, p. 104; O’Callaghan’s New Netherland; Archbishop Spalding’s Miscellanea.

The first martyr of the Huron mission was Père Antoine Daniel, killed July 4, 1648 (Parkman’s Jesuits, p. 373). Field (Indian Bibliography, p. 146) says some curious, though perhaps not very authentic, information regarding the Hurons can be got from Sieur Gendron’s Quelques Particularitéz du Pays des Hurons, par le Sieur Gendron, which appeared in Davity’s Déscription Générale de l’Amerique, edited by Jean Baptiste de Rocoles, Troyes et Paris, 1660, and was reprinted in New York in 1868. Cf. Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 873; Lenox, p. 18; and Field, no. 598. A fac-simile of a corner map in Creuxius’s larger map, giving the Huron country, is given herewith. Parkman also gives a modern map with the missions and villages marked, and tells the fate of this people after their dispersement, at the end of his Jesuits. See Canadian Monthly, ii. 409.

Dr. Shea gives the following list of martyrs among the Canadian Jesuits, with the dates of their deaths: Isaac Jogues, 1646; Antoine Daniel, 1648; Jean Brebeuf, Gabriel Lallemant, Charles Garnier, and Natalis Chabanel, 1649; Jacques Buteux, 1652; Leonard Garreau, 1656, and René Menard, 1661. And of the Sulpitians: Guillaume Vignal and Jacques Le Maître, 1661. Les Jésuites-Martyrs du Canada, Montreal, 1877, includes Martin’s translation of Bressani’s Relation Abrégée, and sections on the “Caractère des Sauvages et de leur pays,” on their conversion, and on the “Mort de Quelqes Pères.”

1644-1645.—Vimont. Relation ... ès années 1644 et 1645. Paris, 1646. Pages 8, 183, 1.

1645-1646.—Hierosme Lalemant. Relation ... ès années 1644 et 1645. Paris, 1647. Pages 6, 184, 128.

Masse died May 12, 1646, and this Relation contains an account of him.

From October, 1645, to June, 1668, there are journals of the Jesuit missionaries preserved in the archives of the Séminaire at Quebec, which give details not originally intended for the public eye, but which now form an interesting supplement to the series for the years 1645-1668, except that there is a gap between Feb. 5, 1654 and Oct. 25, 1656. These journals were printed at Quebec in 1871, as Le Journal des Jésuites; publié par les Abbés Laverdière et Casgrain. Cf. Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,009, where it is stated that the greater part of the edition was destroyed by fire. A continuation of this Journal was in the hands of William Smith, historian of Canada; but is now lost. The Amer. Cath. Quarterly, U. S. Cath. Mag., and The Month contain various papers on the missions. See Poole’s Index.

1647.—Hierosme Lalemant. Relation ... en l’année 1647. Paris, 1648. Pages 8, 276; paging irregular from p. 209 to p. 228. Some copies have a repeated de in the title.

After Jogues’ captivity among the Mohawks, and his mutilations, and his rescue by the Dutch, he wrote an account of Novum Belgium in 1643-1644, which remained in manuscript till Dr. Shea printed it with notes in 1862, as explained in a note to chap. ix. of the present volume. Jogues now went to France, but returned shortly to brave once more the perils of a missionary’s life, and this second venture he did not survive. His own account of this was preserved, according to Père Martin, in the archives of the College of Quebec down to 1800, and according to Dr. Shea passed into the hands of the English Government, and was used by Smith in compiling his History of Canada, Quebec, 1815, and has not been seen since. “It is given apparently in substance in the Relation of 1646.”—Shea’s Charlevoix, ii. 188.

Dr. Shea also edited in English the “Jogues Papers” in the N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., 2d ser., vol. iii., including the account of Jogues’ captivity among the Mohawks; and he repeated the narrative in his Perils of the Ocean and Wilderness, p. 16. The original is a Latin letter, dated Rennselaerswyck, Aug. 5, 1643, of which there is a sworn copy preserved at Montreal, which differs somewhat from the printed copy as given in Alegambe’s Mortes illustres, Rome, 1667, p. 616 (Carayon, no. 79); and in Tanner’s Societas Jesu, Prague, 1675; and the German translation of it, Die Gesellschaft Jesu, Prague, 1683. Cf. Carter-Brown, vol. ii. nos. 1,136, 1,274; Field, Indian Bibliography, 1,530; Stevens, Bibliotheca Hist. 2,017. The letter is badly translated in Bressani’s Breve Relatione, p. 77, but Martin gives it better in his version of Bressani (p. 188). Details, more or less full, can be found in Andrada’s Claros Varones, Madrid, 1666; Creuxius, Historia Canadensis, pp. 338, 378; the Dutch Church History of Hazart, vol. iv.; Barcia, Ensayo Chronologico, Madrid, 1723, p. 205; Carayon, Première Mission; the Bishop of Buffalo’s Missions in Western New York, Buffalo, 1862; and of course in Ferland, Parkman (Jesuits, pp. 106, 211, 217, 304), and the other modern historians. A portrait of Jogues is given in Shea’s edition of the Novum Belgium, and in his Charlevoix, ii. 141.

1647-1648.—Hierosme Lalemant. Relation ... ès années 1647 et 1648. Paris, 1649. Pages 8, 158, blank leaf, 135.

Father Gabriel Dreuillettes, in the interest of the Abenakis mission, subsequently made a journey in 1651 to Boston, to negotiate a league between the New England colonies, the Canadian authorities and the Abenakis against the Iroquois. The papers appertaining were recovered by Dr. Shea and printed in New York in 1866, as Recueil de Pièces sur la Négociation entre la Nouvelle France et la Nouvelle Angleterre ès années 1648 et suivantes. A Latin letter from Dreuillettes to Winthrop, which makes a part of this book, had earlier been printed separately in 1864 by Dr. Shea, and again in 1869. The original manuscript was found among the Winthrop Papers, and is now in the cabinet of the Massachusetts Historical Society. (Field, Indian Bibliography, pp. 460, 461; Sabin, vol. v. p. 536; N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., 2d ser., iii. 303.) Mr. Lenox also, still earlier, privately printed at Albany in 1855, after the original, “déposé parmi les papiers du Bureau des Biens des Jésuites à Québec,” Dreuillettes’ Narré du Voyage (60 copies), as copied by Dr. Shea. Cf. Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 713; Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., iii. 34; xi. 152; Hutchinson’s Massachusetts Bay, i. 166; his Collection of Papers, p. 166; Plymouth Colonial Records, ix. 199; Parkman’s Jesuits, pp. 324, 330, and his references; Shea’s Charlevoix, i. 228, and ii. 214; Hazard’s Collection, ii. 183, 184; and N. Y. Col. Doc., ix. 6. The letter of the Council of Quebec and the commission given to the envoys sent to Boston, are also in Massachusetts Archives; Documents Collected in France, ii. 67, 69, where will also be found (iii. 21) a letter, dated Quebec, April 8, 1681, on the life and death of Druillettes.

1648-1649.—Paul Ragueneau. Relation ... ès années 1648 et 1649. Paris, 1650. Pages 8, 103. There was a second issue, with larger vignette on title, and some additional pages to the Huron report, pp. 4, 114, 2.

1648-1649.—Ragueneau. Relation, etc.... Lille, 1650. Pages 121, 3. Follows the first Paris edition, but is of smaller size.

1648-1649.—Ragueneau. Narratio Historica ... Œniponti, 1650. Pages 24, 232, 3. A Latin translation by G. Gobat, somewhat abridged, and differently divided into chapters; smaller than the preceding edition.

Further accounts of the martyrdom of Brebeuf and Lalemant will be found in most of the works mentioned under 1647, in connection with Jogues. Cf. also the Mercure de France, 1649, pp. 997-1,008; Catholic World, xiii. 512, 623; Le Père Martin’s Le P. Jean de Brebeuf, sa vie, ses travaux, son Martyre, Paris, 1877; Harrisse, p. 88; Shea’s Charlevoix, ii. 221, where is an engraving of a silver portrait bust of Brebeuf, sent by his relatives from Paris to enclose his skull (cf. Parkman’s Jesuits, p. 389), which is still preserved at Quebec. The accompanying engraving is made from a photograph kindly lent by Mr. Parkman. There are other engravings in Shea’s Catholic Mission, in his Charlevoix, ii. 221; and in the Carter-Brown Catalogue, ii. 171.

1649-1650.—Ragueneau. Relation ... depuis l’Esté de la année 1649 jusques à l’Esté de l’année 1650. Paris, 1651. Pages 4, 178 (marked 187), 2. Page 171 has tailpiece of fruits. A second issue has typographical variations, with no tailpiece on p. 171, and on p. 178 a letter from the “Supérieure de l’Hospital de la Miséricorde de Kebec.”

Shea, Charlevoix, ii. 231, and Parkman, Jesuits, pp. 101, 406, 407, give references for Garnier. Cf. Bressani, Breve Relatione, and Martin’s translation of Bressani, for a table of thirty Jesuit and Recollect missionaries among the Hurons. Margry’s Découvertes, etc., Part I., is on “Les Récollets dans le pays des Hurons, 1646-1687.”

Parkman, Jesuits, pp. 402, 430, saying that this Relation is the principal authority for the retreat of the Hurons to Isle St. Joseph, etc., gives other references.

1650-1651.—Ragueneau. Relation ... ès années 1650 et 1651. Paris, 1652. Pages 4, 146, 1.

1651-1652.—Ragueneau. Relation ... depuis l’été de l’année 1651 jusques à l’été de l’année 1652. Paris, 1653. Pages 8, 200.

The account of the Réligieuses Ursulines of Canada in this Relation was repeated, with additions, in pp. 229-315 of La Gloire de S. Ursule, Valenciennes, 1656. Cf. Harrisse, p. 106; Lenox, p. 8; also Les Ursulines de Québec, and Saint Foi’s Premières Ursulines de France.

An account of the missions “in Canada sive Nova Francia” is the first section of the Progressus fidei Catholicæ in novo orbe, published at Coloniæ Agrippinæ, 1653. The book is very rare; the only copy noted is in the Carter-Brown Collection, vol. ii. no. 758. The Lenox Contribution, p. 8., says there was a copy in O’Callaghan’s Collection, but I fail to find it in his sale catalogue; cf. Harrisse, p. 99.

1652-1653.—François Lemercier. Relation ... depuis l’été de l’année 1652 jusques à l’été de l’année 1653. Paris, 1654. Pages 4, 184, 4.

Montreal was organized as a colony in 1653. Cf. Faillon, vol. ii. chap. 10.

1653-1654.—Lemercier. Relation ... ès années 1653 et 1654. Paris, 1655. Pages 4, 176.

Cf. L. P. Tarcotte’s Histoire de l’ile Orléans, Quebec, 1867, and N. H. Bowen’s Isle of Orleans, 1860.

1655.—Copie de deux Lettres envoiées de la Nouvelle France. Paris, 1656. Pages 28. The bearer of the Relation of this year was robbed in France, and only these two letters were recovered and printed. It, with the Relation of 1660, is the rarest of the series.

Mr. Lenox printed a fac-simile edition from his own copy, with double titles, showing variations; and of this there are copies in CB., HC., etc.

1655-1656.—Jean de Quens. Relation ... ès Années 1655 et 1656. Paris, 1657. Pages 6, 168.

Cf. Tailhan, Mémoires sur Perrot, p. 229; and the references in Shea’s Charlevoix, vol. ii. Parkman says Perrot is in large part incorporated in La Potherie; cf. Historical Magazine, ix. 205.

1656-1657.—Le Jeune. Relation ... ès années mil six cents cinquante six et mil six cens cinquante sept. Paris, 1658. Pages 12, 211.

1657-1658.—Ragueneau. Relation ... ès années 1657 et 1658. Paris, 1659. Pages 8, 136. Martin holds that this volume was made up in Paris.

On the French missions in New York, see Marie de l’Incarnation, Lettres historiques; Parkman’s Old Régime, chap. i.; O’Callaghan’s New Netherland; Shea’s Charlevoix, vol. iii.; J. V. H. Clark’s Onondaga (Syracuse, 1849); Charles Hawley’s Early Chapters of Cayuga History, with the Jesuit Missions in Goi-o-gouen, 1656-1684 (Auburn, 1879), with an Introduction by Dr. Shea. This last book has a map of the Iroquois territory and the mission sites, by J. S. Clark (reproduced on an earlier page).

1659.—Lallemant. Lettres envoiées de la Nouvelle France. Paris, 1660. Pages 49, 3.

De Laval landed at Quebec June 6, 1659, having been made Bishop of Petra and Vicar Apostolic of New France the previous year. He became Bishop of Quebec in 1674; resigned in 1688, and died in 1708. Parkman draws a distinct picture of his character in his Old Régime, chap. v., and describes his appearance from several portraits which are extant, one of which is engraved in Shea’s Le Clercq, ii. p. 50. A Life of him, by La Tour, was printed at Cologne in 1761; and an Esquisse de la vie, etc., at Quebec, in 1845. Two other publications are of interest: Notice sur la fête à Quebec le 16 Juin, 1859, 200eme anniversaire de l’arrivée de Laval, Quebec, 1859, and Translation des Restes de Laval, Quebec, 1878. Cf. Faillon, Hist. de la Colonie Française, ii. chap. 13, and Shea’s Charlevoix, iii. 20, for references. In 1874 the second centennial of Laval’s becoming bishop was commemorated in a Notice biographique, by E. Langevin, “suivie de quarante-une lettres et notes historiques sur le Chapitre de la Cathédrale,” published at Montreal, 1874.

The Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame were founded this year at Montreal, and the life of the foundress, Margaret Bourgeois, by Montgolfier, was published in Montreal in 1818; and was translated and published in English in New York in 1880. Another Life, said to be by the Abbé Faillon, was published in 1853. An earlier Life, by Ransonet, was published at Liege in 1728. Cf. Parkman’s Jesuits, p. 201, and Shea’s Charlevoix, vol. v., for her portrait.

The Abbé de Queylus, who was the candidate of the Sulpitians for the Bishopric, came over in 1657. (Faillon, ii. 271; La Tour, Vie de Laval, 19; Shea’s Charlevoix, iii. 20; Parkman, Old Régime, 97.)

1659-1660.—(Not signed.) Relation ... ès années mil six cent cinquante neuf et mil six cent soixante. Paris, 1661. Pages 6, 202; paging irregular in parts.

For the dispersal of the Hurons, see Martin’s Bressani, App. p. 309; cf. Parkman’s Jesuits.

For the part relating to traders on Lake Superior in 1658, see translation, in Smith’s Wisconsin, iii. 20; cf. Margry, i. 53. Menard’s letter, Aug. 27, 1660, on the eve of his embarkation for Lake Superior, is translated in Minnesota Historical Society’s Annals, i. 20; and Collections, i. 135.

1660-1661.—Le Jeune. Relation ... ès années 1660 et 1661. Paris, 1662. Pages 8, 213, 3.

1661-1662.—Lallemant. Relation ... ès années 1661 et 1662. Paris, 1663. Pages 8, 118, 1.

Cf. Shea’s Charlevoix, iii. 45, note.

1662-1663.—Lallemant. Relation ... ès années 1662 et 1663. Paris, 1664. Pages 16, 169, with some irregularity of paging.

Cf. Shea’s Charlevoix, iii. 48, 57.

Menard had established a mission at St. Theresa Bay, Lake Superior, in 1661. Cf. Smith’s Wisconsin, vol. iii., for a translation; cf. further, on Menard, Perrot’s Mœœurs des Sauvages; Historical Magazine, viii. 175, by Dr. Shea, and his edition of Charlevoix, i. 49; Minnesota Hist. Soc. Coll., by E. D. Neill, i. 135. Cf. J. G. Shea on the “Indian Tribes of Wisconsin,” in the Wisconsin Hist. Coll., iii. 125; and a criticism by Alfred Brunson in vol. iv. p. 227.

1663-1664.—Lallemant. Relation ... ès années 1663 et 1664. Paris, 1665. Pages 8, 176, with some irregularities of paging.

1664-1665.—Lemercier. Relation ... ès années 1664 et 1665. Paris, 1666. Pages 12, 128.

1665-1666.—Lemercier. Relation ... aux années mil six cent soixante cinq et mil six cent soixante six. Paris, 1667. Pages viii, 47, 16.

Harrisse says the copies in the Bibliothèque Nationale and the Ste. Geneviève Libraries in Paris contain also a “Lettre de la Révérende Mère Supérieure des Réligieuses Hospitalières de Kebec, du 3 Octobre, 1666,” 16 pp., which is called for in the contents-tables of copies in which it fails, and it is not included in the Quebec edition of the Relations. Historical Magazine, iii. 20.

1666-1667.—Lemercier. Relation ... les années mil six cens soixante six et mil six cens soixante sept. Paris, 1668. Pages 8, 160, 14. The title is without the usual vignette of storks.

Contents: Allouez’ Journal to Lake Superior; The Pottawatomies and other Western Tribes; Missions to the Five Nations; Thomas Morel’s Account of the Wonders in the Church of St. Anne du Petit Cap. A second issue has appended, a “Lettre de la Révérende Mère Supérieure des Réligieuses Hospitalières de Kebec du 20 Octobre, 1667,” 14 pp., which is omitted in the Quebec edition of the Relations.

A translation of Allouez’ journal is in Smith’s Wisconsin, vol. iii.; cf. Shea’s Charlevoix, iii. 101, and his Discovery of the Mississippi, and Catholic Missions; Margry’s Découvertes, i. 57.

For the early missions in the far West, see Wisconsin Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. iii.; E. M. Sheldon’s Early History of Michigan; Lanman’s Michigan; James W. Taylor’s History of Ohio. Cf. Field’s Indian Bibliography, nos. 856, 1,398, 1,535, 1,688.

It has been claimed that Archbishop Fénelon (b. 1651) may have been a missionary among the Iroquois from 1667 to 1674; cf. Robert Greenough in N. Y. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1848, p. 109; 1849, p. 11. A half-brother of Fénelon is known to have been in Montreal; cf. Abbé Verreau on “Les deux Abbés de Fénelon,” in the Canadian Journal de l’Instruction publique, vol. viii.; Parkman’s Frontenac, pp. 33, 43. The evidence fails to establish the proof of the Archbishop’s presence here. Cf. N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg. xvi. p. 344, and xvii. p. 246.

1667-1668.—Lemercier. Relation ... aux années mil six cens soixante-sept, et mil six cens soixante-huit. Paris, 1669. Pages 8, 219. Has the stork vignette of the Cramoisy press on the title, and it is the last Relation in which that sign is used.

Père Paul Ragueneau’s La Vie de la Mère Cathérine de St. Augustin, was published at Paris in 1671. Cf. Harrisse, no. 133; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,069; Leclerc, 1878 (500 francs). There was an Italian translation printed at Naples in 1752.

1668-1669.—(No author.) Relation ... les années 1668 et 1669. Paris, 1670. Pages 2, 150 (last page 140 by error). The title vignette is a vase of flowers.

The question of selling liquor to the Indians was one of large political bearing at times. Cf. Faillon, iii. chap. 21.

1669-1670.—Lemercier. Relation ... les années 1669 et 1670. Paris, 1671. Pages 10, 3-318. Part i. pp. 3-108, in larger type than part ii. pp. 111-318.

Contents: Missions to the Five Nations; The Iroquois and Algonquin Difficulties; The Mohawk and Mohegan War, 1669; The Père d’Ablon’s “Relation des Missions aux Ovtaovaks;” A chapter on the Dutch begins p. 145; Lake Superior and the Copper Mines; Letter from Jacques Marquette on the Western Tribes.

References: Carayon, no. 1,298; Harrisse, no. 135; Sabin, vol. x. no. 39,998; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,070; Lenox, p. 11; O’Callaghan, no. 1,245; Dufossé, no. 2,176 (200 francs).

Copies: CB., F., HC., L., M., NY., V.

Translations of portions on Western explorations are in Smith’s Wisconsin, vol. iii.

1670-1671.—Claude d’Ablon. Relation ... les années 1670 et 1671.. Paris, 1672. Pages 16, 189, 1, with errors of paging. The title vignette is a basket of fruit.

Contents: The Missions; The Western Country occupied by the French, and the Country described; the Mississippi River described from the Reports of the Indians.

It has a folding map of Lake Superior (a fac-simile of it is annexed), of which, says Parkman (La Salle, pp. 30, 450), “the exactness has been exaggerated as compared with other Canadian maps of the day.” Bancroft (United States, original edition, iii. 152) gives a reproduction of it. Others are in Whitney’s Geological Report of Lake Superior, and in Monette’s Mississippi. vol. i. Harrisse (no. 201) notes a map of Lake Superior, dated 1671, and preserved in Paris.

Cf. the “Relation de l’Abbé Gallinée” in Margry, Découvertes, etc., part i. p. 112, and separately with the Abbé Verreau’s notes, Montreal, 1875. St. Lusson’s ceremony in taking possession of the country on the Lakes is noted in Ibid. i. 96.

1671-1672.—D’ablon. Relation ... les années 1671 et 1672. Paris, 1673. Pages 16, 264.

Harrisse says the two copies in the Bibliothèque Nationale have the same map as the preceding Relation. O’Callaghan says all copies ought to have it. Lenox says the map in this edition is sometimes, but rarely, found with variations, the position of some of the missions being changed, and new stations added on the plate.

Parkman (La Salle, p. 29) speaks of the change now taking place in the character of the Relations, which are still “for the edification of the pious reader, filled with intolerably tedious stories of baptisms, conversions, and the exemplary deportments of neophytes; but they are relieved abundantly by more mundane subjects,— ... observations on the winds, currents, and tides of the Great Lakes, speculations on a subterranean outlet of Lake Superior, accounts of its copper mines,”[690] etc.

A Life of Madame de la Peltrie (Magdalen de Chauvigny), by Mother St. Thomas, was published in New York in 1859.

A companion of Madame de la Peltrie was commemorated in La Vie de la Vénérable Mère Marie de l’Incarnation, première Supérieure des Ursulines (Paris, 1677), by her son, Claude Martin. She was in Canada from 1639 to 1672. (Harrisse, no. 143; Lenox, pp. 13, 14; Dufossé, no. 6,763, 125 francs.) In 1681 a series of Lettres de la Vénérable Mère Marie de l’Incarnation was printed, and they cover many historical incidents. (Harrisse, no. 148; Dufossé, no. 3,166, 110 francs.) A selection of them was published at Clermont Ferrand in 1837. Charlevoix published a Life of her in 1724; and in 1864 one by Casgrain was printed in Quebec, and in English at Cork in 1880. In 1873 the French text was included in Œuvres de l’Abbé Casgrain, tome i. Another by the Abbé Richardeau was printed at Tournai in 1873. There is a likeness of her in Les Ursulines de Québec depuis leur Etablissement jusqu’a nos jours. A. M. D. G. Quebec, 1863. 4 vols. Shea (Charlevoix, i. 82; ii. 101; iii. 184) enumerates other authorities: Juchereau, Histoire de l’Hôtel-Dieu de Québec. Another History of the Hôtel-Dieu, by Casgrain, was published in 1878. An account of steps to procure her canonization is in the Catholic World (New York), August, 1878. Cf. Parkman’s Jesuits, 174, 177, 199, 206.

[The contemporary printing of these Relations stopped with this for 1671-1672. The series in continuation has since been printed in various forms, as follows.]

1672-1679.—Mission du Canada; Relations inédites de la Nouvelle France (1672-1679), Paris, Ch. Douniol, 1861. 2 vols.; 2 maps, one of them a fac-simile of Marquette’s map. [These volumes are vols. iii. and iv. of Voyages et Travaux des Missionaires de la Compagnie de Jésus.]

Cf. Field. Indian Bibliography, p. 276; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,085, 1,198; Lenox, p. 14; O’Callaghan, no. 1,252.

1673-1679.—Claude Dablon. Relation de ce qui s’est passé de plus remarquable aux Missions des Pères de la Compagnie de Jésus en la Nouvelle France les années 1673 à 1679. A la Nouvelle York. De la Presse Cramoisy de Jean-Marie Shea, 1860. Pages 13, 290, with Marquette’s map.

Martin describes the original manuscript (147 pages, pp. 109-118 wanting) preserved at Quebec as being divided into eight chapters. It has an account of the heroic death of Marquette. Cf. Field’s Indian Bibliography, no. 396; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,197; Lenox, p. 16.

Some misrepresentations having been made regarding the Cramoisy series of Dr. Shea, it is fair to say that the expense of the whole series was borne by himself alone. There are enumerations of the volumes in Field’s Indian Bibliography, the Menzies Catalogue, no. 1,811, and in the Brinley Catalogue, no. 146, etc.

1672-1673.—Dablon. Relation, etc. New York, 1861.

This concerns the missions to the Hurons near Quebec, to the Iroquois, and beyond the Great Lakes. It is also printed in the Mission du Canada, vol. i. Cf. Harrisse, nos. 597, 605; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,098; Field, no. 1,070; Lenox, p. 17.

1673-1674.—Dablon. Relation, etc. In the Mission du Canada; and an English translation is in the Historical Magazine, v. 237.

1673-1675. Récit des Voyages et des Découvertes du R. Père Jacques Marquette, de la Compagnie de Jésus, en l’année 1673 et aux suivantes: La Continuation de ses Voyages par le R. P. Claude Allouez, et Le Journal autographe du P. Marquette en 1674 et 1675. Avec la Carte de son Voyage tracée de sa main.

Printed for Mr. Lenox after the original manuscript preserved in the Collége Ste. Marie at Montreal. Cf. O’Callaghan, no. 1,246a; Carter-Brown, ii. 1,126; Lenox, p. 12.

1675.—“État présent des missions pendant l’année 1675,” in the Mission du Canada, vol. ii.

1676-1677.—Relation ... ès années 1676 et 1677. Imprimée pour la première fois, selon la copie du MS. original restant à l’Université Laval, Québec. [Albany, 1854.] Pages 2, 165.

Contents: Missions among the Iroquois, Outaouacs, and at Tadousac.

This Relation was printed for Mr. Lenox. Cf. Lenox, p. 13; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,172; O’Callaghan, nos. 1,247, 1,975.

1677-1678.—Relation, etc. This is printed in the Mission du Canada, i. 193.

Contents: Joliet’s account of his Journey with Marquette, and their discovery of the Mississippi in 1673, as edited by Père Dablon, with an account of a third journey to the Country of the Illinois, by Claude Allouez.

An English version of Allouez’ journal is given in Shea’s Mississippi Valley, p. 67, with a sketch of the missionary’s life. Cf. Margry’s “Notice sur le Père Allouez, 1665-71,” in his Découvertes, etc., Part I. p. 59. For Joliet and Marquette, see chap. vi.

1684.—Copie d’une Lettre escrite par le Père Jacques Bigot, de la Compagnie de Jésus, l’an 1684. Manate [New York], 1858.

The letter was written in behalf of the Abenakis of the St. Francis de Sales mission, to accompany offerings to the tomb of their patron saint at Annecy. The original letter is preserved in the Archives du Monastère de la Visitation à Annecy. Cf. Harrisse, no. 725; Lenox, p. 17; O’Callaghan, no. 1,972; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,278.

1684.—Jacques Bigot. Relation ... l’année 1684. À Manate, 1857 (100 copies).

The Abenakis mission of St. Joseph de Sillery and the new mission of St. Francis de Sales, and follows the original manuscript in the Collége Ste. Marie. Cf. Harrisse, no. 726; Field, no. 130; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,277; Lenox, p. 15.

1685.—Bigot. Relation ... l’année 1685. À Manate, 1858.

The St. Joseph de Sillery and St. Francis de Sales missions, and follows the original manuscript in the Collége Ste. Marie. Cf. Harrisse, no. 727; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,307; Lenox, p. 15; Field, no. 131.

1688.—Jean de St. Valier (Evêque de Québec). Relation des Missions de la Nouvelle France. Paris, 1688.

References: Harrisse, no. 159; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. nos. 1,366, 1,367; O’Callaghan, no. 2,218; Sunderland, no. 268; Lenox, pp. 12, 13.

Copies: CB., HC., L., etc.

This work has sometimes the following title instead: Estat présent de l’Eglise et de la Colonie Françoise dans la Nouvelle France. De St. Valier had succeeded De Laval, but before consecration visited the country, and wrote this account of it.[691]

1688.—J. M. Chaumonot. Vie, écrite par lui-même, 1688. New York, 1858.

One of Dr. Shea’s Cramoisy series. The original manuscript is preserved in the Hôtel-Dieu, Quebec. It was followed by Suite de la vie de P. M. J. Chaumonot, par un père de la Compagnie, believed by Dr. Shea to be Rale. This was printed at New York in 1858, and continues the story to 1693. Cf. Carayon, Le Père Chaumonot; also, Harrisse, no. 753; Lenox, p. 16; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. nos. 1,348, 1,349; Field, no. 288.

1690-1691.—Pierre Milet. Relation de sa Captivité parmi les Onneiouts en 1690-91. Nouvelle York, 1864.

Cf. Lenox, p. 17; Harrisse, no. 776; Field, p. 274. It follows a copy found in Holland by Henry C. Murphy. See Vol. III. p. 415.

1693-1694.—Jacques Gravier. Relation ... depuis le Mois de Mars, 1693, jusqu’en Février, 1694. À Manate, 1857.

The mission of the Immaculate Conception among the Illinois. Cf. Lenox, p. 15; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,466; Field, no. 622.

E. Carré, the minister of the French Church in Boston, printed in 1693, with a preface by Cotton Mather, Eschantillon de la doctrine que les Jésuites enseignent aux Sauvages du nouveau monde, drawn from a manuscript found at Albany. Sabin, vol. iii. no. 11,040.

1696-1702.—Relation des Affaires du Canada en 1696; avec des lettres des Pères de la Compagnie de Jésus, depuis 1696 jusqu’en 1702. Nouvelle York [Shea], 1865.

It was printed from copies of manuscripts preserved at Paris, made for H. C. Murphy, and covers the war with the Iroquois, the Sault St. Xavier, and other missions. A portion of it appeared without authority the same year, as Relation des affaires du Canada en 1696, et des Missions des Pères de la Compagnie de Jésus jusqu’en 1702. Cf. Field, p. 325; Lenox, p. 17; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,489.

1700.—Relation ou Journal du Voyage du R. P. Jacques Gravier en 1700, depuis le pays des Illinois jusqu’à l’Embouchure du Mississippi. Nouvelle York, 1859.

Printed by Dr. Shea as one of his series, and translated by Shea in his Early Voyages up and down the Mississippi (Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,604). Dr. Shea also printed in 1861 De Montigny de St. Cosme and Thaumur de la Source’s Relation de la Mission du Mississippi du Séminaire de Québec en 1700, giving an account of the attempt of the Quebec Seminary to found missions on the lower Mississippi. Cf. Field, no. 1,084; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,619. An English version is in Shea’s Early Voyages, etc.

1701.—Bigot. Relation ... dans la mission des Abnaquis à l’Acadie, 1701. Manate [Shea] 1858.

Cf. Field, p. 33; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,628. Shea also printed Relation (1702) in 1865.

1717-1776.—Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, écrites des missions étrangères. 32 vols. in 34 parts.

References: Carayon, p. 55; Field, no. 919; Brunet, p. 1028; Catalogue Library of Parliament, 1858, p. 1192; Shea’s Charlevoix, p. 88; Sabin, vol. x. pp. 294, 395; Muller, Books on America, (1877), no. 3,680.

This serial contains various accounts supplementing the Jesuit Relations: as under 1712, Father Marest’s voyage to Hudson’s Bay in 1694-1695 with D’Iberville; under 1722 and 1724, much about Rale, etc.

As regards the date, 1717, for the beginning of this series, Dr. Shea writes:—

“This date, though generally given, is, I am convinced, erroneous. The first Recueil was approved by the Provincial in 1702, and obtained the Royal license to print Aug. 23, 1702. The approval of vol. iii. is dated in 1703. It is clear that vol. i. must have appeared in 1702 or 1703. I possess a translation of vol. i. in English: ‘Edifying and Curious Letters of some Missioners, of the Society of Jesus, from Foreign Missions. Printed in the Year 1707. 16º.’ Of course the French preceded this translation.”

Brunet says it is not easy to find the series complete. A second edition, Paris, 1780-1783, is in twenty-six volumes, but the prefaces and dedications of the original volumes are not included. There were other issues in 1819 and 1839. Stöcklein’s Brief-Schriften, etc., 1726-1756, is in part a translation, with much else besides. Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 390, and vol. iii. no. 994, where a Spanish translation is noted.

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FRONTENAC AND HIS TIMES.

BY GEORGE STEWART, JR., F.R.S.C.

COURCELLE was succeeded as governor of New France by a man of remarkable individuality, energy, and purpose. Louis de Buade, Count of Palluau and Frontenac, is beyond any doubt the most conspicuous figure which the annals of early colonization in Canada reveal. He was the descendant of several generations of distinguished men who were famous as courtiers and soldiers. He was of Basque origin, and the blood of nobles flowed in his veins. His grandfather was Antoine de Buade, a favorite of Henri IV., and one who performed the delicate mission, in 1600, of carrying to Marie de Médicis the portrait of her royal lover. He stood high in his sovereign’s estimation, was a counsellor of state and chevalier of the noble order of the King, and the wearer of several other titles of dignity and honor. By his wife, Jeanne Secontat, he had several children, among whom was Henri de Buade, an officer of the court of Louis XIII., who succeeded to the barony of Palluau, and became colonel of a Navarre regiment. This Henri married, in 1613, Anne Phélippeaux, the daughter of the Secretary of State. The future governor of New France, the fruit of this union, was born in 1620. The King acted as godfather to the babe, and bestowed on him his own name. When the child had attained his fifteenth year he entered the army, and was sent to Holland to fight under the Prince of Orange. Four years later he was conspicuous among the volunteers at the stubborn siege of Hesdin; and at the age of twenty he displayed great gallantry during a sortie of the garrison at Arras. In 1641 he conducted himself with equal bravery at the siege of Aire, and one year later, when he was only twenty-two years of age, he took part in the struggles before Callioure and Perpignan. He was colonel of his regiment at twenty-three, and during the sharp campaign in Italy commanded in several hard-contested battles and sieges. Through all this martial career he was often wounded, and at Orbitello had an arm fractured. He became a maréchal de camp (brigadier-general) in 1646, and shortly after this the first part of his military career came to a close, and he lived for a while in his father’s house in Paris.

In October, 1648, Frontenac espoused the young and beautiful Anne de la Grange-Trianon, a maiden of imperious temper, lively wit, and marvellous grace. She was one of the court beauties of the period, the intimate friend and companion of Mademoiselle de Montpensier, grand-daughter of Henri IV. Her portrait, painted as Minerva, now adorns one of the galleries at Versailles. The marriage, which took place at the church of St. Pierre aux Bœufs, in Paris, was contracted without the knowledge of the bride’s parents. Some of Frontenac’s relatives witnessed the ceremony; but the young Countess’s friends were greatly chagrined when they were informed of the event, though their anger did not last long, and a reconciliation soon followed. Not many months had elapsed before the painful discovery was made that the young couple were unsuited to each other. The bride conceived a positive dislike of her husband; and very soon after her son[692] was born she left his roof, and accepted Mademoiselle de Montpensier’s friendly offer to join her suite. But the attachment between the two high-spirited ladies did not continue long. They quarrelled, and the fair Countess was dismissed from the court. The parting caused her some real sorrow. Afterward, it is said, she intrigued to have her husband sent out of the country. The Count had the ear of the King. He was a fine courtier, polished in manner and chivalrous in spirit. He was reputed to be one of the many lovers of the haughty beauty, Madame Montespan, the favorite mistress of Louis XIV. He had, however, a most ungovernable temper, and extravagance had left him a poor man. In 1669 Turenne, the great soldier of Europe, selected him to conduct a campaign against the Turks in Candia, where he displayed much of his wonted courage and dash, but to small purpose, for the infidels triumphed in the end. The prestige of Frontenac, however, remained untarnished, and his reputation as a military leader increased. In 1672 the King further rewarded his fidelity by appointing him Governor and Lieutenant-General of New France. Various stories have been told as to the immediate cause of his appointment. Several chronicles affirm that the King had detected his intimacy with Madame de Montespan, and resolved at all hazards to get his dangerous rival out of the way. Saint-Simon takes a different view of the situation, and says that Frontenac “was a man of excellent parts, living much in society, and completely ruined. He found it hard to bear the imperious temper of his wife, and he was given the government of Canada to deliver him from her, and afford him some means of living.” The Countess had no mind to brave the rigors of her husband’s new seat of power, and accordingly she accepted the offer of a suite of rooms at the Arsenal, where she went to live with her congenial friend, the lively Mademoiselle d’Outrelaise. During her long life at the Arsenal, she and her friend gave a tone to French society; her salon became famous for its wit and gayety, and les Divines, as the ladies were called, were sought after by the first people of the kingdom. Though she did not live with her husband, and held him in some aversion, she never forgot that she was his wife. She corresponded with him on occasion, and it is established that often she proved of signal service to him in the furtherance of his ambitious plans and projects. It was at the Arsenal she died, at the advanced age of seventy-five.

When Frontenac sailed for the colony he was a matured man of the world, and fifty-two years of age. “Had nature disposed him to melancholy,” says Parkman, “there was much in his position to awaken it. A man of courts and camps, born and bred in the focus of a most gorgeous civilization, he was banished to the ends of the earth, among savage hordes and half-reclaimed forests, to exchange the splendors of St. Germain and the dawning glories of Versailles for a stern gray rock, haunted by sombre priests, rugged merchants and traders, blanketed Indians, and the wild bushrangers. But Frontenac was a man of action. He wasted no time in vain regrets, and set himself to his work with the elastic vigor of youth. His first impressions had been very favorable. When, as he sailed up the St. Lawrence, the basin of Quebec opened before him, his imagination kindled with the grandeur of the scene. ‘I never,’ he wrote, ‘saw anything more superb than the position of this town. It could not be better situated as the future capital of a great empire.’” Such was the striking condition of Quebec when Frontenac sailed into the port to assume the functions of his office. The King, his powerful minister Colbert, the Intendant Talon, and the Governor himself regarded the colony as a great prize, and one destined for a future which should in no small degree reflect the glory and grandeur of the old monarchy. Vast sums of money had been expended in colonizing and defending it. Some of the best soldiers of the kingdom and many desirable immigrants, inured to toil and hard work, were sent by Louis to build up the new country and to develop its resources. Frontenac, imbued with the same spirit as his sovereign, proceeded to bring his enormous territory to a state of order. He convened a council at Quebec, and administered an oath of allegiance to the leading men in his dominions. He sought to inaugurate a monarchical form of government. He created, with much pomp and show, three estates of his realm,—the clergy, nobles, and commons. The former was composed of the Jesuits and the Seminary priests. To three or four gentilshommes then living in Quebec he added some officers belonging to his troops; and these comprised the order of nobility. The commons consisted of the merchants and citizens. The magistracy and members of council were formed into a distinct body, though their place properly belonged to the third estate. This great convocation took place on the 23d of October, 1672, and the ceremonies were conducted in the church of the Jesuits, which had been decorated for the purpose by the Fathers themselves.

Frontenac, who spoke and wrote well, made a speech to the citizens, indicating the policy which he meant to pursue, and scattering advice to the throng before him with a liberal hand. The three estates which he had founded listened to an exhortation of some length. The priests were urged to continue their labors in connection with the conversion of the Indians, whom they were advised to train and civilize while they converted. The nobles were praised for their culture and valiant conduct, and urged to be assiduous in the improvement of the colony. To the commons he recommended faithfulness in the discharge of their duties to the King and to himself. After solemnly taking the oath, the assembly dissolved. The Count next established municipal government in Quebec, on a model which obtained in several cities of France. He ordered the election of three citizens as aldermen, the senior of whom should rank as mayor. This body was to take the place of the syndic, and it was provided that one of the number should retire from office every year. The electors would then fill the vacancy with some one of their choice, though the Governor reserved the right to confirm or reject the successful candidate. He then, with the assistance of some of the chief people about him, framed a series of regulations for the government of the capital, and notified the inhabitants that a meeting would be held twice a year, where public questions would be discussed. Frontenac’s reforms were exceedingly distasteful to the King, and the minister very clearly conveyed his Majesty’s views on the subject, in a despatch written on the 13th of June, 1673. Talon, who knew the temper of the Court in such matters, had wisely abstained from taking an active part in the Governor’s scheme, and feigned illness as the cause for his non-attendance at the convention. Colbert wrote: “The assembling and division of all the inhabitants into three orders or estates, which you have done, for the purpose of having them take the oath of fidelity, may have been productive of good just then. But it is well for you to observe that you are always to follow, in the government and management of that country, the forms in force here; and as our kings have considered it for a long time advantageous to their service not to assemble the States-General of their kingdom, with a view perhaps to abolish insensibly that ancient form, you likewise ought very rarely, or (to speak more correctly) never, give that form to the corporate body of the inhabitants of that country; and it will be necessary even in the course of a little time, and when the colony will be still stronger than it now is, insensibly to suppress the syndic, who presents petitions in the name of all the inhabitants, it being proper that each should speak for himself, and that no one should speak for the whole.” Louis’ policy was unmistakable. He assumed to be the autocrat of his dominions, and anything which might be construed into an attempt to weaken the principles of his policy met with a stern rebuke. Frontenac’s colonial system might have benefited New France: it was capable of being wisely administered, and rich developments might have ensued; but the King would not have it, and the Governor was forced to withdraw his plan.

Arbitrary and domineering to a degree, always anxious to preserve his dignity and to exact respect from his subordinates in office and from those about his court, whether lay or clerical, and a martinet in compelling the observance of all rules of social and military discipline, Frontenac, as may be supposed, did not get on well with all parties in the colony. He made the fatal mistake of quarrelling with the Jesuits and the Seminary priests,—the two religious orders which at that time held the greater sway in Canada, and whose influence among the people, and sometimes at court, was important, and not easy to dispel. An enemy was also found in the Intendant Talon, who suspiciously watched every movement which the Governor made, and regularly reported his impressions to France. Talon, however, was recalled before the quarrel had assumed very formidable proportions, and Frontenac was well rid of him. A more dangerous element, and one which could thwart him and upset his schemes, remained, however, to tantalize him. He had his religious convictions, and was accounted a good-living man, in the ordinary acceptance of the term. He regularly went to Mass, and followed the observances of the Church; but his Catholicism was framed in a more liberal school than that of the followers of Loyola. His enemies said that he was a Jansenist. He leaned towards the Recollect Fathers, attended their place of worship, and often called on the King for additional priests of that order, and took every opportunity to show them attention and marks of his favor. When the Jesuits appeared too strong in number, he sent to France for more Recollects, and through them he neutralized to some extent the influence of the former. But the Jesuits were powerful, diplomatic, and insidious. They constantly watched their opportunity, and changed their mode of warfare according to the circumstances of the hour. When the gloved hand answered their purpose, they used it; but they had no scruple to strike with stronger weapons. Had Frontenac chosen at the outset of his career to conciliate them and to play into their hands, his administration might have been less fretful to himself and vexatious to others. He might have fulfilled his original intention, and bettered his fortunes in the way he desired. He might have carried out some of his cherished reforms, for his zeal in that direction was really very great, and he had his heart in his task; but his haughty disposition would not be curbed, and he preferred to be aggressive towards the Jesuits rather than conciliatory. The result may be foreseen. Enemies sprang up about him on every side, and often they were more dangerous than the Iroquois tribes who constantly menaced the colony, and far more difficult to check than the English of Massachusetts or of Albany. He early began writing letters to the minister about his trials with the clergy. On the 2d of November, 1672, he wrote: “Another thing displeases me, and this is the complete dependence of the Grand Vicar and the Seminary priests on the Jesuits, for they never do the least thing without their order; so that they [the Jesuits] are masters in spiritual matters, which, as you know, is a powerful lever for moving everything else.” He complained of their spies, and proceeded to resist their influence wherever he found it asserting itself. The Sulpitians fared no better at his hands, and he waged as bitter a warfare against them and those who followed their teachings. He befriended the Recollects so warmly, that it is not strange that they eagerly lent him all the assistance they could to further his efforts in breaking down the power of their rivals. It is said that at first he favored them out of a mere spirit of opposition to the Bishop and his allies, the Jesuits; but as time wore on, his favor deepened into affection, and he more than once declared to the King that the Recollects ought to be more numerous than they were. He told Colbert that their superior was a “very great preacher,” and that he had “cast into the shade and given some chagrin to those in this country who certainly are not so able.” He charged the clergy with abusing the confessional and intermeddling with private family affairs, and expressed his dislike in strong terms of their secret doings in the colony, and their attempts to set husbands against wives, and parents against children,—“and all,” he wrote to the minister, “as they say, for the greater glory of God.” It is clear that the Count distrusted the “Black Gowns” from the very first, and resolved to hold them at arm’s length. Much of his energy was wasted in trying to lessen their influence at court; and the King and his minister were kept pretty busy reading and answering the recriminatory letters of the Governor and his unsympathetic intendants, whose feelings always prompted them to side with the Jesuits and the Church, and against Frontenac.

A policy of Louis XIV. was the civilization of the Indians, and Frontenac was, early in his career, instructed to take means to civilize them, to have them taught the French language, and to amalgamate them with the colonists. At that time the Count knew very little about Indian nature; but he embarked in the scheme with all his energy and zeal. He soon gained a mastery over the most savage tribes, taught the warriors to call him father, and succeeded in inducing the Iroquois to intrust him with the care of eight of their children,—four girls and four boys. The former were given to the Ursulines, while he kept two of the boys in his own house, and placed the others, at his own cost, in respectable French families, and had them sent to school to be educated. He tried to get the Jesuits to assist him in this task, but they failed to respond cordially to his urging; and he complained bitterly of their want of sympathy with the movement, even charging them—not very accurately, it must be admitted—with “refusing to civilize the Indians, because they wished to keep them in perpetual wardship.”

But a new question now arose, and Frontenac’s mind was turned towards western exploration. He warmly favored the idea, and, relinquishing for the moment all thought of his trials with the priests, he gave his whole attention to the proposals of that bold and self-reliant explorer, the Sieur Robert de la Salle. This young man was poor in pocket, but his head was full of schemes. There was much in common between the two men. Both had strong will and ability of no mean calibre. They were not easily discouraged, and having once engaged in an undertaking, they had sufficient determination to carry it through. Frontenac greatly liked La Salle, and the two remained fast friends for many years. A short time before the Governor arrived in Canada, the Iroquois had made an attack on the French, and Courcelle had been compelled to punish them. To keep them in check and to facilitate the fur-trade of the upper country, he decided that a fort should be built near the outlet of Lake Ontario. This determination had also been reached some time before by the Intendant Talon, and both officers had submitted the suggestion to the King. Frontenac was not long in perceiving the advantages which the establishment of such a fort presented, and he resolved to build it, as much to protect the colony as to augment his own slender resources, which were running very low. La Salle had gained the confidence of the Governor, who had listened to his overtures, and manifested great interest in everything he said. “There was between them,” says Parkman, “the sympathetic attraction of two bold and energetic spirits; and though Cavelier de la Salle had neither the irritable vanity of the Count nor his Gallic vivacity of passion, he had in full measure the same unconquerable pride and hardy resolution. There were but two or three others in Canada who knew the western wilderness so well. He was full of schemes of ambition and of gain; and from this moment he and Frontenac seem to have formed an alliance which ended only with the Governor’s recall.” The fort recommended by Courcelle, if built, might be employed in intercepting the trade which the tribes of the upper lakes had begun to carry on with the Dutch and English of New York. This trade Frontenac resolved to secure for Canada, though it must be said that those who would have control of the fort would monopolize the larger share of the traffic to themselves, to the great displeasure of the other merchants, who resolutely set their faces against the project. Frontenac knew this perfectly well, for it was principally with a desire to benefit himself that he had given the plan countenance. La Salle understood the western country, and was familiar with Lake Ontario and its shores. He soon convinced the Governor that the most suitable spot for the contemplated fortified post was at the mouth of the River Cataraqui, and there, where the city of Kingston now stands, the fort[693] was built, in July, 1673. La Salle had told Frontenac that the English were intriguing with the Iroquois and the tribes of the upper lakes to get them to break the treaty with the French and bring their furs to New York. This statement was true, and it hastened the Governor’s action. With his usual address, he announced his intention of making a tour through the upper parts of the colony with a strong force of men, that the Iroquois and their associates might be intimidated, and with a view to the securing of a more permanent peace. He had no money to carry on this crusade, so he issued an order to the people of Quebec, Montreal, and Three Rivers, and other settlements within his jurisdiction, calling on them to supply him, at their own cost, with men and canoes as soon as the spring sowing had passed. The officers in the colony were requested to join the expedition, and they dared not refuse. On the 3d of June Frontenac left Quebec, accompanied by his guard, his staff, some of the garrison of the Castle of St. Louis, and a band of volunteers. Arriving at Montreal, he tarried there thirteen days with his following. There were some matters which required his attention, and he speedily set about to arrange them in a manner which should at least be satisfactory to himself.

La Salle had been despatched to Onondaga, the political stronghold of the Iroquois, on a mission to secure the attendance of their chiefs at a council convened by the Governor, to be held at the Bay of Quinté, situated on the north of Lake Ontario. While the intrepid traveller was on his way, Frontenac changed his mind about the place of rendezvous, and sent a messenger after him, calling the sachems to meet at Cataraqui, where he decided to construct the fort. The Governor of Montreal received Frontenac with suitable honors. He met him on shore with his soldiers and people, a salute was fired, and the judge and the syndic pronounced speeches of interminable length, but loyal and patriotic in sentiment. The priests of St. Sulpice received him at their church, where an address of welcome was presented. The Te Deum was sung, and the Count then retired into the fort, and began preparing for his coming journey. It was not long before he discovered that his project found little favor in the eyes of the people of Montreal, who feared that much of their trade might be diverted from them by the construction of the new post. The Jesuits, too, were opposed to the rearing of forts and trading posts in the upper districts, and they did what they could to discourage the scheme. Frontenac was warned that a Dutch fleet had captured Boston, and would soon proceed to attack Quebec. Dablon was the author of this last rumor; but the Count turned a deaf ear to remonstrance and report, and continued his preparations. His followers and their stores were already on the way to Lachine, and on the twenty-eighth of June the Governor-General himself set out. His force consisted of four hundred men, including the Mission Indians, and one hundred and twenty canoes and two flat-bottomed boats. The voyage was an arduous and difficult one. Without the Indians, it is a question whether it could have been accomplished at all. The fearful journey was full of perils and hardships, and, to add to their discomfiture, before the place of destination was reached rain fell in torrents. Frontenac’s management of the Indians approached the marvellous. They worked for him with genuine zeal, and showed by their toil as much as by their manner that they respected his authority and admired him as a man. He divined the Indian nature well, though he had been in the country but a few months; and the longer he remained in the colony, the greater his influence over them became. He knew when to bully and when to conciliate, when to apply blandishments and when to be stern. It was a happy thought which prompted him to call himself their father. It gave him the superiority of position at once. Other Onontios were brothers; but the great Onontio was the father.[694] He really liked the Indians, and could enter into their ways and customs with a spirit born of good-will. He was a frank, and often fiery soldier, and a true courtier; but he could be playful with the Indian children, and it was not beneath his dignity to lead a war-dance, should policy demand, as it did sometimes. He seemed to know the thoughts of his dusky friends, and they felt that he could read what was passing through their minds. His control over the tribes, friends and foes alike, was certainly never surpassed by any white man.

He was, moreover, true to his allies; and on more than one occasion refused to make peace for himself with the ferocious Iroquois, when he could easily have done so, unless they complied with his terms, and included in the treaty the Indians friendly to the French. He would never abandon his friends to save himself; and the tribes, hostile and friendly, early in his career learned this, and it served to establish his fame as a man of fair dealing and chivalrous principle. He never yielded his point even when his savage enemies were many and his own forces few and feeble. He maintained his ascendency always, and lecturing his children, pointed out the duties they should observe. Such was his personal magnetism, that they listened and obeyed him when their following was five times as great as his own. The secret of Frontenac’s supremacy over savage nature seemed to lie in the fact that he never ceased to have perfect faith and belief in himself. He had fiery blood in his veins, and an iron will, that the blandishments which he employed at times never quite concealed. Even when reduced to severe straits, he did not lose that boldness of demeanor which carried him through so many perils. The Iroquois gave him most trouble. They were fond of fighting, and when they were not attacking the French, they were waging war on the Illinois and Hurons, and on other tribes whose aid was often found on the side of Frontenac. The Confederacy preferred to sell their peltries to the English and Dutch of Albany, than to the French. They drove with the English better bargains and secured higher prices, and the English encouraged them to bring to them their beaver skins. But the tribes who were friendly to their white enemies had by far the richest product of these furs, and La Salle’s fort of St. Louis, the mission of Michillimackinac, and other posts really controlled the trade. To gain this traffic, and to divert it into the hands of their newly-found friends, the English and Dutch, the five tribes of the League proceeded in 1673 to make war on the Indians who engrossed it. Great anxiety was felt in the colony when this determination on the part of the Confederacy became known, and the tribes interested—the Illinois, the Hurons, and Ottawas—manifested the utmost fear. Frontenac deemed a conference advisable, and he invited the Iroquois to come to him and discuss affairs; but the arrogant warriors sent back an insolent answer, and told the messenger that Frontenac should come to them,—a suggestion which some of the French, who were terror-stricken, urged the Governor to act upon. But the Count had no such intention, and refused to make any concession. He sent them word that he would go no farther than Montreal, or, at the utmost, to Fort Frontenac, to meet them. In August, he met the Hurons and Ottawas at Montreal in council. There had been jealousy among the tribes, but the Count warned them against dissension among themselves, called them his children, and exhorted them to live together as brethren. A celebrated Iroquois chief came next, with several of his followers. This was Decanisora, who invited Frontenac to Oswego to meet the Five Tribes. The Count, determined to hold his ground, replied with firmness, “It is for the father to tell the children where to hold council, not for the children to tell the father. Fort Frontenac is the proper place, and you should thank me for going so far every summer to meet you.” He then conciliated the chief with presents and a wampum belt, telling him that the Illinois were Onontio’s children, and therefore his brethren, and that he wished them all to live together in harmony. There was peace for a brief space, but it did not continue many months.

When Frontenac neared the end of his toilsome journey, and had reached the first opening of Lake Ontario, he made up his mind to show the Iroquois the full extent of his power, and to make as imposing a display as possible. He arranged his canoes in line of battle, and disposed of them in this wise: four squadrons, composing the vanguard, went in front and in one line; then the two bateaux followed, and after them came the Count at the head of all the canoes of his guard, of his staff, and of the volunteers attached to his person. On his right, the division from Three Rivers, and on his left, the Hurons and Algonquins were placed. Two other squadrons formed a third line, and composed the rear-guard. In this order they proceeded about half a league, when an Iroquois canoe was observed to be approaching. It contained the Abbé d’Urfé (who had met the Indians above the River Cataraqui, and notified them of the Count’s arrival) and several Iroquois chiefs, who offered to guide their visitors to the place of rendezvous. After an exchange of civilities, their offer was accepted, and the whole party proceeded to the spot selected. The Count was greatly pleased with the locality, and spent the rest of the afternoon of the 12th of July in examining the ground. The Iroquois were impatient to have him visit them that night in their tents; but he sent them word that it was now too late, but that in the morning, when it would be more convenient to see and entertain each other, he would gladly do so. This reply was considered satisfactory. At daybreak the next morning, the réveillé was sounded, and at seven o’clock everybody was astir and under arms. The troops were drawn up in double file around Frontenac’s tent, and extended to the cabins of the Indians. Large sails were placed in front of his tent for the savage deputies to sit on, and to the number of sixty they passed through the two files thus formed to the council. They were greatly impressed with the display, and “after having sat, as is their custom, and smoked some time,” says the journal of the Count’s voyage, “one of them, named Garakontie, who had always been the warmest friend of the French, and who ordinarily acted as spokesman, paid his compliment in the name of all the nations, and expressed the joy they felt on learning from Sieur de la Salle Onontio’s design to come and visit them. Though some evil-disposed spirits had endeavored to excite jealousy among them at his approach, they could not, they said, hesitate to obey his orders, but would come and meet him in the confidence that he wished to treat them as a father would his children. They were then coming, they continued, as true children, to assure him of their obedience, and to declare to him the entire submission they should always manifest to his command. The orator spoke, as he claimed, in the name of the Five Nations, as they had only one mind and one thought, in testimony whereof the captain of each tribe intended to confirm what he had just stated in the name of the whole.” The other chiefs followed, and after complimenting Frontenac, each captain presented a belt of wampum, “which is worthy of note,” says the chronicle, “because formerly it was customary to present only some fathoms of stringed wampum.”

The Count replied in a form of address very similar to theirs. He assured them that they did right in obeying the command of their father, told them to take courage, and not to think that he had come to make war. His mind was full of peace, and peace walked by his side. After this harangue, he ordered six fathoms of wampum to be given to them, and a gift of guns for the men, and prunes and raisins for the women and children. The great council took place later on. Meanwhile, the construction of the fort began, and the workmen pursued their task with such ardor and speed, that by the 17th of July, the date fixed for the grand council, it was well advanced. The work was done under the supervision of Raudin, the engineer of the expedition. The Indians watched the building of the fort with curious interest. The Count regularly entertained two or three of the principal Iroquois at each meal, while he fondled the children and distributed sweetmeats among them, and invited the squaws to dance in the evenings. The great council assembled at eight o’clock in the morning. The ceremony was the same as that which had been observed at the preliminary meeting. Frontenac wore his grandest air. He entreated them to become Christians, and to listen to the instructions of the “Black Gowns.” He praised, scolded, and threatened them in turn, and drawing their attention to his retinue, said: “If your father can come so far, with so great a force, through such dangerous rapids, merely to make you a visit of pleasure and friendship, what would he do if you should awaken his anger, and make it necessary for him to punish his disobedient children? He is the arbiter of peace and war. Beware how you offend him.” He further warned them not to molest the allies of the French, on pain of chastisement. He told them that the storehouse at Cataraqui was built as a proof of his affection, and that all the goods they needed could be had from there. He could not give them the terms yet, because the cost of transportation was so far unknown to him. He cautioned them against listening to men of bad character, and recommended the Sieur de la Salle and such as he as persons to be heeded. He asked the chiefs to give him a number of their children to be educated at Quebec, not as hostages, but out of pure friendship. The Indians wanted time to consider this proposition, and the next year they acceded to it. At intervals, during the delivery of his speech, Frontenac paused and gave the Indians presents, which seemed to please them. The council closed, and three days later, the Iroquois started on their journey homeward, while Frontenac’s party returned in detachments. The fort was finished, and the barracks nearly built. Frontenac would have left with his men for home sooner than he did, but a band of Indians from the villages on the north side of Lake Ontario being announced, he remained with some troops to receive them. He treated them as he had treated the others, and pronounced the same speech. Leaving a garrison in the fort, he then set out for Montreal, which he reached on the 1st of August.[695]

The enterprise cost the King ten thousand francs, and Frontenac regarded the investment as a good one indeed. He hoped that he had impressed the savages with fear and respect, that he had obtained a respite from the ravages of the Iroquois, and that the fort would be the means of keeping the peltry trade in the hands of the French, its situation affording the opportunity of cutting it off from the English, who were making efforts to secure it for themselves. Frontenac wrote to the minister in November, that with a fort at the mouth of the Niagara and a vessel on Lake Erie, the French could command all the upper lakes.

François Perrot, the Governor of Montreal, owed his position to Talon, his wife’s uncle, who had induced the Sulpitians, the proprietors and feudal lords of Montreal and the island, and in whom the appointment rested, to give the place to him. Knowing that the priests could at will depose him, he sought to protect himself by asking the King to give him a royal appointment. This Louis did; and the Sulpitians could now make no change without consent of the King. Perrot was a man of little principle, selfish and unscrupulous, who turned every movement to his own advantage. His passion was for money-making, and his position as governor gave him many opportunities. One of his first acts, with that object in view, was to set up a storehouse on Perrot Island, which gave him full command of the fur-trade. This post was situated just above Montreal, and directly in the route of the tribes of the upper lakes and their vicinity. A retired and trusted lieutenant, named Brucy, was placed in charge, whose chief business it was to intercept the Indians and secure their merchandise, to the no small profit of the Governor and himself, and the great scandal of the neighborhood. The forests were ranged by coureurs de bois, who also trafficked with the savages, and bore off the richest peltries before the real merchants of Montreal had had the opportunity. King Louis had in vain attempted, by royal edicts of outlawry and stringent instructions to his representatives and subordinates, to dislodge the bushrangers and to put an end to their doings. The coureurs de bois, however, were hardy sons of the soil; some of them were soldiers who had deserted from the army; all of them were men of endurance, and accustomed to brave the sternest hardships. They loved their wild life and the adventurous character of their calling. They were, moreover, on very excellent terms with Perrot, who connived at their escapades and shut his ears to all complaint. He had no motive to heed the order of his sovereign, so long as the wayward rangers shared with him the proceeds of their dealings with the Indians. This, on their part, they were very willing to do.

Frontenac was jealous of Perrot’s advantages, and though he had but few soldiers in his command with whom to enforce obedience, he determined to strike a blow at the bushrangers, and make an attempt to execute the King’s orders. Perrot had of late grown despotic and tyrannical. He was comparatively beyond the reach of his superior, and had matters pretty much under his own control. The journey from Quebec to Montreal sometimes occupied a fortnight, and the Governor-General, as he well knew, was not able to strike heavily with the shattered remnants of forces who served under him. Perrot was therefore bold and defiant; but he miscalculated the temper of his chief, and it was not long before the arms of Frontenac were long enough to reach him. Perrot, in a fit of temper, had imprisoned the judge of Montreal because that functionary had dared to remonstrate against the disorders which had been perpetrated by the coureurs de bois. The affair caused much excitement; and with other acts of the Governor, the Sulpitians were soon convinced of the grave error they had made in their choice of a chief magistrate. They were powerless, however, to unseat him. Frontenac now wrote to the minister, and asked for a galley, to the benches of which it was his intention to chain the outlaws as rowers. He then ordered the judge at Montreal to seize every coureur de bois that he could find. Two of them were living at the house of Lieutenant Carion, a friend of Perrot’s, and when the judge’s constable went to lay hands on them, Carion abused the officer, and allowed the men to escape. Perrot indorsed the conduct of his lieutenant, and even threatened the judge with arrest, should he make a similar attempt again.

Frontenac, when he heard of the manner in which his orders had been treated, flew into a passion. He despatched Lieutenant Bizard and three soldiers to Montreal, charged to arrest and convey to the capital the offending Carion. Bizard succeeded in making the arrest, and left a letter in the house of Le Ber the merchant for Perrot, from Frontenac, giving notice of what had been done. Perrot was, however, earlier advised of the arrest. He hastened with a sergeant and three or four soldiers, found Bizard, and indignantly ordered him under arrest. Nor did Le Ber fare better, for, because he had testified to the scene he had witnessed, he was thrown into jail. These arrests produced much excitement in the place, and Perrot after a while was aware that he had acted with inconsiderate rashness. He released Bizard, and sent him off to Quebec, the bearer of a sullen and impertinent letter to the Count. In due time an answer came, in an order to come to Quebec and render an account of his conduct. Frontenac also wrote to the Abbé Salignac de Fénelon,[696]—a zealous young missionary stationed at Montreal, one of whose uncles had been a firm friend of Frontenac during the progress of the Canadian war,—and desired him to see Perrot and explain the situation. The Abbé’s task was a delicate but congenial one, and he pursued it with such good effect that the Governor was induced to accompany him to headquarters. They made the journey on snow-shoes, and walked the whole distance of one hundred and eighty miles on the St. Lawrence. The interview with the Count was short. Both men were choleric and easily excited. Perrot was disappointed at his reception, after taking the trouble to come so far, and at such a season of the year. Frontenac was stubborn and angry, and the position of his rival at his feet did not mollify his passion, but rather increased it. He put an end to the interview by locking up his offending subordinate in the château, and ordering guards to be placed over him day and night. A trusty friend of Frontenac, La Nouguère by name, was despatched to Montreal to take command. Brucy was seized and cast into prison, while a determined war was made on the coureurs de bois. The two who had been the main cause of the recent trouble were captured and sent to Quebec, where one of them was hanged in the presence of Perrot. The end of this war of extermination soon came, and Frontenac informed the minister that only five of these rangers of the wood remained at large; all the others had returned to the settlements, and given up their hazardous calling.

The old jealousy between Quebec and Montreal now showed itself again. The Sulpitians thought that Frontenac had acted a high-handed part in placing La Nouguère in command over their district without as much as consulting them. Perrot was still their selected governor, and they revolted against the arbitrary conduct of the Governor-General. They roused the colonists against Frontenac’s course, and the Abbé Fénelon, who possessed many of the indiscretions of youth, and who felt that he had been trapped, became the most bitter of the Count’s enemies. Before he left Quebec to return home, he gave his former friend a good deal of abuse; and his first act on reaching Montreal was to preach a sermon full of meaning against Frontenac. Dollier de Casson, the superior of the congregation, reproved the preacher and disclaimed the sermon. Fénelon, in turn, declared that bad rulers in general, and not Frontenac in particular, were meant; but his future conduct belied his words. He made the cause of Perrot his own, and was active in his behalf. Frontenac summoned him before the council on a charge of inciting sedition. The Abbé d’Urfé, a relative of Fénelon, tried to smooth matters over with the Count, but he fared very ill, and was shown the door for his pains.

And now ensued a remarkable trial before the council at Quebec. Perrot was charged with disobeying the royal edicts and of treating with contempt the royal authority. The other offender was the Abbé Fénelon. Frontenac had a pliant council to second his wishes. The councillors owed their positions to him, and as he had power to remove them when he willed, they soon ranged themselves on his side, and showed that they were friendly to his cause. Perrot challenged the right of the Governor-General to preside over the case, on the ground that he was a personal enemy. He moreover objected to several of the councillors on various pretexts. New judges were appointed for the trial, and Perrot’s protests continuing, the board overruled all his exceptions, and the trial went on. Other sessions proceeded to try the impetuous Abbé. Frontenac presided at the council-board. When Fénelon was led in, he seated himself in a vacant chair, though ordered to stand by the Count, and persisted in wearing his hat firmly pressed over his brows. Hot words passed between the Governor and his prisoner, the result of which was that the Abbé was put under arrest. The priest assumed that Frontenac had no right to try him, and that the ecclesiastical court alone had jurisdiction over him. The war grew fierce, and the councillors, half afraid of what they had done, at length decided to refer the question to the King himself. The Governor of Montreal and the vehement Abbé were accordingly despatched to France, and all the documents relating to the case were sent with them. Frontenac presented his side of the argument in a long despatch, which, considering his provocation, was moderate in tone and calm in judgment. The Abbé d’Urfé accompanied the prisoners to France, and as his cousin, the Marquise d’Allègre, was shortly to marry Seignelay, the son of Colbert, he hoped much from his visit. Perrot, too, was not without friends near the King: Talon, his wife’s relative, held a post at court. Besides these influences the Church had other means at work.

In April, 1675, the King and Colbert disposed of the Perrot question. They wrote calmly and with dignity. His Majesty condemned the action of Perrot in imprisoning Bizard, and had the offender confined for three weeks in the Bastile, “that he may learn to be more circumspect in the discharge of his duty, and that his example may serve as a warning to others.” He had already endured ten months of imprisonment in Quebec. The King also told Frontenac that he should not, “without absolute necessity,” cause his “commands to be executed within the limits of a local government, like that of Montreal, without first informing its governor.” Perrot was sent back to his government, and ordered to apologize to Frontenac. Colbert informed the Count of the approaching marriage of his son with the heiress of the house of Allègre, and hinted at the closeness of the connection which existed between the Abbé d’Urfé and himself. Frontenac was urged to show the Abbé “especial consideration,” and also to treat with kindness the priests of Montreal. Fénelon was sustained in his plea that he had the right to be tried by an ecclesiastical tribunal; but his superior, Bretonvilliers, absolutely forbade him to return to Canada, and wrote a letter to the members of his order at Montreal, telling them not to interfere in worldly matters, but to profit by the example of M. Fénelon. He advised them “in matters of this sort” to “stand neutral.”

The King now resolved to make some administrative changes in New France, with a view, it is probable, of lessening the hold of Frontenac on the body politic of the colony. He announced that the appointment of councillors should rest with him alone in future, and promptly filled the vacant office of Intendant by appointing M. Duchesneau whose duty it was to watch the Governor-General, and to manage certain details in executive work. Bishop Laval, who had been absent from Canada for some time, also returned to his see; and Frontenac, who had ruled alone, without bishop, without intendant, and with a subservient council, viewed the new aspect of affairs with ill-concealed disgust. It was not long before the threatened outbreak came. The question of selling brandy to the natives, which had disturbed previous administrations, became again a contention between governor and prelate.[697] The Intendant promptly sided with the Bishop and the clergy, while the latter stood aside at times, and allowed their secular ally to lead the contest, content themselves to give him arguments and advice. One question after another arose. Many of them were of trivial import, but all of them were vexatious and troublesome, and to an imperious mind like Frontenac’s galling in the extreme. The old rivalry of Church and State in the matter of honors and precedence became troublesome. Colbert wrote strongly to Duchesneau, and ordered him not to make himself a partisan of the Bishop, and to pay proper respect to Frontenac. The latter was commanded to live in harmony and peace with the Intendant. The King was incensed at the constant bickerings, and ordered Frontenac to conform to the practice prevailing at Amiens, and to demand no more. The Intendant was roundly berated by the minister, who told him that he ought to be able to understand the difference between a governor and an intendant, and that he was completely in the wrong as regards the pretensions he had assumed.

But if the religious quarrel was settled for a time, a civil difficulty arose. The council no longer remained a mere body for registering the Governor’s decrees. The new order of things gave him a council of men who were opposed in many respects to his views and interests. The King had reinstated Villeray,—a former councillor, and a man wholly under Jesuitical influence. Frontenac, who thought him a “Jesuit in disguise,” called him “an intriguing busybody, who makes trouble everywhere.” The attorney-general was Auteuil, another enemy of the Governor. Tilly was a third member, and the Count at first approved of him; but his opinion was destined to change. Under the ordinance of Sept. 23, 1675, the Intendant, whose official position entitled him to rank as the third man in the colony, was appointed president of the council. His commission, dated June 5, 1675, read: “Présider au Conseil Souverain en l’absence du dit Sieur de Frontenac.” Frontenac was styled in many of the despatches which reached him from the Crown, “Chief and President of the Council.” A conflict of authority immediately arose, and both Governor and Intendant claimed with equal right (one would suppose from the royal documents in their possession) the position of presiding officer. Frontenac bided his time, and remained patient until late in the autumn, when the last vessel cleared for France. Then he asserted his claim to the title of chief and president, and demanded to be so styled on the records of the council. In support of his contention he exhibited a letter from Louis dated May 12, 1678. The Intendant, supported by the clergy, opposed the claim. The Governor refused to compromise, scolded Duchesneau, and threatened to teach him his duty, while he ordered Villeray, Tilly, and Auteuil to their houses, and commanded them to remain there until he should give them permission to leave.[698] Auteuil begged the King to interfere, and the wearied monarch wrote to his representative: “You have wished to be styled Chief and President on the records of the supreme council, which is contrary to my edict concerning that council; and I am the more surprised at this demand, since I am very sure that you are the only man in my kingdom who, being honored with the title of governor and lieutenant-general, would care to be styled chief and president of such a council as that of Quebec.” So the King refused the title of president to either, and commanded that Duchesneau should perform the duties of presiding officer. He also said that Frontenac had abused his authority in exiling two councillors and the attorney-general for so trivial a cause, and warned him to be careful in future, lest he be recalled from office. Several other disputes in the council followed. They were mostly about matters of small moment, but they created great storms while they lasted. The imprisonment of Councillor Amours by order of the Count for an alleged infringement of the passport law, and the presence of his wife with a petition to the council for redress and a speedy trial, caused much discussion and provoked very strong feeling.

Duchesneau was the object of Frontenac’s constant displeasure. On him was visited his fiercest wrath; but the Intendant bore it all with varying moods,—sometimes disputing with Frontenac, at others abusing him, and occasionally treating the diatribe of vituperation which flowed from the Count’s lips with lofty disdain and scorn. He wrote letters to the Court, and lodged complaint after complaint against the Governor, who, in his turn, pursued the same course. Out of the council quarrels others involving more important issues sprang up, and nearly all the people in the colony were in time driven to one side or the other. With Frontenac, as Parkman points out, were ranged La Salle and his lieutenant, La Forêt; Du Lhut, the leader of the coureurs de bois; Boisseau, agent of the farmers of the revenue; Barrois, the Governor’s secretary; Bizard, lieutenant of his guard; and others. Against him were the members of the council, Aubert de la Chesnaye, Le Moyne and his sons, Louis Joliet, Jacques Le Ber, Sorel, Boucher, Varennes, and many of the ecclesiastics. Duchesneau received replies from the Court, and they must have been galling to his pride and self-respect. He was plainly assured that though Frontenac was not blameless, his own conduct was far more open to censure. In this strain Colbert’s letter continued, and he said: “As to what you say concerning his violence, his trade with the Indians,[699] and in general all that you allege against him, the King has written to him his intentions; but since, in the midst of all your complaints, you say many things which are without foundation, or which are no concern of yours, it is difficult to believe that you act in the spirit which the service of the King demands,—that is to say, without interest and without passion. If a change does not appear in your conduct before next year, his Majesty will not keep you in your office.” The King returned his usual advice to Frontenac, told him to live on good terms with the Intendant, and prohibited him from trading with the Indians. But neither the letters of the King nor the minister had much effect apparently, for the Governor and Intendant continued to war against each other. At last the King wrote thus sharply to the Count:—

“What has passed in regard to the coureurs de bois is entirely contrary to my orders, and I cannot receive in excuse for it your allegation that it is the Intendant who countenances them by the trade he carries on, for I perceive clearly that the fault is your own. As I see that you often turn the orders I give you against the very object for which they are given, beware not to do so on this occasion. I shall hold you answerable for bringing the disorder of the coureurs de bois to an end throughout Canada; and this you will easily succeed in doing if you make a proper use of my authority. Take care not to persuade yourself that what I write to you comes from the ill-offices of the Intendant. It results from what I fully know from everything which reaches me from Canada, proving but too well what you are doing there. The Bishop, the ecclesiastics, the Jesuit Fathers, the supreme council, and, in a word, everybody, complain of you; but I am willing to believe that you will change your conduct, and act with the moderation necessary for the good of the colony.”

Frontenac felt the ground slipping under him, but he continued his suicidal policy, while he wrote to some friends in France to recount his woes, and to solicit their good offices with the Court.

Seignelay came to power in 1681. He was the son of Colbert, and a man of very good abilities, matured under the eye of the great minister. He soon received long letters from Frontenac and the Intendant, filled with accusations and countercharges. Affairs had gone badly during the spring and summer of 1681. Some blows were struck, and a resort to sharper weapons was hinted at. The Intendant, Frontenac said, had barricaded his house and armed his servants. Duchesneau declared that his son had been beaten by the Governor for a slight offence, and afterward imprisoned in the château for a month, despite the pleadings of the Bishop in his behalf. These matters, and much more, were regularly reported to the new minister. Both officials stated that furs had been carried to the English settlements, and each blamed the other for it. The Intendant maintained that the faction led by Frontenac had spread among the Indians a rumor of a pestilence at Montreal, for the purpose of keeping them away from the fair, and in order that the bushrangers might purchase the beaver-skins at a low price. The allegation was groundless, but it had its effect at court. The King, tired at last of the constant strife, recalled both Frontenac and Duchesneau in the following year.

Frontenac’s successor was Le Fèbvre de la Barre, a soldier of repute who had already rendered his country good service in the West Indian war, where he had gained some notable successes against the English. For reducing Antigua and Montserrat and recapturing Cayenne from the enemy, he had been promoted to a lieutenant-generalship. He arrived at Quebec with Meules, his intendant, at a most inopportune time. The great fire of August 4, 1682, had laid waste fifty-five houses, and destroyed vast quantities of goods.

The new Governor took up his residence in the château, while Meules went to live in a house in the woods. La Barre was a very different man from Frontenac. He had nothing of that soldier’s peculiar energy or determination. He was a temporizer, cold and insincere, and no match for Indian diplomacy or duplicity. The Indians gauged his capacity before he had been in Canada many weeks, and as compared with Frontenac they felt that they had a child to deal with. The King had given him pretty plain instructions. He was ordered not only to apply himself to prevent the violence of the Iroquois against the French, but also to endeavor to keep the savages at peace among themselves, and by all means to prevent the Iroquois from making war on the Illinois and other tribes. He was further told that his Majesty did not attach much importance to the discoveries which had lately been made in the countries of the Nadoussioux, the River Mississippi, and other parts of North America, deeming them of but slight utility; but he enjoined that the Sieur de la Salle be permitted to complete the exploration he had commenced, as far as the mouth of the Mississippi, “in case he consider, after having examined into it with the Intendant, that such discovery can be of any utility.”

It was not long before La Barre exhibited his total incapacity for governing Canada. He lowered the French prestige in the eyes of the Indians of the Confederacy, and left his red allies to their fate. He was jealous of La Salle, and hated him cordially. Charlevoix accounts for his incapacity by saying that “his advanced age made him credulous when he ought to be distrustful, timid when he ought to be bold, dark and cautious towards those who deserved his confidence, and deprived him of the energy necessary to act as the critical condition of the colony demanded when he administered its affairs.” He was not very old, being little more than sixty years of age at the time. He found the Iroquois flushed with victory over their enemies, and displaying an arrogant bearing towards the French. He wrote a braggart letter to the King; said that with twelve hundred men he would attack twenty-six hundred Iroquois, and then begged for more troops. To the minister he wrote that war was imminent, and unless those “haughty conquerors” were opposed, “half our trade and all our reputation” would be lost. He was always talking about fighting; but those about him knew that he rarely meant all he said. He developed a remarkable predilection for trade, and soon after his arrival allied himself to several of the Quebec merchants, with that object in view. This gave grave offence to all those who could not participate. The tables were turned, and the old enemies of Frontenac now reigned, while La Salle and La Forêt were deposed. Du Lhut, the leader of the coureurs de bois, and a quondam friend of the Ex-Governor, transferred his allegiance to the new authority. La Barre soon showed his feeling towards La Salle. Jacques Le Ber and Aubert de la Chesnaye were early despatched to Fort Frontenac, which La Forêt commanded, with orders to seize it and all it contained, on the flimsy pretext that La Salle had failed to fulfil the conditions of his contract. La Forêt was offered his former position as commander of the fort; but he refused to be false to his chief, and sailed for France in high dudgeon.

On the 10th of October a conference on the state of affairs with the Iroquois was held. There were present the Governor, Intendant, Bishop of Quebec, M. Dollier, Superior of the Seminary of St. Sulpice of Montreal, Father Dablon, the Governor of Three Rivers, and others. The meeting was harmonious, and the importance and danger of the situation seemed to be understood. A most uninviting prospect lay before the little colony. The Iroquois, well armed and equipped, could strike first the Illinois, and in turn all the tribes in alliance with the French, and so divert the peltry trade into other channels, and finally fall upon the French themselves. It was stated at the conference that the English were responsible for this, and that they had been urging the Iroquois on for four years, in order to ruin Canada, and to secure for themselves and the Dutch the entire peltry trade of the continent. It was determined to make an effort to prevent the Iroquois from bringing upon the friendly Indians the fate they had previously dealt upon the Algonquins, the Andastes, the Abenaquis, and others. It was finally thought that the war might be averted for a time, and meanwhile the King was urgently importuned for troops and two hundred hired men, besides arms and ammunition.

The attack came sooner than had been expected. In the early spring the Seneca Indians were reported to be moving in considerable force on the Illinois, the Hurons, and the Ottawas of the lakes. La Barre, greatly excited, hastened his preparations. He wrote to France, explaining the posture of affairs, and demanding more troops. Du Lhut was sent with thirty men, with powder and lead, to Michillimackinac, to strengthen the defences there, and to guard the stores, of which there was a great quantity. Charles Le Moyne was despatched to Onondaga with a mission, which so far succeeded that forty-three Iroquois chiefs went to Montreal to meet the Governor. They arrived on the 14th of August. A council was held, and over two thousand crowns’ worth of presents were distributed among the Indians. La Barre demanded friendship for the Ottawas, the Algonquins, and the Hurons; but there was no firmness in his demands. He was timid, and when the fierce Senecas declared that the Iroquois made war on the Illinois because they deserved to die, he said nothing, and his silence sealed their doom. The delegates were asked to agree not to plunder French traders who were provided with passports. They agreed to this. It was a suggestion of La Chesnaye, and evidently aimed at La Salle, though La Barre denied that he gave the Iroquois liberty to plunder and kill the explorer. By a sort of poetic justice, the first captures the Iroquois made under their agreement were two boats belonging to La Chesnaye, which had gone up the lakes during Frontenac’s reign, and had no passports. On the 30th of August the deputies left Montreal.

La Barre continued his trading operations. He and La Chesnaye anticipated the annual market at Montreal, by sending up a large fleet of vessels, and securing enormous quantities of furs, a great part of which was clandestinely sent to Albany and New York. The Governor’s persecutions of La Salle went on, and in the spring he sent the Chevalier de Baugis, with canoes and soldiers, to seize his fort of St. Louis; but his scheme suffered defeat. La Barre now prepared in earnest for war, and was resolved to attack the Senecas in the following August (1684). On the 31st of July the King wrote that he had sent him three hundred soldiers.

It has been said that the English colonists of New York had instigated the Iroquois to make war on the French. Colonel Thomas Dongan, Lord Tyrconnel’s nephew, and a Roman Catholic, was governor of New York. Though he had respect for the King of France, he nevertheless thought himself entitled to a share of the fur-trade, which had so long remained a monopoly of the Canadians, and he decided to make some effort to obtain it. The Duke of York warned him against offending the French governor; but while Dongan publicly professed to observe his Grace’s injunction, he was really in frequent intrigue with the enemies of the French, and did all he could to provoke the Iroquois into making war on La Barre and his allies. The English had secured the allegiance of the five tribes of the Confederacy; the hatchet had been buried, and the song of peace had been sung. Dongan was wily, and got the Iroquois to recognize his king as their lawful sovereign. This would give him the command of the country south of the great lakes. The Indians readily promised, but without any intention of keeping their word. Their motive evidently was to make the most out of either party, and yield nothing. La Barre complained of the Senecas and Cayugas, and wrote to Dongan, telling him not to sell the offenders any arms or ammunition, and saying that he meant to attack the tribes for plundering French canoes and attempting a French fort. Dongan wrote in reply that the Iroquois were British subjects, and if they had done wrong, reparation should be made. Meanwhile he urged La Barre not to make his threatened attack, and begged him to keep the peace between the two colonies. Next he laid the complaints of the French governor before the chiefs, who on their part declared that the French had carried arms to their foes, the Illinois and the Miamis. Dongan handled the question with tact, and played upon the fears of the Indians so well that he got them to consent to his placing the arms of the Duke of York in their villages, which he said would save them from the French. They further agreed that they would not make peace with Onontio without consent of the English. In return for this, Dongan promised aid in case their country should be invaded.

The English Governor was a believer in prompt action, and he hastened to have the Iroquois’ subjection to King Charles confirmed. To that end he despatched a Dutch interpreter, Arnold Viele by name, to Onondaga. But Charles Le Moyne and the crafty Jesuit Jean de Lamberville, who knew the Indian character well, were there before the envoy of the English arrived. Le Moyne had been sent to invite the tribes to a conference with La Barre. The chief of the Onondagas was Otréouati, or Big Mouth, a famous orator and influential warrior, and ranking as one of the ablest Indians of the Confederacy. He was unscrupulous as regards keeping promises, but his valor and astuteness were beyond question. The two Frenchmen had spent some days in trying to induce the Onondagas to get their Seneca confederates to make peace with the French. The Senecas at first would not hear of it; but finally they succumbed to Big Mouth’s eloquence, and gave the Onondagas power to complete a treaty for them. Viele appeared on the scene; but he was no diplomat, and he shocked the pride of the Onondagas when he told them, with more arrogance than policy, that the English were masters of their territory, and that they had no right to hold council with the French without permission. It was natural that Big Mouth should become indignant: he asserted the independence of his tribe, and told his warriors and chiefs not to listen to the proposals of a man who seemed to be drunk, so opposed to all reason was what he uttered. The end of it was that Big Mouth and his sachems consented to accompany Le Moyne to meet La Barre.

The French Governor was ready for the campaign, having seven hundred Canadians, a hundred and thirty regulars, and two hundred mission Indians under his command. He was to be reinforced by a band of Indians on the way, and a company of coureurs de bois led by Du Lhut and La Durantaye. More warriors were to join him at Niagara. He declared that he intended to exterminate the Senecas; but his Intendant, Meules, had no faith in his promises, and kept urging him on, as if he feared that he would make peace without striking a blow,—a fatal course in his eyes. He wrote to the Governor two letters on the subject, concluding the second one thus: “If we do not destroy them, they will destroy us. I think you see but too well that your honor and the safety of the country are involved in the results of this war.” He also sent a despatch to Seignelay, which contained the customary complaints against La Barre, and some vigorous comments on his conduct in trading against the orders of the King, and his warlike pretensions which meant nothing. “I will take the liberty to tell you, Monseigneur,” he wrote, “though I am no prophet, that I discover no disposition on the part of Monsieur the General to make war against the aforesaid savages. In my belief, he will content himself by going in a canoe as far as Fort Frontenac, and then send for the Senecas to treat of peace with them, and deceive the people, the Intendant, and, if I may be allowed with all possible respect to say so, his Majesty himself.” La Barre proceeded on his way with his army, and after encountering a few adventures en route, finally reached Fort Frontenac, where the whole party encamped. A malarial fever broke out among the French, and many died. La Barre himself was greatly reduced and wasted by the disease, and so disheartened that he abandoned his plans, and sought to secure peace on the most favorable terms that he could get. He no longer thought of punishing the Senecas, nor had he the courage to invite them to council. He crossed over to La Famine with a few men, and sent Le Moyne to beg the tribes to meet him on their side of the lake. Here provisions grew scarce, and hunger and discontent prevailed among his followers. Several soldiers languished through disease; others died.

La Barre awaited the return of his envoy with fear and suspense. When at last he came on the third of the month, with Big Mouth and thirteen deputies, the Governor received the party with what grace he could. He had sent his sick men away, and told the Indians that his army was at Fort Frontenac; but the keen-witted savages were not deceived, and one of their number, understanding French, gathered during the evening from the conversation of the soldiers the true condition of affairs. The council was held on the 4th of September; and Baron La Hontan, who was present, gives a long account of what took place. The Governor related the offences of the Iroquois; charged them with maltreating and robbing the French traders in the country of the Illinois, with introducing the “English into the lakes which belong to the King, my master, and among the tribes who are his children, in order to destroy the trade of his subjects,” and with having made “several barbarous inroads into the country of the Illinois and Miamis, seizing, binding, and leading into captivity an infinite number of those savages in time of peace.... They are the children of my king,” he said, “and are not to remain your slaves. They must at once be set free and sent home.” Should such things occur again, he was ordered, he said, to declare war against the offending tribes. He agreed to grant them terms of peace, provided they made atonement for the past, and promised good conduct for the future; otherwise he would burn their villages and destroy them. Big Mouth rose and replied. He very soon convinced La Barre of the hopelessness of his task. “Listen, Onontio,” he said. “I am not asleep, my eyes are open; and by the sun that gives me light I see a great captain at the head of a band of soldiers who talks like a man in a dream. He says that he has come to smoke the pipe of peace with the Onondagas; but I see that he came to knock them in the head if so many of his Frenchmen were not too weak to fight. I see Onontio raving in a camp of sick men, whose lives the Great Spirit has saved by smiting them with disease. Our women had snatched war-clubs, and our children and old men seized bows and arrows, to attack your camp, if our warriors had not restrained them, when your messenger, Akouessan, appeared in our village.” The savage refused reparation; said that his tribe had been born free, and that they depended on neither Onontio nor on Corlaer, the governor of New York. “We have knocked the Illinois in the head,” he continued, “because they cut down the tree of peace and hunted the beaver on our lands. We have done less than the English and the French, who have seized upon the lands of many tribes, driven them away, and built towns, villages, and forts in the country.” La Barre, greatly disgusted, retired to his tent, and the council closed. In the afternoon another session was held, and in the evening a treaty was patched up. Big Mouth agreed to some reparation, which, however, he never made; but he would not consent to make peace with La Barre’s allies, the Illinois, whom he declared he would fight to the death. He also demanded that the council fire should be removed from Fort Frontenac to La Famine,—a concession yielded by La Barre without hesitation, but which Frontenac would never have granted.

The Governor returned home the next day, broken and dispirited; his men followed, wasted by fever and hunger, as best they could. This disgraceful truce was treated with contempt by all, the allies of the French included; and for a while it was thought that the friendly tribes would go over to the enemy in a body, make peace with their old rivals, and divert the channel of trade from Montreal to Albany. Lamberville only indorsed the Governor’s conduct, and styled him the “savior of the country” for having made peace at so critical a time. Meules and the others viewed the matter differently, and the former wrote to the minister that the Governor’s excuses were a mere pretence; that he had lost his wits, had gone off in a fright, and since his return his officers could not abstain from showing him the contempt in which they held him. The King, much annoyed, recalled La Barre, and the Marquis de Denonville, a colonel in the Queen’s regiment of Dragoons, full of piety and a devoted friend of the Jesuits, was sent to succeed him.

Denonville had been thirty years a soldier, and was much esteemed at court for his valor. It was agreed on all hands that the King’s selection of him for governor of the troubled colony was a very good one. But results proved it otherwise; and Denonville’s administration was even more unfortunate than that of La Barre, whose disastrous reign had brought Canada almost to the brink of ruin. When he arrived at Quebec in the autumn of 1685, with his wife and a portion of his family, he found little to cheer him. One hundred and fifty of the five hundred soldiers who had been sent out to Canada by King Louis had perished of scurvy while crossing the sea. The colony was in great disorder; the Iroquois roamed at their pleasure, destroyed when and whom they pleased, and vented their anger with all the cruelty and ferocity of their savage nature on such tribes as favored the French. The Indian allies of the French who had been abandoned by La Barre had little respect left for the nation whose chief representative had so badly served them. But now all this would be changed. Denonville was ordered to ratify the peace with the Iroquois or to declare war, the alternative being left to his own discretion. The King, who felt acutely the disgrace of La Barre’s abandonment of the Illinois, enjoined the new governor to repair that mischief as speedily as possible, to sustain the friendly tribes, and to humble the Iroquois at all hazards. A vigorous policy was determined on, and the King had great faith in the instrument which was to effect it. Denonville was given especial instructions regarding the English of New York, who at this time were constantly intriguing with the enemies of New France. Dongan understood the country well, and was striving with all his energy to secure control of the valuable fur districts south of the Great Lakes. To that end he was always in treaty with the Iroquois, who promised and disregarded their promises as exigency or humor suited them. The King was fully aware of this, and his instructions of March 10, 1685, are especially clear on this point. First, the French ambassador at London, M. Barillon, was desired to demand from the King of England “precise orders obliging that Governor [Dongan] to confine himself within the limits of his government, and to observe a different line of conduct toward Sieur de Denonville, whom his Majesty has chosen to succeed said Sieur de la Barre.” And Denonville was himself told that “everything must be done to maintain good understanding between the French and English; but if the latter, contrary to all appearances, excite and aid the Indians, they must be treated as enemies when found on Indian territory, without, at the same time, attempting anything on territory under the obedience of the King of England.” Meanwhile, the English were seizing posts in Acadia[700] which had always been occupied by the French. Denonville was ordered to send to the governor at Boston to explain the points of boundary, and to request him to confine himself to his own limits in future. Perrot, the former governor of Montreal, was now governor of Acadia, and he was instructed to keep up a correspondence with Denonville, and to take his orders from him.[701]

The struggle for the supremacy was between Denonville and Dongan. The latter dared not act as openly as he wished, for his King, being often at the mercy of Louis, kept saddling him with mandates which he could not disobey, though they sorely touched his pride. He could, however, intrigue; and the convenient Iroquois, who found their gain in the dissensions of the English and French, and who soon learned to encourage the rivalry between the two white powers encroaching on their domain, turned listening ears to his words. Louis favored the schemes of Denonville, which had been formed on a very extensive scale, and involved the mastery of the most fruitful part of the entire continent. New York had at this time about 18,000 inhabitants; Canada’s population was 12,263; but while the latter people were united in furthering French aims, the inhabitants of New York, save the active traders of the colony who were concerned in the purchase of peltries, took very little interest in Dongan’s plans. The English colonies were all deeply interested in checking French advancement, but they declined to help the government of New York, and Dongan was forced to fight his battles single-handed. His king furnished him neither money nor troops; but the assistance rendered, though sometimes in a negative sense, by the Iroquois league, was often formidable enough, and served his purpose on occasion. On the part of Denonville there were, of course, counter-intrigues. Through Lamberville he distributed presents to the Iroquois, and Engelran spent many days at Michillimackinac trying to stay the Hurons, Ottawas, and other lake tribes from allying themselves with the English, as they threatened to do. It was clear that a bold stroke must be made to keep these hitherto friendly tribes on the side of the French, and the only means which seemed to be open was war with the Iroquois. The latter were also intriguing with their old enemies, and trying to make treaties independently of the French. The coureurs de bois, too, were a source of danger and annoyance. La Barre had not kept them in check, and Denonville speedily discovered that they acted as though they regarded the edicts of the King as so much waste paper. It was impossible to prevent their selling brandy to the Indians, and demoralizing and debauching the tribes. Denonville wrote for more troops, and seemed anxious to deal a decisive blow at the Iroquois. Affairs were in a deplorable state, and nothing short of a stalwart exhibition of French power would save the country. “Nothing can save us,” wrote the Governor, “but the sending out of troops and the building of forts and blockhouses. Yet I dare not begin to build them; for if I do, it will bring down all the Iroquois upon us before we are in a condition to fight them.”

A brisk correspondence sprang up between the Governor of New York and Denonville. At first it was polite and complimentary, but ere long it assumed a sterner character, and strong language was employed on both sides. A good deal of fencing was indulged in. There were charges and countercharges. Each blamed the other for keeping bad faith, and each side made every effort to out-manœuvre the other. Denonville saw with military prescience that forts would be of service at several important points. One of these sites was situate on the straits of Detroit, and he hastened to send Du Lhut with fifty men to occupy it. The active woodsman promptly built a stockade at the outlet of Lake Huron, on the western side of the strait, and paused there for a while. News reached Denonville that Dongan contemplated sending, early in the spring of 1687, an armed expedition in the direction of Michillimackinac to forestall the trade there. He complained to the Governor of New York, and advised the King about it. To Du Lhut he issued orders to shoot down the intruders so soon as they presented themselves. Dongan dissembled until he heard from England, when he altered his tone, and wrote a letter much subdued in temper to Denonville. The French Governor replied, and counselled harmony.

Intelligence from the north reached Denonville about this time, which gave him considerable satisfaction. The French had resolved in the spring of 1686 to assert their right to the territory of Hudson’s Bay. An English Company had established a post at the mouth of Nelson River, on the west, and on the southern end there were situate forts Albany, Hayes, and Rupert, each garrisoned by a few men. The rival of this Company was the Company of the North, a Canadian institution, which held a grant from Louis XIV. The French had decided to expel the English from their posts, and Denonville approved the plan, and sent Chevalier de Troyes with a band of eighty men to assist the Company. Forts Hayes and Rupert were assaulted at night. In each instance the attack was a surprise, and the posts readily fell into the hands of the invaders. Several of the English were killed, others were wounded, and the rest were made prisoners. Iberville attacked a vessel anchored near the fort; three of its defenders were killed, and others, including Bridger, the governor for the Company, were captured. At Fort Albany, which was garrisoned by thirty men, a stouter resistance was offered, but at the end of an hour it was silenced, and shared the fate of its fellows.

Meanwhile, a treaty of neutrality had been signed at Whitehall, and there was peace between England and France for a time. The document bears date Nov. 16, 1686. On Jan. 22, 1687, instructions were sent to Governor Dongan to maintain friendly relations with Denonville, and to give him no cause for complaint. The King of France delayed despatching his orders to Canada until four months had elapsed.

Denonville was ordered to punish the Iroquois. He had eight hundred regulars, and a further contingent of eight hundred men were promised in the spring. Abundant means, too, had been provided; namely, 168,000 livres in money and supplies. Denonville was in high feather, and everything turned in his favor for a time. He had got rid of his meddling Intendant, Meules, and a pious man like himself had been sent in his place. This was Champigny. The Bishop, St. Vallier, had only words of praise for the administration as it then stood: Church and State were in perfect harmony at last. The attack on the Iroquois towns was well planned, and every precaution was observed to keep the matter secret until the time for action had arrived. Dongan, however, learned the truth from straggling deserters, and he was not slow in informing the Iroquois of the warlike designs of the French.

Denonville’s plan was to proceed to the Senecas, the strongest castle and the nearest to Niagara, his course taking him along the southern shore, which he elected on account of certain advantages which it possessed over the northern side. The little army moved out from Montreal on its career of conquest June 13, 1687. After some difficulty, Fort Frontenac was reached. Champigny and his men had arrived a few days in advance of the main army; and through his exertions thirty men and ninety women and children of a peaceable tribe belonging to the Iroquois and living in the neighborhood, were decoyed into the fort under the pretence of being feasted, and treacherously captured. Other Indians were taken in the same way, many of whom were afterward consigned to the French galleys. The Iroquois were more chivalrous. They had Lamberville, the Jesuit missionary whom Denonville had basely left to his fate, in their power, and could easily have destroyed him, but they allowed him to go free and join his friends. At the fort there were assembled, according to Denonville, about two thousand men, regulars, militia, and Indians. Eight hundred troops, newly arrived from France, had been left at Montreal to protect the settlers and property there. More allies were awaiting his commands at Niagara; they consisted of one hundred and eighty Frenchmen, and four hundred Indians, under Tonty, La Durantaye, and Du Lhut. The journey to Niagara had not been made without hardship and adventure. The Indians of the party had been difficult to manage, and for a while Durantaye was not sure that they would remain with him. Some of the English traders, commanded by Johannes Rooseboom, a Dutchman, on the way to Michillimackinac with goods, were encountered, and Durantaye hastened with one hundred and twenty coureurs de bois to meet them. The party, consisting of twenty-nine whites and five Mohawks and Mohicans, were threatened with death if they resisted. They immediately surrendered, and were despatched to Michillimackinac as prisoners. The merchandise they brought was parcelled out among the Indians. This stroke was the means of saving Durantaye’s life, and the Indians with him became in consequence his sure allies. While making for Niagara, McGregory’s canoes were met, and the same fate overtook them. This capture proved important, for McGregory had with him a number of Ottawa and Huron prisoners whom the Iroquois had taken. It was the Englishman’s intention to restore these captives to their countrymen, to make good the terms of the triple alliance which had been entered into by the English, the Iroquois, and the lake tribes. McGregory’s capture destroyed the whole arrangement, and he and his companions, with those of Rooseboom, were ultimately sent as prisoners to Quebec.

The war-party at Niagara were ordered to repair to the rendezvous at Irondequoit Bay, on the border of the Seneca country, and Denonville went to meet them. His command numbered three thousand men, for a reinforcement of Ottawas of Michillimackinac who had refused to follow Durantaye, having altered their minds, now joined the party. The host was well officered. The leaders were Denonville, the Chevalier de Vaudreuil,—an excellent soldier, fresh from France,—La Durantaye, Callières, Du Lhut, Tonty, Berthier, La Valterie, Granville, Longueil, La Hontan, De Troyes, and others. On the afternoon of the 12th of July, at three o’clock, having already despatched four hundred men to garrison the redoubt, which had been put in a condition of defence for the protection of the provisions and canoes, Denonville began his march across the woods to Gannagaro,—twenty-two miles distant. Each man carried with him food for thirteen days. Three leagues were made the first day, and the party camped for the night. Two defiles were passed the next morning. The heat was intense, and the mosquitoes were very troublesome, but the men moved on in pretty fair order. So far, only a few scouts of the enemy had been encountered. At two o’clock the third defile was entered. It had been the Governor’s intention to rest here, but having been notified by scouts that a considerable party of the Senecas was in the neighborhood, an advance was made by Callières, who was at the head of the three companies commanded by Tonty, Durantaye, and Du Lhut, besides the detachment of Indians. This body, which formed the vanguard of the army, pushed rapidly through the defile, unconscious of the fact that an ambuscade of Senecas, three hundred strong, was posted in the vicinity. When they reached the end they came upon a thicket of alders and rank grass. At a given signal, the air was rent with defiant shouts, and a host of savages leaped from their places of concealment, and sent a volley of lead into the bewildered French, while the three hundred Senecas who lined the sides of the defile sprang upon the van. They had thought to crush their enemy at a blow, but Denonville, hurrying up with his sixteen hundred men, soon spread consternation into their ranks. The firing was heavy on both sides; but the Senecas were defeated with considerable slaughter, and finally fled from the scene in dismay. Denonville wrote that “all our Christian Indians from below performed their duty admirably, and firmly maintained the position assigned to them on the left.” The French did not follow the flying savages, being too much fatigued by their long march. Their loss was five or six men killed and twenty wounded. Among the latter was Father Engelran, who was seriously injured by a bullet.

The next morning the army pressed forward again, but no Seneca warriors were to be seen. The villages were deserted, and ten days were occupied by the soldiers and their allies in reducing the Indian villages and destroying the provisions and stores which the Senecas had left behind them. Denonville withdrew on the 24th with his army, and set out for Montreal. On the way back he ordered a stockade to be built at Niagara, on the site of La Salle’s old fort, between the River Niagara and Lake Ontario. Montreal was reached on the 13th of August.[702]

Denonville thought that he had made a successful stroke; but he was over sanguine. After this his power seemed to wane, and his prestige went down. Dongan was savage when he heard of the imprisonment of McGregory and Rooseboom, and wrote a sharp letter demanding their return. Denonville refused, and upbraided him for having assisted the savages. He thought better of his resolution as his anger cooled, however, and in a few weeks released his prisoners.

Dongan called a conference of the Iroquois, and told them to receive no more Jesuit missionaries into their towns. He called them British subjects, and said that they should make no treaties with the French without asking leave of King James. The humbled Indians promised obedience.

Hitherto, Dongan had not succeeded in getting his king to recognize the Iroquois as his subjects. On the 10th of November, 1687, however, a warrant arrived from England authorizing the Governor to protect the Five Nations, and to repel the French from their territory by force of arms, should they attack the villages again. The commissioners appointed, in accordance with the terms of the neutrality treaty signed at Whitehall, had the boundary question before them. Both French and English claimed the Iroquois, and the matter was assuming a serious aspect. News came in August, 1688, to Denonville, that the subject of dispute would receive prompt and satisfactory settlement.[703]

Meanwhile, the French Governor made several overtures to obtain peace with the Iroquois; but their demands were greater than his pride could grant. Dongan’s hand was seen in every proposition formulated by the savages. Father Vaillant was sent to Albany to try and obtain easier conditions, but the effort was vain; and the Iroquois absolutely refused to make peace or grant a truce until Fort Niagara was razed, and all the prisoners restored. These terms were exasperating; but when Denonville learned that Dongan had been recalled by King James, his spirits rose, and he felt as if a great load were removed. The governments of New York, New Jersey, and New England became one administration, and Sir Edmund Andros was named governor over all. So far as Denonville was concerned, he was no better off than before, for the new Governor insisted on all of Dongan’s old demands being satisfied, and actually forbade peace with the Iroquois on any other basis.

The state of Canada at this time, 1688, was most deplorable. Disease had broken out, and the mortality was fearful. Before spring, ten only, out of a garrison of one hundred men at Niagara, survived the scourge. The provisions had become bad, and prowling Senecas prevented any of the inmates of the fort from venturing out to look for food. Fort Frontenac’s garrison was also sadly diminished, and the distress throughout the country, from famine and disease, was very great. To add to the Governor’s troubles, the fur-trade had languished. Bands of Iroquois menaced the unfortunate settlers. The fields were untilled; danger lurked in every bush, and destitution, gaunt and grim, abounded everywhere. Peace must be had at any price, if the colony would live, and Denonville resolved to make it. He had become unmanned by his trials, and though he still had a force of fourteen hundred regulars, some militia, and three or four hundred Indian converts, he hesitated to venture on war. He wrote to the Court for eight hundred more troops, and the King sent him three hundred. Then he made up his mind to fight. He planned a campaign against the Iroquois which he hoped would break their power. He proposed to divide his army into two sections, with one of which he might crush the Onondagas and Cayugas, and with the other the Mohawks and Oneidas. He asked the King for four thousand troops, and the Bishop backed his demand with an earnest prayer; but France could not spare them, and the Governor was left to his own resources. He fell back on the arts of the diplomat, and invited the wily old chief Big Mouth, to a council at Montreal. The savage consented to come, despite his promises to the English, and presently he appeared before Denonville at the head of twelve hundred warriors. He addressed the Marquis haughtily, and said that he would make peace with the French, but the terms would not include their allies: the Iroquois must be left free to attack them when and how they would. Denonville, like De la Barre on a former occasion, dared not refuse, and the red allies of the Governor were again abandoned to their fate. A declaration of neutrality was drawn up June 15, 1688, and Big Mouth promised that deputies from the whole Confederacy should proceed to Montreal and sign a general peace.

A chief of the Hurons named Kondiaronk, or the Rat, heard of the treaty about to be made. Should it be ratified, it meant the destruction of his own tribe. He took steps to prevent it, and with a band of trusty savages intercepted the Iroquois deputies on their way to Montreal, at La Famine, and attacked them. One chief was killed, a warrior escaped with a broken arm, and the rest were wounded and taken prisoners. The Rat told his captives that Denonville had informed him that they were to pass that way, and when the captives replied that they were envoys of peace, the crafty Huron assumed an injured air, liberated them all save one, and giving them guns and ammunition, told them to go back to their people, and avenge the treachery of the French. They departed, breathing vengeance against Onontio. The wounded Iroquois who had been in the mêlée escaped, however, learned a different story at Fort Frontenac, where he was well received, and hastened to Onondaga charged with explanations. The Iroquois pretended to be satisfied, and Denonville believed them; but ere long he was terribly undeceived. From one pretext and another, the treaty was not signed.

And now occurred one of the direst and blackest tragedies in the annals of New France. During the night and morning of the 4th and 5th of August, 1689, some fourteen or fifteen hundred Iroquois landed at Lachine. A tempest was raging at the time, and taking advantage of the storm and the darkness, they crept noiselessly up to the houses of the sleeping settlers, and, yelling their piercing war-whoop, fell upon their defenceless and surprised victims. The houses were fired, and the massacre of the inmates which followed was swift and frightful. Few escaped; men, women, and children were indiscriminately slain in cold blood. It is estimated that more than two hundred persons were butchered outright, and one hundred and twenty were carried off as prisoners and reserved for a fate worse than death. Women were impaled, children roasted by slow fires, and other horrors were perpetrated. Three stockade forts, Rémy, Roland, and La Présentation, respectably garrisoned, were situate in the vicinity of this bloody deed. Two hundred regular troops were encamped less than three miles away. Their officer, Subercase, was at the time in Montreal, some six miles from his command. A fugitive from the massacre alarmed the soldiers, and then fled to Montreal with his terrible news. Flying victims of the tragedy were seen at intervals pursued by Iroquois, but the presence of the file of soldiers prevented them from following up their prey. It was far into the day when Subercase returned, breathless, from Montreal. He hastily ordered his troops to push on, and, reinforced by one hundred armed settlers and several men from the forts, marched towards the encampment of the Indians. Most of the latter were helplessly drunk by this time, and Subercase could have killed many of them easily; but just as he was about to strike, Chevalier de Vaudreuil appeared upon the scene, and by orders of Denonville commanded the gallant officer to stand solely on the defensive. In vain Subercase protested; but the orders of his superior could not be gainsaid. The troops were marched back to Fort Roland, a great opportunity for revenge was lost, and the fatal pause cost the French very dearly. The next day the savages were early on the alert. Eighty men hurrying from Fort Rémy to join Vaudreuil were cut to pieces, and only Le Moyne, De Longueil, and a few others succeeded in making their way through the gate of the fort which they had just abandoned. The Indians continued their fiendish work. They burned all the houses and barns within an area of nine miles, and pillaged and scalped, without opposition, within a circle of twenty miles. The miserable policy of Denonville completely paralyzed the troops and inhabitants, and they allowed the Iroquois to remain in the neighborhood until they had surfeited themselves with slaughter, though with a little determined effort they could readily have driven them off. At length the savages withdrew of their own accord, and as they passed the forts they called out loud enough for the inmates to hear, “Onontio, you deceived us, and now we have deceived you.”

Other troubles overtook the colony: the rebellion broke out in England; war was declared between Britain and France, in the midst of which Denonville was recalled, and brave, chivalrous Frontenac, now in his seventieth year, crossed the seas again, his past conduct forgiven by King Louis, to administer for a second time the affairs of Canada.

It was in the autumn of 1689, and by evening, that Frontenac was received at Quebec with fireworks and jubilations. His passage had been long, and the season was too far advanced to render it practicable to organize an attack on New York by sea and land, in accordance with secret instructions which he had received on leaving France;[704] so the condition of affairs in Canada at once engaged his attention. These were far from cheerful. Frontenac hastened to Montreal, only to meet the garrison of Fort Frontenac, which had abandoned and partially destroyed the works, and were withdrawing under Denonville’s orders. In every direction the settlements were in terror of the stealthy Iroquois; and even the tribes of the lakes, having found under Denonville’s policy that little dependence could be placed in the support of the French, were showing signs of revolt. Frontenac had induced a council of the Iroquois; but his proposition for peace was only met by the revelation of their alliance with the tribes of Michillimackinac. The French Governor acted promptly: he despatched a force, accompanied by the astute Nicholas Perrot, to endeavor to prevent any overt act on the part of the Ottawas.

Meanwhile, to punish the English and to impress the savages, Frontenac sent out three expeditions. The first, from Montreal, fell suddenly upon Schenectady, then the farthest outpost of the English in New York, and perpetrated a fearful massacre. The invaders retired, not without pursuit, leaving some prisoners in the hands of the English, who learned from them that Frontenac designed to make a more formidable attack in the spring. Schuyler, of Albany, appealed to Massachusetts for help; but the New England colonies soon had a sharper appeal for their own defence. Towards the end of January, Frontenac’s second expedition had left Three Rivers, and two months later it fell suddenly upon Salmon Falls, a settlement on the river dividing Maine from New Hampshire, where the force plundered and killed whom they could, and retreated so as to intercept and join the third of the French parties, which had left Quebec in January, and was now on its way to attack Fort Loyal, at the present Portland. After a vigorous resistance, Captain Sylvanus Davis, a Massachusetts man, who commanded the English, surrendered that post upon terms which were not kept. Murder and rapine followed, as in the other cases, while Davis and some others were led captive to Canada. Frontenac received the New Englander kindly, who was still in his power when another and more famous New Englander appeared before Quebec with a fleet, in pursuance of a part of a plan of attack on New France which the English were now bent on making in retaliation. At a congress in May, 1690, held in New York, the scheme was arranged. A land force under Fitz-John Winthrop was to march from Albany to Montreal. It fell (as we shall see) by the way, and disappeared. A sea-force was to sail from Boston and attack Quebec at the same time. This for a while promised better.

During the previous year the Boston merchants had lost ships and cargoes by French cruisers, which harbored at Port Royal.[705] Another chapter tells the story of the reprisals which the aroused New Englanders made, and how Sir William Phips had returned with captives and booty to Boston, just after the Massachusetts Government had begun to make preparations to carry out their part of the campaign as planned in New York. There is no test of soldiership like success, and the adventitious results of the Port Royal expedition stood with the over-confident and unthinking for much more than they signified, and Phips of course was put in command of the new Armada. Money was borrowed, for recurrent frontier wars had drained the colonial treasuries. England was appealed to; but she refused even to contribute munitions of war. So with a bluff and coarse adventurer for a general, with a Cape Cod militia-man in John Walley as his lieutenant, with a motley force of twenty-two hundred men crowded in thirty-two extemporized war-ships, and with a scant supply of ammunition, the fleet left Boston Harbor in August, 1690.

Meanwhile Frontenac at Quebec had, during the winter, been constructing palisades in front of the inland side of the upper town, and leaving the work to go on, had gone up in the early summer to Montreal, to be elated by the arrival of a large fleet of canoes bringing furs from the upper lakes. All this indicated to Frontenac that his policy of reclaiming to the French interest the tribes about Michillimackinac was working successfully, and he rejoiced. While here, however, he got news of Winthrop’s force coming down Lake Champlain. It turned out that the English did nothing more than to frighten him a little by the sudden onset of a scouting party under John Schuyler, which fell upon the settlement at La Prairie, and then vanished.

Suddenly again word came of a rumor of a fleet having sailed from Boston to attack Quebec. Frontenac made haste to return to that town, and was met on the way by more definite intelligence of the New England fleet having been seen in the river. When he reached Quebec, not a hostile sail was in sight. He was in time, and his messengers were already summoning assistance from all distant posts.

In coming up the river, Phips had captured two vessels, so that the fleet which two or three days after Frontenac’s arrival slowly emerged into the basin of Quebec counted thirty-four vessels to the anxious eyes of the French. Phips’s prisoners had told him that there were not two hundred men in the works; Frontenac knew that his reinforcements had already made his garrison about twenty-seven hundred men.

Phips promptly sent a summons to surrender. His messenger was blindfolded and tumbled about over the barricades, to impress him with the preparations of defence. Frontenac disdained to take the offered hour for consideration, and sent back his refusal at once. Phips dallied with councils of war till he heard the acclamations with which the Governor of Montreal was received, when he brought several hundred additional men to the garrison. Walley was at last landed with a force of twelve or thirteen hundred, who experienced some fighting, which they conducted courageously enough, but without result, and suffered much from the inclemency of the weather. Without waiting for the land troops to reach a position for assaulting the town, Phips moved up his ships, and began a bombardment, wholly ineffectual, and drew a return which damaged him so considerably, that, after renewing it the following day, he finally drew off. There was another delay in rescuing Walley and his men, who were at last re-embarked under cover of the night. The fleet now fell down the river, stopped to repair, and then made their way back to Boston, straggling along for several months, some of the vessels never reaching home at all. The miseries of mortification and paper money were all that New England had to show for her bravado.[706]

To Frontenac the success of his defence was a temporary relief, so far as the English were concerned, though the New England cruisers continued to intercept his supplies in the Gulf. But the Iroquois wolves began to prowl again. Taunted by their savage allies for their inertness, the English and Dutch of Albany once more raided towards Montreal, under Peter Schuyler, and, inflicting more damage than they received, successfully broke through an ambuscading force on their retreat. All this irritated Frontenac. He prayed his King for help to destroy New York and Boston; and when a false report reached him that ten thousand “Bastonnais” had sailed to wreak their revenge for Phips’s failure, he set vigorously to work strengthening the vulnerable points of his colony. He varied his activity with continued expeditions against the Iroquois, whether strolling or at home, striking particularly against the Mohawk towns; and he protected a great fleet of canoes which in the troublous times had been kept back in the upper country, and now brought credit and hope to the lower settlements in an ample supply of furs.

But during all this turmoil with public foes, Frontenac was having his old troubles over again with the Bishop and the Intendant. Outward courtesy and secret dislike characterized their intercourse, and discord went in the train of the Bishop as he made his pastoral tours among a people bound in honor and reverence to the Governor.

The reader must turn to another page[707] for the struggle with the “Bastonnais” which Frontenac was watching meanwhile in Acadia; but this did not divert his attention from the grand castigation which at last he was planning for the Iroquois. He had succeeded, in 1694, in inducing them to meet him in general council at Quebec, and had framed the conditions of a truce; but the English at Albany intrigued to prevent the fulfilment, and war was again imminent. Both sides were endeavoring to secure the alliance of the tribes of the upper lakes.[708] These wavered, and Frontenac saw the peril and the remedy. His recourse was to attack the Iroquois in their villages at once, and conquer on the Mohawk the peace he needed at Michillimackinac. It was Frontenac’s last campaign. In July, 1696, he left Montreal with twenty-two hundred men. He went by way of Fort Frontenac, crossed Lake Ontario, landed at Oswego, and struggled up its stream, and at last set sails to his canoes on Lake Onondaga. Then his force marched again, and Frontenac, enfeebled by his years, was borne along in an arm-chair. Eight or nine miles and a day’s work brought them to the Onondagas’ village; but its inhabitants had burned it and fled. Vaudreuil was sent with a detachment, which destroyed the town of the Oneidas. After committing all the devastation of crops that he could, in hopes that famine would help him, Frontenac began his homeward march before the English at Albany were aroused at all. The effect was what Frontenac wished. The Iroquois ceased their negotiations with the western tribes, and sued for peace.

Meanwhile the crowns and diplomats of England and France had concluded the Peace of Ryswick in 1697. Frontenac got word of it from New York as early as February of 1698, and a confirmation from Louis in July. There were still some parries of diplomacy between the old French soldier and the English governor at New York, the Earl of Bellomont, each trying to maintain the show of a paramount authority over the Five Nations. But Frontenac was not destined to see the end. In November he sickened. His adversary, Champigny, mollified at the sight, became reconciled to him, and soothed his last hours. On the twenty-eighth he died, in the seventy-eighth year of his age, and New France sincerely mourned her most distinguished hero.

A LARGE portion of the manuscript sources of this chapter may be found in the invaluable collection of papers relating to New France in the Archives of the Marine and Colonies, the Archives Nationales, and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris; and in the office of the Provincial Registrar at Quebec. The archives of New York, Massachusetts, and Canada have made extensive transcripts from these documents, as follows:—

1. Correspondance Officiele, first series, vols. i.-v. There are transcripts from the Paris documents copied in France for the State of New York, and translations of them all are in the ninth and tenth volumes of the Documents relating to the Colonial History of the State of New York.[709]

2. Correspondance Officiele, second series, vols. ii., iv.-viii. These papers exist in manuscript, and have not been translated into English. Copies are in the Library of Parliament, Ottawa, and in the Archives Office of the Quebec Government.

3. A collection of papers made by an agent of Massachusetts at Paris, relating chiefly to Acadian matters, contains also a good deal about Frontenac. They were copied afterward in Boston on an order from the Quebec Government, and are in the keeping of the Registrar at Quebec. The Quebec administration intends publishing these papers.[710] [They have since been published.]

The original Register and Proceedings of Council, in several volumes, remain in very fair condition in the archives of the Quebec Government. The first, a folio bound in calf and indexed, bears two titles, the first of which is, Registre des Insinuations du Conseil Supérieur de 1663 à 1682, ninety-six pages. It begins with the King’s edict creating the Superior Council, dated April 1, 1663, and ends with the “Procès Verbal” of the Superior Council concerning the Redaction of the Code Civil, or ordinance of Louis, April 14, 1667.

The second title is, Jugements et Délibérations du Conseil Souverain de la Nouvelle France, 1663 à 1676, two hundred and eighty-one pages. It begins with an arrêt of the Superior Council ordering the registration of the King’s edict of April 1, 1663, creating the Superior Council for New France, to be held at Quebec; and ends with an interlocutory judgment, dated Dec. 19, 1676, upon a petition of François Noir Roland, complaining of his curate for refusing him absolution. This book, or register, is authenticated by the certificate of the Governor, Comte de Frontenac, on the first page, as follows:—

“Le Présent Régîstre du Conseil Souverain contenant trois cens soixante et seize feuillets a été ce jour paraphé ne varietur par premier et dernier, par nous Louis de Buade de Frontenac Chevallier Comte de Palluau, Conseiller du Roy en ses Conseils, Gouverneur et Intendant Général pour sa Majesté, en la Nouvelle France, Québec le quinzième Janvier Mille six cents soixante et quinze.”

“Frontenac.”

The entries in general throughout this end of the book are authenticated by the Governor, Bishop, Intendant, councillors, or Clerk of the Council; and the last, or two hundred and eighty-first leaf, is signed by Duchesneau, Intendant, and by Dupont, Member of the Council. Its general contents consist of a variety of orders, regulations, ordinances, judgments, civil and criminal, of the Superior Council, licitation, and adjudications of Crown estates, representations to the King and his ministers upon various subjects. There are four following volumes of this register in the archives at Quebec bearing the dates 1677 to 1680, 1681, 1681 to 1687, and 1688 to 1693, respectively. Each of these contains interesting details of Council proceedings during the first administration of Frontenac, the time of La Barre and Denonville, and during Frontenac’s second term.

The Édits et Ordonnances, vol. iii., contain copies of the commissions of Frontenac, La Barre, and Denonville.

For particulars concerning the youth of Frontenac, his family and marriage, see Parkman’s Appendix, where, among other sources, are named the journal of Jean Héroard, physician to the court, part of which is cited in Le Correspondant of Paris for 1873; Pinard, Chronologie Historique-Militaire; Les Mémoires de Sully; Table de la Gazette de France; Mémoires de Philippe Hurault (in Petitot); Jal, Dictionnaire Critique, Biographique, et d’Histoire, article, “Frontenac;” Historiettes de Tallemant des Réaux, ix. (ed. Monmerqué); Mémoires de Mademoiselle de Montpensier, vols. i.-iii.; and Mémoires du Duc de Saint-Simon.[711]

At Frontenac’s death we have an Oraison funèbre du Comte de Frontenac, par le Père Olivier Goyer, preached from the text: “In multitudine videbor bonus et in bello fortis.” A copy of this eulogy, containing a running commentary on its sentiments strongly adverse to the views of the orator, is preserved in the Seminary of Quebec. These comments, selections from which will be found in Parkman’s Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV., pp. 431-434, are, the Abbé Casgrain informs me, from the caustic pen of the Abbé Charles Glandelet, who came to Canada in 1675, and labored half a century in the Seminary. He was first theologian, superior, and confessor of the Ursulines, and died at Three Rivers at the advanced age of eighty years.

In considering the early printed books pertaining to our subject, we find them copious; but unfortunately we can scarcely account many of them trustworthy historical authorities, since prejudice and partisanship characterize them for the most part. The contests of the period greatly developed antagonisms, and it was not easy at the time to resist their influences. When we collate the writings of these contemporaries, we find a great lack of unity and sympathy, and this often extends to matters of trifling import. While thus in many ways these books fail of becoming satisfactory chronicles, as expressions of current partisan feeling they often throw great light on all transactions; and it is fortunate that in their antagonisms they give rival sentiments and opposing narratives, from which the careful student, with the help of official and other contemporary documents, may in the main satisfy his mind. Foremost among these early narratives is the Premier Établissement de la Foy dans la Nouvelle France of the Père Le Clercq: of this, however, as well as of the works of Hennepin and La Hontan, Tonti, and Marquette, an examination is made in another chapter.[712]

Of the more general early narratives, we must give a prominent place to a book which ranks as a respectable authority, and is frequently quoted,—Bacqueville de la Potherie’s Histoire de l’Amérique Septentrionale depuis 1534 jusqu’à 1701, Paris, 1722, four volumes. It is particularly useful in studying the relations of Frontenac and Callières, but as a contribution upon the condition of the Indians at that time it has its chief value.[713]

The Histoire du Canada of the Abbé Belmont, superior of the Seminary of Montreal during 1713 and 1724, is a short history of affairs from 1608 to 1700. The Literary and Historical Society of Quebec printed, about 1840, in their Collection de Mémoires, a small edition of the work from a manuscript copy in the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris. It is very scarce, and copies are held at high prices, but the Society intend reissuing it shortly. Its general accuracy has not been questioned, and the views expressed are evidently the outcome of careful consideration.

The general history of the administrations of Frontenac, De la Barre, and Denonville is exhaustively treated by Father Francis-Xavier de Charlevoix; and the first place in time and importance among the contributions to the general history of Canada, of a date earlier than the present century, must be given to this Jesuit’s Histoire et Description Générale de la Nouvelle France, avec le Journal Historique d’un Voyage fait par l’Ordre du Roi dans l’Amérique Septentrionale, which was issued at Paris in 1744.[714] Shea says: “Access to State papers and the archives of the religious order to which he belonged, experience and skill as a practised writer, a clear head and an ability to analyze, arrange, and describe, fitted him for his work.” Parkman, whose studies have made him a close observer of Charlevoix’s methods, speaks of his “usual carelessness.”

Charlevoix arrived in Canada in September, 1720, on an expedition to inspect the missions of Canada. His purpose took him throughout the limits of New France and Louisiana, and by the Illinois and the Mississippi to the Gulf. His work is commensurate with his opportunities; his faults and errors were those of his order; and his religious training inclined him to give perhaps undue prominence to the ecclesiastical side of his subject; and though the character of Frontenac suffers but little at his hands, some of the prejudice which Charlevoix bestows upon the Recollects necessarily colors his judgment in matters where the Governor came in contact with the Jesuits.

The Abbé La Tour, not a very trustworthy authority, wrote Mémoires sur la Vie de M. de Laval, premier Évêque de Québec in 1761,—a small book which is worth looking into, though not with the object of accepting all its statements. Frontenac is bitterly attacked, his faults magnified, and many serious charges are preferred against him. But one volume, however, was published,—a thin book of a few pages, bearing the imprint of Jean Frederick Motiens, Cologne, 1761. The second volume was never printed. The copy of vol. i. which the Abbé Vemey possessed has this note in the latter’s handwriting: “L’Abbé de la Tour de Montauban, author of this Life, of which the first volume only has been published, promised me a manuscript copy of the second volume; but he did not keep his word. Owing to the unfair manner in which Bishop St. Vallier was treated in the second volume, his family objected to its publication.” The first volume ends with the year 1694. A second edition was published at Paris in 1762.[715]

A useful work, which should not be lost sight of in the consideration of this period, is L’Histoire de l’Hôtel Dieu de Québec, de 1639 à 1716, by the reverend mother, Françoise Juchereau de St. Ignace, printed in Paris in 1751. It is rich in facts and incidents, and especially valuable as an authority on the missionary activity of the time, and on the attempt made by the clergy to evangelize the savages. A supplementary work, prepared with great care and thoroughness from original documents, and bearing the same title, has been written by the Abbé H. R. Casgrain. It is brought down to 1840, and was published at Quebec in 1878. The Abbé is one of the most industrious of the French-Canadian writers, and his book is full of interesting details and notes.[716]

In the third series of Historical Documents published under the auspices of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec in 1871, is a paper entitled “Recueil de ce qui s’est passé en Canada au sujet de la guerre, tant des Anglais que des Iroquois, depuis l’année 1682.” It contains a good account of the Lachine massacre, the truthfulness of which may be accepted. The author accompanied Subercase to the scene.[717]

In a collection entitled, Bibliotheca Americana: Collection d’ouvrages inédits ou rares sur l’Amérique, with the imprint of Leipsic and Paris, appeared the Mémoire sur les Mœurs, Coustumes, et Réligions des Sauvages de l’Amérique Septentrionale, par Nicolas Perrot, publié pour la première fois par le R. P. Tailhan, de la Compagnie de Jésus, 1864. Considerable importance is attached to this memoir by Charlevoix, La Potherie, Ferland, and others, who frequently quote it in their narratives. Harrisse (no. 833) says that this work seems to have been written day by day from 1665 to the death of Perrot, who was an eye-witness of events under the administration of De la Barre, Denonville, and Frontenac. Colden gives a part of the narrative in his History of the Five Indian Nations, London, 1747.[718]

It remains to characterize the chief general works of our own time, which indicate the great interest with which modern research has invested the story of New France. The French-Canadians generally accept François-Xavier Garneau as their national historian, and his Histoire du Canada well entitles him to that consideration. He began writing his history in 1840, and published the first volume in Quebec in 1845, the second in 1846, and the third, treating of events down to 1792, in 1848. A new edition, revised and corrected, and brought down to 1840, appeared at Montreal from Lovell’s press, in 1852, and a third edition at Quebec in 1859.[719] In 1882 the fourth edition, edited by his son,[720] was issued at Montreal by Beauchemin & Valois. It is enriched by many valuable notes, and has a recognized place as a work of conspicuous merit.

The ecclesiastical history of Canada is particularly illustrated by the Abbé J. B. A. Ferland in his Cours d’Histoire du Canada, 1534-1759, Quebec, 1861 and 1865, two volumes. The author died while the second volume was passing through the press, and the completing of the publication devolved upon the Abbé Laverdière, one of the ablest scholars in the Canadian priesthood. Ferland had access to many documents of great interest, and his work shows judgment and a skilful handling of the rich store of materials within his reach.[721]

The Histoire de la Colonie Française en Canada, with maps, by the Abbé Faillon, a Sulpitian priest of very great ability, was projected on an extensive plan. The author visited Canada on three separate occasions, spending several years in the country, and made the most of his opportunities in gathering his material, not only there, but from the archives of the Propaganda at Rome and from the public offices in Paris. The result was a work of high value; but it must be read with a full perception of the author’s intention to rear a monument to commemorate the labors and trials of the Sulpitians of Montreal.

Parkman[722] thus speaks of him: “In all that relates to Montreal I cannot be sufficiently grateful to the Abbé Faillon, the indefatigable, patient, conscientious chronicler of its early history; an ardent and prejudiced Sulpitian; a priest who three centuries ago would have passed for credulous, and withal a kind-hearted and estimable man.”

Three volumes only appeared, the first two in 1865, and the third in 1866. The latter deals with events covered by a small portion of the period discussed in this chapter. M. Faillon’s death at Paris in 1871 prevented further publication; but he has left in manuscript enough prepared material to complete the work as far as the conquest of 1759-1760. The book was published anonymously, according to the custom of the Congregation of St. Sulpice.[723]

It is, however, to an American of Puritan stock that the story we are illustrating owes, for the English reader certainly, its most conspicuous recital. Two volumes of Francis Parkman’s series of France and England in North America concern more especially the period covered by the administrations of Frontenac, De la Barre, and Denonville; these are his Frontenac, and New France under Louis XIV. (Boston, 1877), and his La Salle, and the Discovery of the Great West (Boston, 1879); but the consideration of the last of these belongs more particularly to another chapter. Of Parkman as an historian there has been a wide recognition of a learning that has neglected no resource; a research which has proved fortunate in its results; a judgment which, though Protestant, is fair and liberal;[724] a critical perception, which in the conflict of testimony keeps him accurate and luminous; and a style which has given his narrative the fascinations of a romance.

John Dennis wrote a tragedy,—Liberty Asserted,—which was acted in London in 1704, in which Frontenac was made a character, together with an English governor and Iroquois chief. Betterton acted in it. A romantic picture of the period is furnished in an amusing novel by M. Joseph Marmette, formerly of Quebec, but now of Paris, entitled François de Bienville. Frontenac figures as one of the principal characters in the story. Frontenac’s expeditions against the Iroquois were made the subject of a poem by Alfred B. Street,—Frontenac: or, the Atotarho of the Iroquois. London and New York, 1849.

M. T. P. Bedard, of the Archives department, has a paper in the Annuaire de l’Institut Canadien, nos. 7 and 8, 1880, 1881, which discusses the first and second administrations of the Count, and sheds some light on the social and political aspects of the country between 1672 and 1698, the year in which Frontenac died.

A. Frontenac’s Second Term.—Mr. Parkman has accompanied his narrative[725] of the attempt on Quebec in 1690 with an indication of the sources of the story. Besides the despatches of Frontenac and the Relation of Monseignat (both printed in the New York Colonial Documents, vol. ix.), there is an account taken by vessel to Rochelle, which is without place or date, and was probably there printed. It is entitled, Relation de ce qui s’est passé en Canada, à la descente des Anglais à Québec, au mois d’Octobre, 1690, faite par un Officier (Harrisse, no. 168; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,426), and contains Phips’s summons to Frontenac (also given in Mather’s Magnalia, and repeated by Parkman, Frontenac, p. 266), and Frontenac’s verbal answer.

The copy of Phips’s summons sent to Paris by Frontenac is indorsed by him to the effect that he retained the original. The Mercure de France also issued an “Extraordinaire,” with an account (Harrisse, no. 166,) and another brief Relation de la levée du siége de Québec (Harrisse, no. 167) was printed at Tours. La Hontan, Le Clercq, La Potherie, and Juchereau (L’Hôtel Dieu), give other accounts contemporary, or nearly so, and their testimony has been availed of by Charlevoix (cf. Shea’s ed., iv. 169) and the later writers, like Garneau.

On the English side, besides a contemporary bulletin issued in the Publick Occurrences, Boston, Sept. 25, 1690 (given in Hist. Mag., August, 1857), two participators in the expedition left narratives,—one of which by John Walley is printed in Hutchinson’s Massachusetts, i. app. no. xxi., which concerns chiefly the land forces; and the other was by the officer second in command of the militia, and is entitled, An account of the late action of the New Englanders, under the command of Sir William Phips, against the French at Canada, sent in a letter from Maj. Thomas Savage, of Boston, in New England (who was present at the action), to his brother, Mr. Perez Savage, in London. London, 1691. This quarto tract is in Harvard College Library; it was reprinted in the Mass. Hist. Coll., xiii. 256.

In the same Collections, third series, i. 101, is the diary of Captain Sylvanus Davis, who was at the time a captive in Quebec; cf. also Johnston’s Bremen, Bristol, and Pemaquid. An original journal of the expedition is said to have been intrusted to Admiral Walker at the time of his venture in 1711, and to have been lost in one of his ships (Walker’s Journal, p. 87). Phips’s side of the story is doubtless told amid the high laudation of Cotton Mather’s Life of Phips; some light is thrown upon the times in Dummer’s Defence of the Colonies; and various tokens of the preparations for the expedition are preserved in the Hinckley Papers, vol. iii, in the Prince Library.

Somewhat later we have the story in some of its aspects in Colden’s Five Nations; later still, in Hutchinson’s Massachusetts Bay, vol. i.; again, in part, in Belknap’s New Hampshire; while the chief modern writers who have preceded Parkman, on the English side, have been Palfrey’s New England, iv. 51; Barry’s Massachusetts, ii. 79; Bowen’s “Life of Phips,” in Sparks’ American Biography; and Warburton, in his Conquest of Canada, chap. 14.

Of the supporting Winthrop expedition from Albany, we have the French accounts in La Potherie (iii. 126), and in the New York Colonial Documents, ix. 513. The recently published Winthrop Papers (iv. 303-324) throw considerable light through the letters of Fitz-John Winthrop on the preparations which were made; and they give also his reasons for the expedition’s failure, and through his Journal, with which the one printed in the New York Colonial Documents, iv. 193, may be compared. Parkman’s Frontenac (p. 257) and Shea’s Charlevoix (iv. 145) note the authorities; and the New York Colonial Documents (iii. 727, 752) and Doc. Hist. N. Y. (ii. 266, 288) yield other light than that already mentioned. The Journal of Schuyler’s raid to La Prairie is given in the Doc. Hist. N. Y., ii. 285, and in the publications of the New Jersey Historical Society, vol. i.

Concerning the minor episodes of this second term of Frontenac’s government, both Parkman and Shea indicate the essential authorities. On the destruction of Schenectady, the letter of Monseignat and other papers in the Doc. Hist. of New York, vol. i. 297, etc. (where authorities are cited), and a letter of Schuyler and his associates in the Massachusetts Archives, printed in the Andros Tracts, are of the first importance. Cf. also M. Van Rennsselaer’s paper in N. Y. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1846, p. 101, and the same Society’s Fund Publications, ii. 165; a letter from Governor Bradstreet, in the N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., ii. 150; and the contributions in Munsell’s Albany. French accounts are in Le Clercq (Shea’s edition, ii. 292); Potherie, ii. 68; N. Y. Col. Docs., ix. 466; and English accounts in Smith’s New York, p. 66; Colden’s Five Nations (1727), p. 114.

On Schuyler’s raid by way of Lake Champlain in 1691, the French side is still to be gathered from La Potherie, with help from Belmont, Histoire du Canada, and from the Relation of 1682-1712, and from the despatches of Frontenac and Champigny. Schuyler’s own Journal and other documents, French and English, are in the N. Y. Colonial Documents, vol. iii.; Parkman (p. 294) examines the question of the number of the forces engaged, and Shea, Charlevoix, iv. 202, gives references.

On the expedition against the Mohawks, led by Mantet, Courtemanche, and La Noue, we have more various accounts. Parkman gives a graphic recital, and his notes show he has used all the sources. The French authorities, besides the letter of Callières to the home government, are the Relation de ce qui s’est passé de plus remarquable en Canada, 1692-93; the Relation de ce qui s’est passé en Canada au sujet de la Guerre, 1682-1712; while citations of original journals, etc., are in Faillon’s Vie de Mdle. Le Ber, and of course we have La Potherie (iii. 169) and Belmont. The N. Y. Col. Docs., vol. ix., contain important material, including a “Narrative of Military Operations in Canada;” and Major Peter Schuyler’s report is in vol. iv. of the same collection. Colden, in his Five Nations, p. 142, wrote while the actors were still living. There was a tract on the expedition issued in London the same year, which is of such rarity that the copy in the Carter-Brown Library (Catalogue, vol. ii. no. 1,446, with fac-simile of title; also Harrisse, no. 171) is the only one known to me, and from it Sabin, in 1868, reprinted it. It is entitled, A Journal of the late actions of the French in Canada, with the manner of their being repulsed, by his Excellency Benjamin Fletcher, Governor of New York, etc. By Coll. Nicholas Reyard [should be Beyard] and Lieutenant-Coll. Charles Lodowick.

The reader must turn to the chapter on Acadia for the authorities for such other expeditions as come within the alleged limits of that province and the neighboring English settlements.

On Frontenac’s last raid,—the attack upon the Onondagas, in 1696,—we must naturally find our chief information from the French, for the English at Albany were not ready to advance till the French had done their work and had gone. Frontenac and Callières each despatched accounts to Paris; and besides the Relation, 1682-1712, already referred to, we have the Relation de ce qui s’est passé en Canada,—a manuscript preserved in the library of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec (see Parliamentary Library Catalogue, 1858, p. 1613); the Relation, 1696, which Shea has printed, and of course the accounts in La Potherie, iii. 270, and Charlevoix (Shea adds references in his edition, vol. v.), and the papers in the Doc. Hist. of N. Y., i. 323, and the N. Y. Col. Docs. iv. 342. Parkman’s narrative (Frontenac, chap. xix.) is clearly put and exemplified.

B. General Documentary Sources Of Canadian History.—Harrisse prefaces his Notes pour servir à l’histoire, à la bibliographie et à la cartographie de la Nouvelle France et des pays adjacents, 1545-1700, Paris, 1872, with an account of the sources of early Canadian history, and of the repositories of documentary material in Paris, etc. He states that the French Government refused access to their archives to an agent of the Historical Society of Quebec in 1835, and that a similar refusal was made in 1838; but that in 1842 General Cass, then United States Minister, succeeded, in behalf of the State of Michigan, in securing about forty cartons for publication; and ten years later the Parliament at Quebec obtained copies of documents, which now (1872) form a series of thirty-six folios,—not embracing, however, the papers of the early discovery, which were withheld.

Louis P. Turcotte, in his address on Les Archives du Canada (Quebec, 1877), says that the first inventory of the public archives of Canada was published in 1791; that it shows the subsequent loss of important documents; that the first steps were taken to procure copies from the European archives in 1835, which were not successful at the time; and that the better results made by the State of New York (1841-1844) were accordingly availed of. In 1845 the Canadian agent, M. Papineau, secured other copies in France; and in 1851-1852 M. Faribault added twenty-four volumes of transcripts to the collection, now in the library at Ottawa; and sixteen volumes have been added since. M. Turcotte pays a tribute, for his zeal and industry in preserving early Canadian records, to M. Jacques Viger, whose efforts have been since supplemented by the labors of l’Abbé Verreau, who has formed a large library of copies of manuscripts and printed books. M. Verreau was in 1873 sent by the Canadian Government to Europe to make additional collections.

The Catalogue of the Library of the Canadian Parliament, made by Gérin-Lajoie, and published in 1858, gives (p. 1448) an account of the manuscript collections at that time in the possession of the Canadian Government at Toronto, and now transferred to Ottawa, and divides them thus:—

First series.—Copies of copies made by Brodhead for the State of New York, from the archives at Paris, seventeen volumes, with six additional volumes, drawn at second hand in the same way from the Colonial Office in London. These copies were made before the Brodhead collection was printed. Kirke, in his First English Conquest of Canada, London, 1871, says: “The papers in the Record Office [London] relating to Canada, Acadia, or Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland are numerous and continuous from 1621 to 1660, with the exception of the period from 1640 to 1649, during which years we find no papers.”

Second series.—Copies obtained in Paris by Faribault, and made under Margry’s direction; twelve volumes, giving the official correspondence of the governors, 1637-1727. These are enumerated in the Catalogue.

Third series.—Copies of official correspondence relative to Canada, 1654-1731; twelve volumes, likewise arranged by Margry, and also enumerated in the Catalogue.

Fourth series.—A transcript of Franquet’s “Voyages et mémoires sur le Canada, 1752-53,” and other documents mentioned in the Catalogue.

Fifth series.—Maps, copied by Morin, and enumerated on pp. 1614-21 of the Catalogue.

Cf. Collection de Mémoires et de Relations sur l’histoire ancienne du Canada, d’après des manuscrits récemment obtenus des archives et bureaux publics en France, Quebec, 1840; and the Transactions of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, 1870-71, and 1871-72. The Collection contains Belmont and the Report attributed to Talon. Cf. Magazine of American History, iii. 458, in the Quebec Society.

The Lettres, instructions et mémoires de Colbert, publiés par Clément, Paris, 1865, vol. iii., second part, contain various important papers,—like the instructions as intendant of Talon, March 27, 1665; of De Bouteroue, April 5, 1668; Duchesneau, May 30, 1675; those to Gaudais in 1663, and to Courcelles in 1669: besides letters to Frontenac, April 7, 1672; June 13, 1673; May 17, 1674; April 22, 1675; May 10, 1677; March 21, 1678; Dec. 4, 1679; April 30, 1681 (pp. 533, 557, 574, 585, 594, 622, 631, 641, 644): others to Talon, Feb. 11, 1671; June 4, 1672 (pp. 511, 539); to Duchesneau, April 15, 1676; April 28, 1677; May 1, 1677; May 15 and 24, 1678; April 30, 1679 (pp. 605, 614, 619, 632, 635, 638); with one to l’Évêque de Petrée, May 15, 1669 (p. 451). Margry (i. 247) gives some of the correspondence of Frontenac and Colbert, 1672-1674, relative to the pushing of Recollect missionaries farther west; and in Clément’s Histoire de Colbert, Paris, 1874, vol. i. last chapter, there is an exposition of Colbert’s colonial policy.

Mr. Ben: Perley Poore was appointed by the Governor of Massachusetts, in May, 1845, to select and transcribe such documents in the French archives as he might find to bear upon the early history of Massachusetts and the relations of New England with New France. His report to the Governor, Dec. 28, 1847, accompanied by letters from John G. Palfrey and Jared Sparks, telling the story of his work, constitutes Senate Doc., no. 9 (1848), Mass. Documents. His transcripts, covering papers from the discovery to 1780, fill ten volumes in the Archives of the State, and are accompanied by two volumes of engraved maps. Mr. Poore, under the auspices of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and with the pledge of Colonel William P. Winchester to assume the expense if necessary, had already a year earlier begun his work. M. Davezac was at that time chef des archives of the Marine, and the confusion which Brodhead, the agent of New York, had earlier found among the papers had disappeared under the care of the new custodian. From other departments as well as from other public and from private sources, Mr. Poore increased his collection, and added to it water-color drawings and engraved prints of an illustrative nature; but unfortunately many of the documents cited are given by title only, and the blank pages left to be filled are still empty. It is these papers which have been copied within a year or two for the Government of the Province of Quebec.

The manuscript collections of Mr. Parkman are very extensive, and are still in his house; the more important of his maps, however, have been transferred to the College Library at Cambridge, and these have been sketched elsewhere in the present volume. The Editor is under great obligations to Mr. Parkman for unrestricted access to his manuscripts. They consist of large masses of miscellaneous transcripts, with a few original papers, and so far as they come within the period of the present volume, of the following bound series:—

I. Acadia, in three volumes. These are transcripts made by, or under the direction of, Mr. Ben: Perley Poore, and in considerable part supplement the collection made by Mr. Poore for the State of Massachusetts.

II. Correspondance officielle, in five volumes, coming down to 1670, being transcripts from the French archives.

III. Canada, in eight volumes, covering 1670-1700, being transcripts from the French archives, and supplementing Brodhead’s Colonial Documents of New York, vol. ix.

C. Bibliography.—Harrisse’s Notes, etc., is the latest of the general bibliographies of the history and cartography of New France; and this with his Cabot constitutes a complete, or nearly so, indication of the sources of Canadian history previous to 1700. Charlevoix in 1743 prefixed to his Nouvelle France a list of authorities as known to him, and characterized them; and this is included in Shea’s translation. Of the modern writers, Ferland and Faillon in their introduction each make note of their predecessors. The work of G. B. Faribault, Catalogue d’ouvrages sur l’histoire de l’Amérique, et en particulier sur celle du Canada, avec des notes, Quebec, 1837, containing nine hundred and ninety-six titles, besides maps, etc., has lost whatever importance its abounding errors left for it formerly. There is a biographical sketch (1867) of Faribault in the Abbé Casgrain’s Œvres, vol. ii. Cf. Morgan’s Bibliotheca Canadensis, p. 118. H. J. Morgan’s Bibliotheca Canadensis, Ottawa, 1867, includes the writers on Canadian history who have published since the conquest of 1759.

From this book and other sources the following enumeration of the various general histories of Canada, compendious as well as elaborate, and including such as cover a long interval in a general way, is taken:—

Excepting one volume of a projected History of Canada, by George Heriot, published in London in 1804, and which was an abridgment of Charlevoix, the earliest of modern works is The History of Canada from its first Discovery to 1796, by William Smith, published in Quebec in 1815. The author was a son of the historian of New York.

There was published in Paris in 1821, in a duodecimo of 512 pages, a sketchy compendium by D. Dainville,—Beautés de l’histoire du Canada, ou époques remarquables, traits intéressans, mœurs, usages, coutumes des habitants du Canada, tant indigènes que colons, depuis sa découverte jusqu’à ce jour.

In 1837 Michael Bibaud published at Montreal a Histoire du Canada sous la domination Française. A second edition was published in 1845. In 1844 appeared his Histoire du Canada et des Canadiens sous la domination Anglaise. This author also published a Bibliothèque Canadienne, a monthly magazine, which for several years gathered and preserved considerable documentary material.

Between 1845 and 1848 the work of Garneau, mentioned in the preceding chapter, was printed, which became the basis of Bell’s adaptation in 1866.

In 1851 a comprehensive compendium by W. H. Smith,—Canada [West]: Past, Present, and Future,—in two volumes, was published at Toronto.

Brasseur de Bourbourg’s Histoire du Canada; de son Église et de ses missions, published in Paris in 1852, is characterized in the Note on the Jesuit Relations, following chap. vi.

A popular History of Canada from its first Discovery to the Present Time, by John MacMullen was published at Brockville in 1855 and 1868.

L. Dussieux’s Le Canada sous la domination Française was published at Paris in 1855, and a new edition in 1862.

F. M. N. M. Bibaud’s Les Institutions de l’histoire du Canada (to 1818), Montreal, 1855, is a concise narrative.

Between 1861 and 1865, and in 1865-1866, were published the works of Ferland and Faillon, of which note is made in the preceding chapter.

John Boyd’s Summary of Canadian History was issued at Toronto in 1860, and many editions since.

In 1863 Boucher de la Bruère, fils, published a brief survey,—Le Canada sous la domination Anglaise.

Alexander Monro’s History, Geography, and Statistics of British North America was published at Montreal in 1864.

William Canniff’s History of the Settlement of Upper Canada, with special reference to the Bay Quinté, appeared at Toronto in 1869. This book was undertaken under the auspices of the Historical Society of Upper Canada, which was established at St. Catharines in 1861.

At Montreal, in 1872, appeared Henry H. Miles’s History of Canada under the French régime (1535-1763), with Maps, Plans, and Illustrative Notes.

Andrew Archer’s History of Canada was published in 1875 at London.

John Harper’s History of the Maritime Provinces was issued at St. John, N.B., in 1876.

Charles R. Tuttle’s Short History of Canada, 1500-1878, appeared in Boston in 1878.

F. Teissier’s compendious historical sketch of Canada under the French, 1562-1763, appeared at Limoges,—Les Français au Canada. It is not dated, but is recent.

The series of monographs by Mr. Parkman is spoken of elsewhere.

An important work is now publishing: Histoire des Canadiens-Français. 1608-1880. Origine, Histoire, Réligion, Guerres, Découvertes, Colonization, Coutumes, Vie Domestique, Sociale et Politique, Développement, Avenir. Par Benjamin Sulte. Ouvrage orné de portraits et de plans. Montreal. 1882-1883.

OF THE

SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES.

BY THE EDITOR.

THE general atlases at this time becoming familiar to Europe were unfortunately made up on a thrifty principle, little conducive to keeping the public mind abreast of current discovery,—so far as America, at least, was concerned,—and very perplexing now to any one studying the course of the cartographical development of American geography. Dates were sedulously erased with a deceitful purpose (which is not yet gone into disuse) from plates thus made to do service for many years, and united with other dated maps, to convey an impression of a like period of production.

Bestelli e Forlani’s Tavole moderne di Geografia de la maggior parte del mondo, Roma, 1558-80, with seventy-one large maps, including three maps of the world, and three of America, is reputed the best atlas which had been constructed up to that date. Sets vary much in their make-up.[726]

Perhaps the prototype of the modern atlas can be best found in the Theatrum orbis terrarum of Ortelius, issued in the first edition at Antwerp in 1570, of which an account has been given elsewhere.[727] His portrait is on a later page.

In 1597 appeared the earliest special atlas of America in the Descriptionis Ptolemaicæ Augmentum of Cornelius Wytfliet, which was reissued the same year with its errata corrected.[728] It had nineteen maps, which were also used in the second edition, issued in 1598. A fac-simile of the title of 1597 is given on the next page.[729]

Reference has been made elsewhere to the conspicuous work of Gerard Mercator, which was a sort of culmination of his geographical views, in his great mappemonde of 1569.[730] Then after giving his attention to a closer study of Ptolemy and to the publication of an edition of the great Alexandrian geography, with a revision of Agathodæmon’s charts, but without any attempt to make them conform to the newer knowledge, he set about the compilation of a modern geographical atlas (applying this word for the first time to such a collection, though modern usage has somewhat narrowed the meaning as he applied it); and he had published two parts of it, when he died, in December, 1594,—the second part having appeared at Duisburg in 1585, and the third in 1590. Shortly after his death, a son, Rumold Mercator, published in 1595, at Dusseldorf, part i., and prefixed to it a Latin biography of his father, by Walter Ghymm, which is the principal source of our knowledge of his career.[731] The son Rumold died in 1600, and in 1602, at the expense of the estate, the three parts of the Atlas were united and published together, making what is properly the earliest edition of the so-called Mercator Atlas. It had one hundred and eleven maps and a Latin text. It is very rare, for Raemdonck says he has met with but two copies of it. Up to this time it had contained no American maps. A map of America, as one of the four quarters of the globe, was called for in part iii.; but Raemdonck (p. 257) says he has never seen a copy of that part which has it.

Mercator’s maps were followed, however, pretty closely in Mathias Quad’s or Quadus’s Geographisch Handtbuch,[732] Cologne, 1600, which contained a map of the world and another of North America, with some other special American maps; and such were also contained in the Latin version called Fasciculus geographicus, Cologne, 1608, etc.

In 1604 Mercator’s plates fell by purchase into the possession of Jodocus Hondius,[733] of Amsterdam, who got out a new edition in 1606,[734] to which he added fifty maps, including a few American ones; and thus began what is known as the Hondius-Mercator Atlas. The text was furnished by Montanus,[735] and the new maps were engraved by Petrus Kærius, who also prepared for Hondius the Atlas minor Gerardi Mercatoris in 1607.[736]

After the death of Jodocus Hondius, Feb. 16, 1611, Heinrich Hondius (b. 1580; d. 1644) and Johannes Jannsonius (d. 1666) completed the Atlas; and what is known as the fourth edition (1613) contains portraits of Mercator and the elder Hondius. In this there were ten American maps, and for several editions subsequently there were 105 of Mercator’s maps and 51 of Hondius’. Such seemingly was the make-up of the seventh edition in 1619 (though called fourth on the title); but there is much arbitrary mingling of the maps observable in many copies of these early editions.

The same Latin text and its translations appeared in the several editions down to 1630, when what is called sometimes the eleventh edition appeared with 163 maps (105 by Mercator, 58 by Hondius); but I have noted copies with 184 maps, of which ten are American, and a copy dated 1632, with 178 maps. Raemdonck does not venture to enumerate all the Latin editions of Hondius and Jannsonius; but he mentions those of 1612, 1613, 1616, 1623, 1627, 1628, 1630, 1631.

In 1633 a marked change was made in the Mercator-Hondius Atlas. There was a new Latin text, and it was now called the Atlas novus, and made two volumes, containing 238 newly engraved maps (only 87 of Mercator’s remaining, while Hondius added 151, including 10 new maps of America). The French text was issued the same year, but it added details not in the Latin, and in the general description of America is quite different.[737] The German text also appeared in 1633; but it had—at least in the copy we have noted—only 160 maps, and of these 6 were American. The Dutch text is dated usually in 1634.

In 1635 the English text appeared with the following title: Historia Mundi; or, Mercator’s Atlas.... Lately rectified in divers places, and also beautified and enlarged with new mappes and tables by the studious industry of Iudocus Hondy. Englished by W. S., London;[738] and of this there was a second edition in 1637. The only map showing New France is a general one of America, which is no improvement upon that of the 1613 edition.

The English market was also supplied with another English version, published much more sumptuously, in two large folios, at Amsterdam in 1636, with the title, Atlas; or, a Geographical Description of the Regions ... of the World, represented by New and Exact Maps. Translated by Henry Hexham. Printed at Amsterdam by Henry Hondius and John Johnson.[739] The American maps are in the second volume, where the map of the two Americas is much like the world-map in vol. i. There is no part of New France shown in the special maps, except in that of “Nova Anglia, Novum Belgium, et Virginia,” where lying west of the Lac des Iroquois (Ontario) is a single and larger “Grand lac.”

A still further enlargement of the Mercator-Hondius Atlas novus took place in 1638, when it appeared in three imperial folio volumes, with 318 maps, 17 of which are special maps of America.[740] It was now more commonly known as Jannson’s Atlas,—this publisher being a son-in-law of Jodocus Hondius,—and it went on increasing till it grew to eight volumes, to which were added a volume “Orbis Maritimus” (1657), a second on the ancient world, a celestial atlas for a third, and an “Atlas Contractus,” or résumé, for the fourth; making twelve in all.[741]

At this time there was a rival in the Atlas of Blaeu, of which the reader will find an account in chapter ix. of the present volume, to be supplemented by the present brief statement.

Willem Jannson Blaeu was born in 1571, and died in 1638, and, with his sons Jean and Cornelis, devoted himself with untiring assiduity to his art. In 1647 the number of their maps reached one hundred. In 1655 their Atlas had reached six volumes, and contained 372 maps. In this year (1655) the Blaeu establishment issued separately the American map, Americæ nova Tabula, with nine views of towns and representations of native costumes, accompanied by four pages of text. The Latin edition of 1662-63, Atlas major, sive cosmographia Blaviana, had 586 maps, of which the collection in the Carter-Brown Catalogue (ii. 900) shows 23 in vol. xi. to belong to America.[742]

The Blaeu establishment was burned in 1672, and most of the plates were lost. Those which were saved passed into the hands of Frederic de Witt, who put his name on them, and they continued to be issued thus inscribed in the Blaeu Atlas of 1685, etc.; and when De Witt’s business fell to Covens and Mortier, the inscriptions were again altered.[743]

A French atlas began a little later to attract attention, and ultimately made the name of its maker famous in cartographic annals. It was begun in 1646 by Nicolas Sanson d’Abbeville, who in 1647 was appointed Royal Geographer of France, and held that office till his death.[744] The volume of his Atlas, containing fifteen American maps, and entitled L’Amérique, en plusieurs Cartes nouvelles et exactes, was published by the author in Paris without date, but probably in 1656, though some copies are dated in 1657, 1658, and 1662.[745]

The elder Sanson, having been born in 1600, died in 1667, leaving about four hundred plates to his sons, who kept up the name,[746] and their stock subsequently fell to Robert Vaugondy, who has given a notice of the Sansons in his Essai sur l’Hist. de la Géog., as has Lenglet Dufresnoy in his Méthode pour étudier la Géographie.[747]

A new Dutch atlas, that of N. Visscher, called Atlas minor, sive Geographia compendiosa, appeared at Amsterdam about 1670. It contained twenty-six maps, and had three American maps; but the number was increased in later editions.[748] In 1680 it appeared in two volumes with 195 maps, 10 of which were American, and plates by Jannson, De Witt, and others, were included. It is not easy to discriminate among various composite atlases of this period, the chief cartographers being made to contribute to various imprints. Another Atlas minor, novissimas Orbis Terrarum Tabulas complectens, is likewise of this date (1680), and passes under the name of S. Wolfgang, with maps by Blaeu, Visscher, De Witt, and others. This usually contains nineteen American maps. Other atlases have the name of Frederic de Witt, who, as we have seen, got possession of some of Blaeu’s plates. The first example of his imprint appeared about 1675, at Amsterdam, with a printed index calling for 102 maps. Another edition (? 1680) is indexed for 160 plates, contained in two volumes of maps, and a third of charts.[749] Another small German atlas, the Vorstellung der gantzen Welt, of J. U. Muller, was published at Ulm in 1692, which had eighteen small American maps; and towards the close of the century the Atlas minor of Allard obtained a good popularity. The pre-eminent name of Delisle, just becoming known, marked the opening of a new era in cartography, which is beyond the limits of the present volume.

Some notice should be given of another class of atlases, the successors of the portolanos of the sixteenth century, and the beginning of the later science of hydrography. In these the Dutch were conspicuous; and many of their subsequent charts trace back to the larger pascaart of the North Atlantic which Jacob Aertz Colom published at Amsterdam about 1630.[750] Among the earliest of the regular Zee-Atlases was that of Theunis Jacobsz, published in Amsterdam about 1635, which has a chart showing the American coast-line from Nova Francia to Virginia. Of large importance in this direction was the Arcano del Mare of Robert Dudley, issued at Florence in 1646-1647, of which mention has been made in other chapters in this and in the preceding volume. Another of the Amsterdam Coloms—Arnold Colom—published his Zee-Atlas about 1650, which contains six American coast-charts, and sometimes appears with a Latin title, Ora maritima Orbis universi, and is of interest in the historical study of our American coast-lines, improving as he does the preceding work of Jacobsz. Later editions of Colom, dating the charts, appeared in 1656 and 1663.[751] Of about this same date (1654) is a pascaart, published at Amsterdam, which seems to have been the joint business project of Frederic de Witt, Anthony and Theunis Jacobsz, and Gulielmus Blaeu. The world-map in it is dated 1652, and is doubly marked “C. J. Visscher” (Claes Jannson Visscher) and “Autore N. J. Piscator” (Nicolas Joanides), as the Latin equivalent of the same person. It shows the Atlantic coast from Labrador to Brazil. The first edition of Hendrick Doncker’s Zee-Atlas ofte Water-Waereld appeared at Amsterdam in 1659, and is particularly useful for the American coasts. New maps were added to it in the edition of 1666; but the Nieuwe Groote vermeerderde Zee-Atlas of 1676, though still called Doncker’s, is based on Colom, and has Colom’s six American charts. Additional American and other charts were added to the 1697 edition; while a set of still larger charts constitute Doncker’s Nieuw Groot Zeekaert-boek of 1712.[752]

The Zee-Atlas of Van Loon, with its forty-five double charts, appeared in 1661.[753] It is in parts reproduced from Blaeu, De Laet, and Jannson. Its numbers 46 and 47 show the coast from Newfoundland southwards. P. Goos, in his Lichtende Colomme, Amsterdam, 1657, had touched the Arctic coasts of America; but in his Zee-Atlas of 1666 he gave in excellent manner eleven charts of the coasts of both Americas, out of the forty-one charts in all. These were all repeated in the edition of 1668-1669, and in the French edition, Atlas de la Mer, 1673. Other Dutch editions, with some changes, followed in 1675 and 1676. It was issued with an English text at Amsterdam in 1670.

Frederic de Witt, who had earlier appended to his Atlas a section of maritime charts, published his Zee-Atlas in 1675, which contained twenty-seven charts, eight of which were American; and in 1676 Arent Roggeveen issued his well-known navigator’s chart-book, which in English is known as The Burning Fen (1676), and which also has a Spanish dress (1680). It gives in successive charts the whole eastern coast of the two Americas, on a large scale. Johann van Keulen, who had published a chart of the coast from Nantucket to Trinidad in 1680, issued a Zee-Atlas in 1682-1687, based in part upon Van Loon, enlarging it in successive issues, so that in the edition of 1694 it had 146 charts, of which 38 were American. A later edition in 1734 contained 12 large folded charts of American coasts.[754]

Near the close of the century we come to the earliest of the French marine atlases, the Neptune Français, which Jaillot published in its enlarged form in 1693; but not till a Suite du Neptune Français was issued in 1700 did any charts of American coasts make part of it. This contained eleven on America, professing to be based on Sanson’s drafts.

SHOWING CANADA.

BY THE EDITOR.

[Detailed maps of the Upper Lakes and the Mississippi Basin, as well as those produced by Hennepin, though connected with this period, are made the subject of separate treatment elsewhere in the present volume. The general atlases are treated in the next preceding pages.]

IN the notes at the end of chapter ii. we followed the cartography of New France down to the opening of the seventeenth century. We saw in the map of Molineaux (1600) an indication of a great inland sea, as the prototype of the Great Lakes; but the general belief of the period, just as Champlain was entering on his discoveries, is well shown in the map, “Americæ sive Novi Orbis nova Descriptio,” which appeared in Botero’s Relaciones universales, published at Valladolid in 1603.[755]

The Spanish and the Dutch only repeated, but hardly with as much precision, what the map in Botero had shown;[756] and we only get approximate exactness when we come to the map of Lescarbot in 1609, of which sections are given in the present and in other chapters.[757] Champlain’s first map was made in 1612, and his second in 1613,[758] both of which appeared in Les Voyages du Sieur de Champlain, Paris, 1613. Between the issue of these 1612 and 1613 maps of Champlain and his greater one in 1632, the cartography of New France is illustrated by several conspicuous maps. Those of Hondius and Mercator, so called, of the same year were of course unaffected by the drafts of Champlain. We begin to notice some effects of Champlain’s work, however, in several of the Dutch maps; in that of Jacobsz, or Jacobsen, of 1621, for instance, of which account will be found on another page.[759] Maps by Jodocus Hondius and Blaeu represent a number of streams flowing from small lakes uniting to form the St. Lawrence. One by Jannson, in 1626, nearly resembles for the St. Lawrence region that portion of a “new and accurate map of the world, 1626,” which makes part of Speed’s Prospect of the most famous Parts of the World.

In 1625 the Pilgrimes[760] of Purchas introduces us to two significant maps. One is that which Sir William Alexander issued in his Encouragement to Colonies in 1624, and was reproduced by Purchas, calling it “New England, New Scotland, and New France.” The essential part of it is given in Vol. III. chap. ix. The other is that called “The North Part of America,” ascribed to Master Briggs.

In the original edition of De Laet’s Nieuwe Wereldt,[761] published in 1625, we have a map of North America; but in the 1630 (Dutch) edition we find a special map of New France, which was repeated in the (Latin) 1633 edition. Harrisse[762] is in error in assigning the first appearance of this map to the 1640 French edition.

Champlain’s great map appeared in his 1632 edition.

It will be observed that Champlain had reached, in his plotting of the country east of the Penobscot, something more than tolerable accuracy. Farther west, proportions and relations were all wrong. The country between the St. Lawrence and the Gulf of Maine is much too narrow. The Penobscot is made almost to unite with the more northern river; and this error is perpetuated in the Dutch maps published by Blaeu, and Covens and Mortier many years later. The placing of Lake Champlain within a short distance of Casco Bay was another error that the later Dutch cartographers adopted in one form or another. Lake Ontario is not greatly misshapen; but Erie is stretched into a strait, while beyond a distorted Huron a “grand lac” is so placed as to leave a doubt if Superior or Michigan was intended.

Notwithstanding this pronounced belief in large inland seas, and the publication of the belief, the notion did not make converts in every direction. Two years later (1634) a map of Petrus Kærius, and even his other map, which appeared in Speed’s Prospect of the most famous Parts of the World, published in London, gave no intimation of Champlain’s results. The same backwardness of knowledge or apprehension is apparent in the map which accompanies the Amsterdam edition of Linschoten in 1644; in that of the world, dated 1651, which appeared in Speed’s 1676 edition; in the map in Petavius’s History of the World, London, 1659; and in two maps of N. I. Visscher, both dated 1652, which make the St. Lawrence River rise in the neighborhood of the Colorado. We might not expect the Zee-Atlas of Van Loon to give signs of the inland lakes; but it is strange that the map “Americæ nova descriptio,” ignoring the great interior waters, was used in editions of Heylin’s Cosmographie, in London, from 1669 to 1677.

Some of the Dutch cartographers were not so inalert. Johannes Jannson in his America septentrionalis, and even Visscher himself in his Novissima et accuratissima totius Americæ Descriptio give diverse interpretations to this idea of the inland seas. The draft in the Hexham English translation (1636) of the Mercator-Hondius atlas is not much nearer that of Champlain.

Harrisse (Notes, etc., nos. 190, 191) refers to two charts of the St. Lawrence of 1641 which are preserved in Paris, and are known to be the work of Jean Bourdon, who came to Quebec in 1633-34. Perhaps one of these is the same referred to by Kohl, as dated 1635, and in the Dépôt de la Marine, of which a copy is in the Kohl Collection in the State Department at Washington. Harrisse also (no. 324) refers to a Description de la Nouvelle France,—a map published by Boisseau in Paris in 1643.

The map in Dudley’s Arcano del Mare (Florence, 1647), called “Carta particolare della terra nuova, con la gran Baia et il Fiume grande della Canida: D’America, carta prima,”[763] presents a surprise in making the St. Croix River connect the Bay of Fundy with the St. Lawrence; and Dudley seems to have had very confused notions of the sites of Hochelaga and the Saguenay. The annexed sketch is much reduced.

The same transverse strait appears in Carte générale des Costes de l’Amérique, published at Amsterdam by Covens and Mortier. A treatment of the geographical problem of the lakes which had more or less vogue, is shown in Gottfried’s Neue Welt, 1655, in a map called “America noviter delineate;” and this same treatment was preserved by Blaeu so late as 1685.

A most decided advance came with the map, Le Canada, ou Nouvelle France, of Nicolas Sanson in 1656,[764]—a far better correlation of the three lower lakes than we had found in Champlain, with an indication of those farther west.[765] Contemporary with Sanson was the English geographer Peter Heylin, whose map, as has already been noted, betrays no knowledge of Champlain. His Cosmographie in Four Books appeared in 1657,[766] and the second part of the fourth book relates to America, and is accompanied by the map in question. The contemporary Dutch maps of Jannson, Visscher, and Blaeu deserve little notice as contributions to knowledge.[767]

Of the map of Creuxius, made in 1660 and published in 1664, a fac-simile of a part is annexed.[768] For the eastern parts of the country reference may be made to the map Tabula Novæ Franciæ, of about 1663, given in the chapter on Acadie.[769]

One of the volumes of the great Blaeu Atlas of 1662, America, quæ est Geographiæ Blavianæ Pars quinta, very singularly ignored all that the cartographers of New France had been long divulging, and the same misrepresentation was persistently employed in the later Blaeu Atlas of 1685, which contained in other American maps a variety of notions equally erroneous, and which had been current at a period very long passed.

The map in Montanus’s De Nieuwe en Onbekende Weereld, 1670, “per Jacobum Meursium,” not the same as the “Novissima et accuratissima totius Americæ Descriptio” of John Ogilby’s great folio on America, 1670, and later years, seems to be substantially N. Visscher’s map of the same title, issued in Amsterdam in the same year.[770]

The maps of Hennepin (1683-1697) form a part of a special note elsewhere in the present volume; and the map accompanying Le Clercq’s Etablissement de la Foy, 1691, is also reproduced in Shea’s translation of that book.[771] It makes the Mississippi debouch on the Texas shore of the Gulf of Mexico, as many of the maps of this period do.

Maps of a general character, indicating a knowledge of the interior topography of America, sometimes expanding, and not seldom retrograde, followed rapidly as the century was closing, of which the most important were the maps of Amérique septentrionale (1667, 1669, 1674, 1685, 1690, 1692, 1695), by the Sansons, and the Roman reprint of it in 1677,[772] as well as La Mer du Nort of Du Val in 1679,[773] Sanson’s Le Nouveau Mexique, of the same year, which extends from Montreal to the Gulf;[774] the North America of the English geographer, William Berry (1680);[775] the Partie de la Nouvelle France of Hubert Jaillott (1685);[776] and the same cartographer’s Amérique septentrionale of 1694, and Le Monde of 1696; the Carte Generalle de la Nouvelle France[777] (1692) engraved by Boudan; the Amérique septentrionale of De Fer (1693); the marine Cartes (1696) of Le Cordier;[778] the New Sett of Maps published by Edward Wells in London in 1698-99; and finally the Amérique septentrionale of Delisle.[779] The maps of La Hontan (1703-1709) are the subject of special treatment in another note.

If we run through the series of maps here sketched, we cannot but be struck with the unsettled notions regarding the geography of the St. Lawrence Valley. Beginning with the clear intimation by Molineaux, in 1600, of a great body of interior water, which was the mysterious link between the Atlantic and the Arctic seas, and finding this idea modified by Botero and others, we see Champlain in 1613 still leaving it vague. The maps of the next few years paid little attention to any features farther west than the limit of tide-water; and not till we reach the great map which accompanied the final edition of Champlain’s collected voyages in 1632 do we begin to get a distorted plot of the upper lakes, Lake Erie being nothing more than a channel of varying width connecting them with Lake Huron. The first really serviceable delineation of the great lakes were the maps of Sanson and Du Creux, or Creuxius, in 1656 and 1660. Here we find Lake Erie given its due prominence; Huron is unduly large, but in its right position; and Michigan and Superior, though not completed, are placed with approximate accuracy. This truth of position, however, was disregarded by many a later geographer, till we reach a type of map, about the end of the century, which is exemplified in that given by Campanius in 1702.

A water-way which made an island of greater or less extent of the peninsula which lies between the St. Lawrence and the Atlantic, appeared first in 1600 on the Molineaux map, and was repeated by Dudley in 1647; but on other maps the water-sheds were separated by a narrow tract. So much uncertainty attended this feature that the short portage of the prevailing notion was far from constant in its position, and on some maps seems repeated in more than one place,—taking now the appearance of a connection on the line of the St. Croix, or some other river of New Brunswick; now on that of the Kennebec and Chaudière; again as if having some connection with Lake Champlain, when a misconception of its true position placed that expanse of water between the Connecticut and the Saco; and once more on the line of the Hudson and Lake George.

---

NEW NETHERLAND, OR THE DUTCH IN NORTH AMERICA

BY BERTHOLD FERNOW,

Keeper of the Historical Records, State of New York.

SAYS Carlyle: “Those Dutch are a strong people. They raised their land out of a marsh, and went on for a long period of time breeding cows and making cheese, and might have gone on with their cows and cheese till doomsday. But Spain comes over and says, ‘We want you to believe in St. Ignatius.’ ‘Very sorry,’ replied the Dutch, ‘but we can’t.’ ‘God! but you must,’ says Spain; and they went about with guns and swords to make the Dutch believe in St. Ignatius. Never made them believe in him, but did succeed in breaking their own vertebral column forever, and raising the Dutch into a great nation.”

A nation’s struggle for religious liberty comes upon every individual member of that nation as a personal matter, as a battle to be fought with himself and with the world. Hence we see the Dutch, encouraged by the large influx of Belgians whom the same unwillingness to believe in St. Ignatius had driven out of their homes, emerge from the conflict with Spain, individually and as a nation, more self-reliant, sturdy, and independent than ever before.

Compelled by the physical condition of their country to become a maritime nation, while other circumstances directed them to commercial pursuits, they had long been the common carriers of the sea, and had availed themselves at an early date of the discoveries made by the Cabots, Verrazano, and other adventurous explorers in the century succeeding the voyages of Columbus. They had studied the weak points of that vast Spanish empire “where the sun never set,” and found in the war with Spain a good excuse to make use of their knowledge, and to send their ships to the West Indies and the Spanish main to prey upon the commerce of their enemies. The first proposition to make such an expedition, submitted to the States-General in 1581 by an English sea-captain, Beets, and refused by them, was undoubtedly conceived in a purely commercial spirit. Gradually the idea of destroying the transatlantic resources of Spain, and thereby compelling her to submit to the Dutch conditions of peace and to the evacuation of Belgium, caused the formation of a West India company, which, authorized to trade with and fight the Spaniards in American waters, appears in the light of a necessary political measure, without, however, throwing in the background the necessity of finding a shorter route to the East Indies.[780]

Although the scheme to form a West India company was first broached in 1592 by William Usselinx, an exiled Antwerp merchant, it was many years before it could be carried out. The longing for a share in the riches of the New World conduced in the mean time to the establishment of the “Greenland Company” about 1596, and the pretended search by its ships for a northwest passage led to a supposed first discovery of the Hudson River, if we may rely upon an unsupported statement made by officers of the West India Company in an appeal for assistance to the Assembly of the Nineteen in 1644. According to this document, ships of the Greenland Company had entered the North and Delaware rivers in 1598; their crews had landed in both places, and had built small forts to protect them against the inclemency of the winter and to resist the attacks of the Indians.

Of the next adventurer who sailed through the Narrows we know more, and of his discoveries we have documentary evidence. A company of English merchants had organized to trade to America in the first years of the seventeenth century. Their first adventures, directed to Guiana and Virginia, were not successful,[781] yet gave a new impetus to the scheme originally conceived by Usselinx. A plan for the organization of a West India company was drawn up in 1606, according to the exiled Belgian’s ideas. The company was to be in existence thirty-six years, to receive during the first six years assistance from all the United Provinces, and to be managed in the same manner as the East India Company. Political considerations on one side and rivalry between the Provinces on the other prevented the consummation of this project. A peace or truce with Spain was about to be negotiated, and Oldenbarnevelt, then Advocate of Holland and one of the most prominent and influential members of the peace party, foresaw that the organization of a West India company with the avowed purpose of obtaining most of its profits by preying on Spanish commerce in American waters would only prolong the war. Probably he saw still farther. Usselinx’s plan was, as we have seen, to compel Spain by these means to evacuate Belgium, and thus give her exiled sons a chance to return to their old homes. A wholesale departure of the shrewd, industrious, and skilled Belgians would have deprived Holland of her political pre-eminence and have left her an obscure and isolated province. On the other hand, each province and each seaport desired a share in the equipping of the fleet destined to sail in the interests of the proposed company, and as no province was willing to allow a rival to have what she could not have, the project itself between these two extremes of the opposing parties came to nought. It was only when Oldenbarnevelt, accused of high treason, had been lodged in prison, and the renewal of the war with Spain had been commended to the public, that the scheme was taken up again, in 1618.

Private ships, sailing from Dutch ports, had not been idle in the mean time; in 1607 we hear of them in Canada trading for furs, and in 1609 an English mariner, Henry Hudson, who had made several voyages for the English company already mentioned, offered his services to the East India Company to search for the passage to India by the north.

Under the auspices of the Amsterdam chamber of this company Hudson left the Texel in the yacht “Half Moon” April 4, 1609. His failures in the years 1607 and 1608, while in the employ of the English company, had discouraged neither him nor his new employers; but soon ice and fogs compel him, so we are told, to abandon his original plan to go to the East Indies by a possible northeast passage, and he proposes to his crew a search for a northwest passage along the American coast, at about the 40th degree of latitude. A contemporary writer states: “This idea had been suggested to Hudson by some letters and maps which his friend Captain Smith had sent him from Virginia, and by which he informed him that there was a sea leading into the Western Ocean by the north of Virginia.” So westward Hudson turns the bow of his ship, to make a first landfall on the coast of Newfoundland, a second at Penobscot Bay, and a third at Cape Cod. Thence he takes a southwest course, but again fails to strike land under the 40th degree; he has gone too far south by one degree, and he anchors in a wide bay under 39° 5″ on the 28th of August. He is in Delaware Bay. Scarcely a week later, on the 4th of September, he finds himself with his yacht in the “Great North River of New Netherland,” under 40° 30´. A month later, to a day, he passes again out of the “Great mouth of the Great River,” homeward bound to report that what he had thought to be the long and vainly sought northwest passage was only a great river, navigable for vessels of light draught for one hundred and fifty miles, and running through a country fair to look upon and inhabited by red men peacefully inclined. Little did Hudson think, while he was navigating the waters named for him, that Champlain, another explorer, had recently been fighting his way up the shores of the lake now bearing his name, and that, a century and a half later, the great battle for supremacy on this continent between France and England,—between the old religion and the new,—would be fiercely waged in those peaceful regions.

The report brought home by Hudson, that the newly discovered country abounded in fur-bearing animals, created the wildest excitement among a people compelled by their northern climate to resort to very warm clothing in winter. Many private ventures, therefore, followed Hudson’s track soon after his return, and finally the plan to organize a West India company, never quite relinquished, was now, 1618, destined to be carried out. There was in this juncture less opposition to it; but still various reasons delayed the consent of the States-General until June, 1621, when at last they signed the charter. Englishmen from Virginia, who claimed the country under a grant, had tried to oust the Dutch, who had before this established themselves on the banks of the Hudson, under the octroi of 1614. The West India Company nevertheless, undismayed, took possession, in 1623, by sending Captain Cornelis Jacobsen Mey as director to the Prince Hendrick or South River (Delaware), and Adrian Jorissen Tienpont in like capacity to the Prince Mauritius or North River. Mey, going up the South River, fifteen leagues from its mouth erected in the present town of Gloucester, N. J., about four miles below Philadelphia, Fort Nassau, the first European settlement in that region; while the director on the North River, besides strengthening the establishment which he found at its mouth, built a fort a few miles above the one erected in 1618 near the mouth of the Normanskil, now Albany, by the servants of the “United New Netherland Company,” and called it “Fort Orange.”

Tienpont’s successor, Peter Minuit, three years later, in 1626, bought from the Indians the whole of Manhattan Island for the value of about twenty-four dollars, with the view of making this the principal settlement. This purchase and the organization, under the charter, of a council with supreme executive, legislative, and judicial authority, must be considered the first foundation of our present State of New York, even though the titles of the officers constituting the council,—upper and under merchant, commissary, book-keeper of monthly wages,—seem to prove that in the beginning the Company had only purely commercial ends in view. Their charter of 1621, it is true, required them “to advance the peopling of those fruitful and unsettled parts,” but not until the trade with New Netherland threatened to become unprofitable, in 1627-28, was a plan taken into consideration to reap other benefits than those accruing from the fur-trade alone, through a more extended colonization. The deliberations of the Assembly of the Nineteen and directors of the West India Company resulted in a new “charter of freedoms and exemptions,” sanctioned by the States-General, June 7, 1629. Its provisions, no more favorable to liberty, as we understand it now, than that of 1621, attempted to transplant to the soil of New York the feudal system of Europe as it had already been established in Canada; and with it was imported the first germ of that weakening disease,—inadequate revenues,—which caused the colony to fall such an easy prey to England’s attack in 1664. While the charter was still under discussion, several of the Company’s directors took advantage of their position and secured for themselves a share of the new privileges by purchasing from the Indians, as the charter required, the most conveniently located and fertile tracts of land. The records of the acknowledgment of these transactions before the Director and Council of the Colony are the earliest which are extant in the original now in the possession of the State of New York. They bear dates from April, 1630, to July, 1631, and include the present counties of Albany and Richmond, N. Y., the cities of Hoboken and Jersey City, N. J., and the southern parts of the States of New Jersey and Delaware.

This mode of acquiring lands from the Indians by purchase established from the beginning the principles by which the intercourse between the white and the red men in the valley of the Hudson was to be regulated. The great Indian problem, which has been and still is a question of paramount importance to the United States Government, was solved then by the Dutch of New Netherland without great difficulty. Persecuted by Spain and France for their religious convictions, the Dutch had learned to tolerate the superstitions and even repugnant beliefs of others. Not less religious than the Puritans of New England, they made no such religious pretexts for tyranny and cruelty as mar the records of their neighbors. They treated the Indian as a man with rights of life, liberty, opinion, and property like their own. Truthful among themselves, they inspired in the Indian a belief in their sincerity and honesty, and purchased what they wanted fairly and with the consent of the seller. The Dutch régime always upheld this principle, and as a consequence the Indians of this State caused no further difficulty, with a few exceptions, to the settlers than a financial outlay. The historians who charge the Dutch with pusillanimity and cowardice in their dealings with the Indians forget that to their policy we owe to-day the existence of the United States.

The country between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mississippi River, the Great Lakes and the Savannah River, was at the time of the arrival of the Dutch practically ruled by a confederacy of Indian tribes,—the Five Nations,—who, settled along the Mohawk and Upper Hudson rivers and in western New York, commanded the key to the continent. It was indeed in their power, had they pleased, to allow the French of Canada to crush the Dutch settlements on the Hudson; and had this territory become a French province, the united action of the American colonies in the French and Revolutionary wars would have been an impossibility. These Five Nations, called by the Jesuit fathers living among them the most enlightened but also the most intractable and ferocious of all the Indians, became soon after the arrival of the Dutch the stanch friends of the new-comers, and remained so during the whole Dutch period. The English wisely adhered to this Indian policy of the Dutch, and by the continued friendship of the Five Nations were enabled successfully to contend with the French for the supremacy on this continent.

The purchasers of the tracts already mentioned—with one exception, associations of Dutch merchants—lost no time in sending out people to settle their colonies. Renselaerswyck, adjoining and surrounding Fort Orange, had in 1630 already a population of thirty males, of whom several had families, sent out by the Association recognizing Kilian van Renselaer, a pearl merchant of Amsterdam, as patroon. The same men, associated with several others, among whom was Captain David Pietersen de Vries, had bought the present counties of Sussex and Kent, in the State of Delaware, to which by a purchase made the following year they added the present Cape May County, N. J. On December 12, 1630, they sent two vessels to the Delaware or South River, “to plant a colony for the cultivation of grain and tobacco, as well as to carry on the whale-fishery in that region.” They carried out the first part of the plan, but were so unsuccessful in the second part that the expedition proved a losing one. Undismayed by their financial loss, another was sent out in May, 1632, under Captain de Vries’ personal command, although information had been received that the settlement on the South River, Zwanendael, had been destroyed by the Indians, and all the settlers, thirty-two in number, killed. Arriving opposite Zwanendael, De Vries found the news but too true; and after visiting the old Fort Nassau, now deserted, and loitering a while in the river, he left the region without any further attempt at colonization. The pecuniary losses attending these two unfortunate expeditions induced the patroons of Zwanendael, two years later, to dispose of their right and title to these tracts of land to the West India Company.

Shortly before Minuit was appointed director of New Netherland, a number of Walloons, compelled by French intolerance to leave their homes between the rivers Scheldt and Lys, had applied to Sir Dudley Carleton, principal Secretary of State to King Charles I., for permission to settle in Virginia. The answer of the Virginia Company not proving satisfactory, they turned their eyes upon New Netherland, where a small number of them arrived with Minuit. For some reasons they left the lands first allotted to them on Staten Island, and went over to Long Island, where Wallabout,[782] in the city of Brooklyn, still reminds us of the origin of its first settlers. It will be remembered that Englishmen from Virginia (under Captain Samuel Argal, in 1613) had attempted to drive the Dutch from the Hudson River.[783] It is said that the Dutch then acknowledged the English title to this region under a grant of Queen Elizabeth to Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584, and made an arrangement for their continuing there on sufferance. Be that as it may, the West India Company had paid no heed to this early warning. Now, in 1627, the matter was to be recalled to their minds in a manner more diplomatic than Argal’s, by a letter from Governor Bradford of Plymouth Colony, which most earnestly asserted the right of the English to the territory occupied by the Dutch. This urged the latter to clear their title, for otherwise it said: “It will be harder and with more difficulty obtained hereafter, and perhaps not without blows.” Before the director’s appeal for assistance against possible English invaders reached the home office, the Company had already taken steps to remove some of the causes which might endanger their colony. They had obtained, September, 1627, from King Charles I. an order giving to their vessels the same privileges as had been granted by the treaty of Southampton to all national vessels of Holland,—that is, freedom of trade to all ports of England and her colonies. But their title to New Netherland was not cleared, because they could not do it; for they did not dare to assert the pretensions to the premier seisin, then considered valid according to that maxim of the civil law, “quæ nullius sunt, in bonis dantur occupanti;” nor did they later claim the right of first discovery when, after the surrender of New Netherland to the English, in 1664, negotiations were had concerning restitution. Only once did they claim a title by such discovery. This was when the ship “Union,” bringing home the recalled director Minuit (1632), was attached in an English port, at the suit of the New England Company, on a charge which had been made notwithstanding the King’s order of September, 1627, and which alleged that the ship had obtained her cargo in countries subject to his Majesty. The denial of this claim and the counter claim of first discovery by Englishmen set up by the British ministry failed to bring forth a rejoinder from their High Mightinesses of Holland.

When De Vries, having ascertained the destruction of his colony on the Delaware, came to New Amsterdam, he found there the newly appointed director, Wouter van Twiller, just arrived. He was, as De Vries thought, “an unfit person,” whom family influence had suddenly raised from a clerkship in the Company’s office at Amsterdam to the governorship of New Netherland “to perform a comedy,” and his council De Vries calls “a pack of fools, who knew nothing except to drink, by whose management the Company must come to nought.” De Vries’ prediction came near being realized. Seized with a mania for territorial aggrandizement, Van Twiller bought from the Indians a part of the Connecticut territory in 1633, and by building Fort Hope, near the present site of Hartford, planted the seed for another quarrel with the English at Boston, who claimed all the land from the Narragansetts nearly to the Manhattans under a grant made in 1631 to the Earl of Warwick, and under a subsequent transfer from the latter in 1632 to Lord Say and Seal’s company. Notwithstanding their numerical weakness, the Dutch kept a footing in Connecticut for nearly twenty years; but they could not prevent the same Englishmen from invading Long Island in a like manner, and being prominent actors in the final catastrophe of 1664. Another purchase made by Van Twiller from the Indians, also in 1633, which included the territory on the Schuylkill, the building of Fort Beeversreede there and additions made to Fort Nassau, put new life into the sinking settlement on the Delaware River, and thus gave color to the subsequent statement, made in the dispute with the Swedes, that they (the Dutch) had never relinquished their hold upon this territory.[784] Thoroughly imbued with a sense of the wealth and power of the West India Company, then in the zenith of its power, Van Twiller expended the revenues of his government lavishly in building up New Amsterdam and Fort Orange, and, without regard for official ethics, abused his position still further at the expense of the Company, by granting to himself and his boon companions the most fertile tracts of land on and near Manhattan and Long islands. His irregular proceedings, finally brought to the notice of the States-General by the law officer of New Netherland, led to his recall in 1637, when he was succeeded by William Kieft.

Up to this time the history of New Netherland is more or less a history of the acts of the director, who proceeded more like the agent of a great commercial institution than the ruler of a vast province. He assumed to be the head of the agency, and all the other inhabitants of the colony were either his servants or his tenants. Nominally he was also directed to supervise the proceedings of adjoining colonies of the same nationality; but they either died out, like Pavonia (New Jersey) and Zwanendael (Delaware), or as yet the interests of those private establishments, like Renselaerswyck (Albany) had not come in conflict with those of the Company so as to call forth the authority vested in the director. The relations with the Indians had also been amicable so far, a slight misunderstanding with the New Jersey Indians excepted; and the quarrel with the English about the Connecticut lands having been referred to the home authorities for settlement, this complication did not require any display of statesmanship. The province having been brought to the verge of ruin by Wouter van Twiller, up to the beginning of whose administration it had returned a profit of $75,000 to the Company, the abilities of his successor were taxed to their utmost to rebuild it, and his statesmanship was tried in his dealings with the Swedes, the English, and the Indians.

The absorption, for their own benefit, of the most fertile lands by officers of the Company had naturally tended to prevent actual settlers from coming to New Netherland, and the Company itself had thus far failed to send over colonists, as required by the charter. The incessant disputes between the Amsterdam department of the Company and the patroons of Renselaerswyck over the interpretation of the privileges granted in 1629, and the complaints of the fiscal[785] of New Netherland against Wouter van Twiller, which pointedly referred to the general maladministration of the province, at last induced their High Mightinesses to turn their attention to it. A short investigation compelled them to announce officially that the colony was retrograding, its population decreasing, and that it required a change in the administration of its affairs. But as the charter of the Company was the fundamental evil, the Government was almost powerless to enforce its demands, and had to be satisfied with recommending to the Assembly of the Nineteen of the West India Company the adoption of a plan for the effectual settlement of the country and the encouragement of a sound and healthful emigration. This step resulted in overthrowing the monopoly of the American trade enjoyed by the Company since 1623, and in opening not only the trade, but also the cultivation of the soil under certain conditions, to every immigrant, denizen, or foreigner. The new order of things gave to the drooping colony a fresh lease of life. Its population, hitherto only transient, as it consisted mainly of the Company’s servants, who returned to Europe at the expiration of their respective terms, now became permanent,—“whole colonies” coming “to escape the insupportable government of New England;” servants who had obtained their liberty in Maryland and Virginia availing themselves of the opportunity to make use of the experience acquired on the tobacco plantations of their English masters; wealthy individuals of the more educated classes emigrating with their families and importing large quantities of stock; and the peasant farmers of continental Europe seeking freehold homes on the banks of the Hudson and on Long Island, which they could not acquire in the land of their birth. These all flocked now to New Netherland, and gave to New Amsterdam something of its present cosmopolitan character; for Father Jogues found there in 1643 eighteen different nationalities represented by its population. Two other invasions, however, of New Netherland brought a people likewise intent upon the cultivation of the soil and trading with the Indians; but they were not such as “acknowledged their High Mightinesses and the Directors of the West India Company as their suzerain lords and masters,” and these caused some anxiety and trouble to the new director.

The first of these invasions, arriving on this side of the Atlantic in Delaware Bay almost simultaneously with Kieft, was made in pursuance of a plan long cherished by the great Protestant hero of the seventeenth century, Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, to give his country a share in the harvest which other nations were then gathering in the New World. Various reasons deferred the carrying out of this plan, first laid before the King in 1626 by the same Usselinx who planned the West India Company; and not until 1638 did the South Company of Sweden send out their first adventure under another man, also formerly connected with the West India Company, Peter Minuit.

Kieft’s protest against this intrusion had no effect upon the Swedish commander and his colony, whose history is told in another chapter. More energy was displayed by the Dutch two years later in dealing with some Englishmen from New Haven, who began a settlement on the Schuylkill River, opposite Fort Nassau, and who were promptly driven away. Laxity and corruption on the part of the Dutch local director seems to have been the cause of the almost inexplicable patience with which the Dutch bore the encroachments made by the Swedes; and not until the government of New Netherland was intrusted to the energetic Stuyvesant was anything done to counteract the Swedish influences on the Delaware. Stuyvesant built in 1651 a new fort (Casimir, now Newcastle, Del.), below the Swedish fort Christina (Wilmington), the treacherous surrender of which, in 1654, to a newly arriving Swedish governor, led in 1655 to the complete overthrow of Swedish rule.

The next two years, to 1657, the inhabitants of the Delaware territory had to suffer under the mismanagement of various commanders appointed by the Director-General and Council, whose lack of administrative talent helped not a little to embarrass the Company financially. Under pressure of monetary difficulty, part of the Delaware region was ceded by the Company to the municipality of Amsterdam in Holland, which in May, 1657, established a new colony at Fort Casimir, calling it New Amstel, while the name of Christina was changed to Altena, and the territory belonging to it placed in charge of an agent of more experience than his predecessors. The remaining years of Dutch rule on the Delaware derive interest chiefly from an attempt by comers from Maryland to obtain possession of the country through a clever trick; from quarrels between the authorities of the two Dutch colonies brought on by the weakness and folly of the directors of the “City’s Colony;” and from difficulties with Maryland which arose out of the Indian question. With the surrender of New Amsterdam in 1664, the Delaware country passed also into English hands.

Historians have hitherto failed to give due weight to the attempt of Sweden to establish this American colony, and to the effect it had upon the fortunes of the West India Company. The expedition of 1655, although politically successful, not only exhausted the ready means of the New Netherland Government, but also plunged it and the Company into debts which never ceased to hamper its movement, and which afterward rendered it impossible to furnish the province a sufficient military protection.

But no less a share in the final result of 1664 is due to the second invasion of the Dutch territory, made about the time when the Swedes first appeared on the Delaware, by Englishmen crossing over from Connecticut to the east end of Long Island. The whole island had been granted by the Plymouth Company to the Earl of Stirling in 1635; and basing their claims on patents issued by Forrest, the Earl’s agent in America, the invaders quickly settled in the present County of Suffolk (1640), and resisted all efforts of the Dutch to drive them off. Prejudicial to the Company’s interests as these encroachments upon their territory were, they were calculated to call forth all the administrative and diplomatic talents of which Kieft was supposed to be possessed; but unfortunately by his lack of these qualities he contrived to lay the colony open to a danger which almost destroyed it. The trade with the interior had led to an intimacy between the Indians and the Dutch which gave the natives many chances to acquaint themselves thoroughly with the habits, strength, and usages of the settlers; while the increased demand for peltries required that the Indians should be supplied with better means to meet that demand. They were consequently given firearms; and when thus put on the same footing with the white inhabitants, Kieft committed the folly of exacting from them a tribute as a return for aiding them in their defence against their enemies by the building of forts and by the maintenance of a military establishment. He even threatened to use forcible measures in cases of non-compliance. The war resulting from this policy lasted until 1645, and seriously impaired the finances of the Company and the development of the colony. Equally arbitrary and devoid of common-sense was Kieft’s administration of internal affairs. Before the beginning of the Indian war, upon which he was intent, circumstances compelled him to make a concession to popular rights, which he might use as a cloak to protect himself against censure. He directed that the community at large should elect twelve delegates to consult with the Director and Council on the expediency of going to war, and when fairly launched into the conflict he quickly abolished this advisory board,—the first representative body of New York,—but only to ask for an expression of the public opinion by another board a few months later in 1643. This, at last disgusted with Kieft’s tyranny and folly, set to work to have him removed in 1647. The people had not forgotten that in the Netherlands they had been self-governing, and had enjoyed the rights of free municipalities. Although all the minor towns had acquired the same privileges almost at the beginning of their existence, New Amsterdam, the principal place of the colony, was still ruled by the Company through the Director and Council. The opposition which he met from the burghers of this place was the principal cause of his recall.

The relations of New Netherland with its English neighbors during Kieft’s administration were in the main the same as under his predecessors. He continued to complain of the grievous wrongs and injuries inflicted upon his people by New Haven, but had no means to do more than complain. The stronger English colonies kept their settlement on the Connecticut, and established another within the territory claimed by the Dutch at Agawam, now Springfield, Mass.

The arrival of the new director-general was celebrated by the inhabitants of New Amsterdam with all the solemnity which circumstances afforded; and they were pleased to hear him announce that he “should be in his government as a father to his children for the advantage of the Company, the country, and the burghers.” They had good reasons to be hopeful. Petrus Stuyvesant, the new director, had gathered administrative experience as governor of the Company’s Island of Curaçao, and while in Holland on sick leave, in 1645, he had proved his knowledge of New Netherland affairs by offering acceptable suggestions for the better management of this and the other transatlantic territories of the Company. His views, together with instructions drawn up by the Assembly of the Nineteen for the guidance of the director, were embodied in resolutions and orders for the future government of New Netherland, which revolutionized and liberalized the condition of the colony. It was henceforth to be governed by the Director-General and a Council composed of the vice-director and the fiscal. The right of the people to be heard by the provincial government on the state and condition of the country, through delegates from the various settlements, was confirmed; and the carrying trade between the colony and other countries, which the reform of 1639 had still left in the hands of the Company and of a few privileged persons, was now opened to all, although under certain rather onerous restrictions.

The first few months of the new administration fully justified the hope with which Stuyvesant’s arrival had been accompanied. The state in which Kieft had left the public morals compelled Stuyvesant to issue and enforce such orders, that within two months of his assuming the new duties the director of the Patroons’ Colony at Albany wrote home: “Mynheer Stuyvesant introduces here a thorough reform.” What the state of things must have been may be inferred from Stuyvesant’s declaration that “the people are without discipline, and approaching the savage state,” while “a fourth part of the city of New Amsterdam consists of rumshops and houses where nothing can be had but beer and tobacco.”

Unfortunately for his own reputation and for the good of the colony, he used his energies not solely to make provisions for future good government, but he allowed his feudal notions to embroil him in the quarrels of the late administration, by espousing the cause of Kieft, who had been accused by representatives of the commonalty of malfeasance in office. This grave error induced the home authorities to consider Stuyvesant’s recall; but he was finally allowed to remain, and in the end proved the most satisfactory administrator of the province sent out by the Company. It was his and the Company’s misfortune that he was appointed when the resources of the Company were gradually diminishing in consequence of the peace with Spain. He was thus constantly hampered by a lack of means; and when the end came, he had only from one hundred and fifty to two hundred soldiers, scattered in four garrisons from the Delaware forts to Fort Orange, to defend the colony against an overwhelming English force.

During the seventeen years of his administration Stuyvesant endeavored to cultivate the friendship of the Indians; and in this he was in the main successful, save that the tribes of the Mohegan nation along the Hudson refused to become as firm friends of the Dutch as their suzerain lords, the Mohawks, were. While Stuyvesant was absent on the South River, in 1655, to subdue, in obedience to orders from home, the Swedish settlements there, New Amsterdam was invaded by the River Indians and almost destroyed. The Colony and the Company had not yet recovered from the losses sustained by this invasion, nor from the draft made upon their financial resources by the successful expedition against the Swedes, when a few tribes of the same River Indians reopened the war against the Dutch. They first murdered some individuals of the settlement on the Esopus (now Kingston, Ulster County), and later destroyed it almost completely. With an expense at the time altogether out of proportion to the means of the Government, Stuyvesant succeeded in 1663 in ending this war by destroying the Esopus tribe of Indians.

The negotiations with the New England colonies for a settlement of the boundary and other open questions fall into the earlier part of Stuyvesant’s administration. Although he could flatter himself that he had obtained in the treaty of Hartford, 1650, as good terms as he might expect from a power vastly superior to his own, his course only tended to separate the two factions of New Netherland still farther. His espousal of Kieft’s cause had, as we have seen, alienated him from the mass of his countrymen, whose anger was now still more aroused when he selected as advisers at Hartford an Englishman resident at New Amsterdam and a Frenchman. He was accused of having betrayed his trust because he had been obliged to surrender the jurisdiction of the Company over the Connecticut territory and the east end of Long Island. Listening to these accusations, coming together as they did with the Kieft affair, the Company increased the difficulties surrounding their director by an order to make Dutch nationality one of the tests of fitness for public employment.

The people had already in Kieft’s time loudly called for more liberty,—a desire which Stuyvesant in the strong conservatism of his character was by no means willing to listen to. As, however, liberal principles gained more and more ground among the population, he at last gave his consent to the convocation of a general assembly from the several towns, which was to consider the state of the province. It was too late. The power of the Dutch in New Netherland was waning; Connecticut had been lost in 1650; Westchester at the very door of the Manhattans, and the principal towns of western Long Island were in the hands of the English; and a few months after the first meeting of the delegates the English flag floated over the fort, which had until then been called New Amsterdam.

The magnitude of the commerce of the United Provinces had long been a thorn in the side of the English nation; for years Cato’s Ceterum censeo, Carthaginem esse delendam had been the burden of political speeches. Differences arising between the two governments, Charles II., only lately the guest of Holland, allowed himself to be persuaded by his chancellor, Shaftesbury, that this commerce would make Holland as great an empire as Rome had been, and this would lead to the utter annihilation of England. There was apparently no other motive reflecting “honor upon his prudence, activity, and public spirit,” to induce him to order the treacherous expedition which seized the territory of an unsuspecting ally.

When the English fleet appeared off the coast of Long Island the Dutch were not at all prepared to offer resistance, their small military force of about two hundred effective men being scattered in detachments over the whole province. Nevertheless Stuyvesant would have let the issue be decided by arms; but the people failed to support him, and insisted upon a surrender, which was accordingly made. They had not forgotten how he had treated their demands for greater liberty, and they expected to be favorably heard by an English government. New Amsterdam, fort and city, as well as the whole province were named by the victors in honor of the new proprietor, the Duke of York; while the region west of the Hudson towards the Delaware, given by the Duke to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, received the name of New Jersey in compliment to the latter’s birthplace. Fort Orange and neighborhood became Albany; the Esopus, Kingston, and all reminiscences of Dutch rule, so far as names went, were extinguished, only to be revived less than a decade later.

Although the treaty of Breda, July 21, 1667, had given to Holland (which by it was robbed of her North American territory) the colony of Surinam, the States took advantage of the war brought on by the ambitious designs of England’s ally, France, against Holland in 1672, to retake New Netherland in 1673. Again the several towns and districts changed their names,—New York to New Orange; Fort James in New York to Willem Hendrick; Albany to Willemstadt, and the fort there to Fort Nassau,—all in honor of the Prince of Orange. Kingston was called Swanenburg; and New Jersey, Achter Col (behind the Col). During the first few months after the reconquest the province was governed by the naval commanders and the governor, Anthony Colve, appointed by the States-General. The passionate character of the new governor may have induced the commanders to remain until matters were satisfactorily arranged under the new order of things. The different towns and villages were required to send delegates to New Orange with authority and for the purpose of acknowledging their allegiance to the States-General of Holland. All submitted promptly, with the exception of the five towns of the East Riding of Yorkshire on Long Island, which, however, upon a threat of using force if they would not come with their English colors and constables’ staves, also declared their willingness to take the oath of allegiance. A claim upon Long Island, petitions from three of its eastern towns to New England for “protection and government against the Dutch,” and an arrogant attempt made by Governor Winthrop of New Haven to lecture Colve, forced the latter into an attitude of war, which resulted in a bloodless rencontre between the Dutch and the English from Connecticut at Southold, Long Island, in March, 1674. “Provisional Instructions” for the government of the province, drawn up by Colve, estranged and annoyed its English inhabitants, who were declared ineligible for any office if not in communion with the Reformed Protestant Church, in conformity with the Synod of Dort. Therefore, when, after the failure of receiving reinforcements from home, New Netherland was re-surrendered to England (February, 1674), the States-General being obliged to take this step by the necessity of making European alliances, the English portion of the population were glad to greet (November, 1674) again a government of their own nationality, and the Dutch had to submit with the best possible grace.

OUR sources for the history of New Netherland are principally the official records of the time, which must be considered under two heads: the records of the governments in Europe which directly or indirectly were interested in this part of the world; and the documents of the provincial government, handed down from secretary to secretary, and now carefully preserved in the archives of the State of New York. Of the former we have copies, the procuring of which by the State was one of the epoch-making events in the annals of historiography. A society, formed in 1804[786] in the city of New York for the principal purpose of “collecting and preserving whatever may relate to the natural, civil, or ecclesiastical history of the United States in general and the State of New York in particular,” having memorialized the State Legislature on the subject, a translation was ordered and made of the Dutch records in the office of the Secretary of State. This translation—of which more hereafter—undoubtedly threw light upon the historical value and importance of the State archives, but proved also their incompleteness; and another memorial by the same society induced the Legislature of 1839 to authorize the appointment of an agent who should procure from the archives of Europe the material to fill the gaps. Mr. John Romeyn Brodhead, who by a residence of two years at the Hague as Secretary of the American Legation seemed to be specially fitted for, and was already to some extent familiar with, the duties expected from him, was appointed such an agent in 1841, and after four years of diligent search and labor returned with eighty volumes of manuscript copies of documents procured in Holland, France, and England, which were published under his own and Dr. E. B. O’Callaghan’s supervision[787] as Documents relating to the Colonial History of New York, eleven volumes quarto, including index volume. The historical value of these documents, which the State procured at an expense of about fourteen thousand dollars, can not be estimated too highly. When made accessible to the public, they removed the reproach that “New York was probably the only commonwealth whose founders had been covered with ridicule” by one of her sons, by showing that the endurance, courage, and love of liberty evinced by her first settlers deserved a better monument than Knickerbocker’s History of New York.[788] Mr. Brodhead was unfortunately too late by twenty years to obtain copies of the records of the East and West India companies; for what would have proved a rich mine of historical information had been sold as waste paper at public auction in 1821. These lost records would have told us what the Dutch of 1608-1609 knew of our continent; how Hudson came to look for a northwest passage under the fortieth degree of north latitude; and how, where, and when the first settlements were made on the Hudson and Delaware,—information which they certainly must have contained, for the States-General referred the English ambassador, in a letter of Dec. 30, 1664, to the “very perfect registers, relations, and journals of the West India Company, provided with all the requisite verifications respecting everything that ever occurred in those countries” (New Netherland). We cannot glean this information from the records of the provincial government, consisting of the register of the provincial secretary, the minutes of council, letter-books, and land papers, for they begin only in 1638, a few land patents of 1630, 1631, and 1636 excepted. Even what we have of these is not complete, all letters prior to 1646 and council minutes for nearly four years having been lost. Where these missing parts may have strayed, it is hard to say. Article 12 of the “Capitulation on the Reduction of New Netherland, subscribed at the Governor’s Bouwery, August 27, O. S., 1664,” insured the careful preservation of the archives of the Dutch government by the English conquerors. In June, 1688, they were still in the Secretary’s office at New York; a few months later “Edward Randolph, then Secretary of ye Dominion of New England, carried away [to Boston] ye severall Bookes before Exprest,” says a Report of commissioners appointed by the Committee of Safety of New York to examine the books, etc., in the Secretary’s office, dated Sept. 23, 1689. Why he carried them off, the minutes of the proceedings against Leisler would probably disclose, if found. They remained in Boston until 1691, when Governor Sloughter, of New York, had them brought back. Comparing the inventory of June, 1688 (which states that there were found in “Presse no. 3 a parcell of old Dutch Records and bundles of Papers, all Being marked and numbred as y^ey Lay now in the said presse,”[789] which, to judge from the number of books in the other presses, must have been large) with an inventory and examination of the Dutch records made in June, 1753, under the supervision of the commissioners appointed by an act of the General Assembly to examine the eastern boundaries of the province, I come to the conclusion that the missing Dutch and English records were lost either in their wanderings between New York and Boston, or during the brief Dutch interregnum of 1673-74,[790] or perhaps in the fire which consumed Fort George in New York on the 18th of April, 1741, although Governor Clarke informs the Board of Trade that “most of the records were saved and I hope very few lost, for I took all the possible care of them, and had all removed before the office took fire.”

The inventory of 1753 shows that up to the present day nothing has since been lost, with the exception of a missing account-book and of some things which time has made illegible and of others which the knife of the autograph-hunter has cut out. It is difficult to say how much has gone through the latter unscrupulous method into the hands of private parties. The catalogues of collections of autographs sold at auction occasionally show papers which seem to have belonged to the State archives, but it is impossible to prove that they came thence. An examination, hurriedly made a few years ago, of the 103 volumes of Colonial Manuscripts of New York, showed that about three hundred documents had been stolen since Dr. O’Callaghan published in 1866 the Calendar[791] of these manuscripts. The then Secretary of State, Mr. John Bigelow, published the list of missing documents, calling upon the parties in possession of any of them to return the property of the State; and a month later he had the gratification of receiving a package containing about sixty, of which, however, only twenty were mentioned in the published list, while the loss of the others had not then been discovered. A thorough examination would probably bring the number of missing or mutilated papers to nearly one thousand. It is equally remarkable and fortunate, that during the war of the Revolution the records became an object of solicitude both to the royal Governor and the Provincial Congress.

The latter, fearing that the destruction of the records would “unhinge the property of numbers in the colony, and throw all legal proceedings into the most fatal confusion,” requested, Sept. 2, 1775, Secretary Bayard, whose ancestor, Nicolas Bayard, also had them in charge when the English retook New York in 1674, to deposit them in some safe place. Bayard, struggling between his duties as a royal officer and his sympathies as a born American, hesitated to take the papers in his charge from the place appointed for their keeping, but packed them nevertheless in boxes to be ready for immediate removal. Sears’s coup de main in November, 1775, and the intimation that he intended speedily to return with a larger body of “Connecticut Rioters” to take away the records of the province, induced Governor Tryon to remove “such public records as were most interesting to the Crown” on board of the “Dutchess of Gordon” man-of-war, to which he himself had fled for safety. When called upon, Feb. 7, 1776, by order of the Provincial Congress, to surrender them, he offered to place them on board a vessel, specially to be chartered for that purpose, which was to remain in the harbor. He pledged his honor that they should not be injured by the King’s forces, but refused to land them anywhere, because they could not be taken to a place safer than where they were. “Shortly afterwards,” he writes to Lord Germain in March, 1779, “the public records were for greater security (the Rebels threatening to board in the night and take the vessel) put on board the ‘Asia,’ under the care of Captain Vandeput. The ‘Asia’ being ordered home soon after the taking of New York, Captain Vandeput desired me to inform him what he should do with the two boxes of public records. I recommended them to be placed on board the ‘Eagle’ man-of-war.” The records not “most interesting to the Crown” (most likely including the Dutch records) were taken with Secretary Bayard to his father’s house in the “Out Ward of New York,” where a detachment of forty-eight men of the First New York City Regiment, later of Captain Alexander Hamilton’s Artillery Company, was detailed to guard them. In June of the same year, 1776, they were removed to the seat of government at Kingston, N. Y. Almost a year later two hundred men were raised for the special duty of guarding them, and when the enemy approached Kingston this body conveyed them to a small place in the interior (Rochester, Ulster County), whence they were returned to Kingston in November, 1777. From that date they followed the legislature and executive offices to New York in 1783, and finally in 1798 to Albany, where they have since remained. In New York the records which were carried off by Governor Tryon, and had been in the mean time transferred from the “Eagle” to the “Warwick” man-of-war and then returned to the city in 1781, were again placed with the others. At the instance of the New York Historical Society, the Dutch part of the State records were ordered to be translated; and this duty was entrusted by Governor De Witt Clinton to Dr. Francis A. van der Kemp, a learned Hollander, whom the political dissensions in the latter quarter of the eighteenth century had driven from his home. Unfortunately, Dr. van der Kemp’s knowledge of the English tongue was not quite equal to the task; nor was his eyesight, as he himself confesses in a marginal note to a passage dimmed by age, strong enough to decipher such papers as had suffered from the ravages of time and become almost illegible. This translation, completed in 1822, is therefore in many instances incorrect and incomplete; grave mistakes have been the consequence, much to the annoyance of historical students. Some of the errors were corrected by Dr. E. B. O’Callaghan, who published in 1849-54, under the authority of the State, four volumes of Documents relating to the History of the Colony (1604-1799), selected at random from the copies procured abroad, from the State archives, and from other sources. In 1876 the Hon. John Bigelow, Secretary of State, directed the writer of this paper to translate and prepare a volume of documents relating to the Delaware colony, which was published in 1877; another volume, containing the records of the early settlements in the Hudson and Mohawk River valleys, translated by the writer, followed in 1881; this year will see a third, on the settlements on Long Island; and a fourth, to be published later, will contain the documents relating to New York city and the relations between the Dutch and the neighboring English colonies. These four volumes contain everything of a general and public interest, so that the parts not translated anew will refer only to personal matters.

These being the official sources of information for the history of New Netherland, it is proper to inquire whether they are trustworthy beyond doubt. The charge made by Robert Thorne, of Bristol, in 1527[792] against the “Portingals,” of having “falsified their records of late purposely,” might be repeated against the Dutch wherever the claim of first discovery of the country is discussed.

I have already stated that one of the motives, and perhaps the principal one, for establishing the West India Company was of a political nature. The destruction of Spain’s financial resources was to lead to an honorable and satisfactory peace with Holland. Spain relied for the sinews of war on its American colonies; and we must inquire how much of the information relating to location and extent of these colonies had reached the Dutch notwithstanding the Spanish efforts to suppress it.

Hakluyt says:[793] “The first discovery of these coasts (never heard of before) was well begun by John Cabot and Sebastian his son, who were the first finders out of all that great tract of land stretching from the Cape of Florida unto those Islands which we now call the Newfoundland, or which they brought and annexed to the Crown of England [1497].”

I will not assert that the Cabots actually saw and explored the whole coast from Florida to Newfoundland, but they must have brought away the impression that the land seen by them was a continent, and that no passage to the East Indies could be found in these latitudes, but should be looked for farther north. A map in the collection of the General Staff of the Army at Munich;[794] supposed to have been made by Salvatore de Pilestrina about 1517, shows that the cartographers of that period had accepted this Cabot theory as a fact. The voyage of Esteban Gomez in 1524, sent out “to find a way to Cathay” between Florida and the Baccalaos,[795] resulted only in discovering “mucha tierra, continuada con la que se llama de los Baccalaos, discurriendo al Occidente y puesta en XL. grados y XLI.”[796]

The next voyage along the coast of North America, made in 1526 by Lucas Vasquez de Aillon and Matienzo, must be considered of importance for the cartography of the first half of the sixteenth century; for their discoveries, although of no direct benefit to them or to Spain, proved to Spanish map-makers and their imitators that North America was not, like the West Indies, an archipelago of islands, but a continent. Even though Ramusio, in the preface to vol. iii. of his work, published in 1556, declares it is not yet known whether New France is connected with Florida or is an island, the maps made shortly after Aillon’s voyage[797] show that the cartographers had decided the matter in their minds.

This knowledge was not confined to the map-makers and officials, who might have been forbidden to divulge such information. A contemporary writer says, in 1575:—

“La forme donc de la Floride est en peninsule et come triangulaire, ayant la mer qui la baigne de tous costez sauf vers le Septentrion.... Au Septentrion luy sont Hochelaga [Canada] et autres terres.... Or ce pays Floridien commence à la grande rivière, que les mondernes ont appelé de St. Jean [Cape Fear River?], qui le separe du pays de Norumbeg en la nouvelle France.”[798]

And I refer further to the divers Descriptiones Ptolemaicæ[799] published during the sixteenth century,—books accessible to the public of that day, and most likely known to and read by every navigator of the Atlantic.

To bring this information still nearer home to Henry Hudson, I mention the map made by Thomas Hood, an Englishman, in 1592,[800] and the work of Peter Plancius, published in 1594.[801] Hudson, an English navigator, could hardly have been ignorant of his countryman’s production, which shows under 40° north latitude the mouth of a river called Rio de San Antonio, the name given to Hudson’s River by the earlier Spanish discoverers. Before starting on his voyage in the “Half Moon,” Hudson had been in consultation with Dr. Peter Plancius, who adds to his chapter on “Norumberga et Virginia” a map, incorrect, it is true, as to latitudes and other details, but nevertheless showing an unbroken coast-line.

When, therefore, it is stated that Hudson abandoned the plan of seeking for a northeast passage, in the hope of finding, under 40° north latitude, a passage to the Western Ocean, as advised by his friends Captain John Smith, of Virginia, and Dr. Plancius, we are asked to accept as true a statement made and spread about for political purposes. These will be understood when we recall the motives for the establishment of the West India Company,—a project in which Plancius, a minister of the Reformed Church, and as such driven from his Belgian home by the Spaniards, gave his hearty and active co-operation to Usselinx. International law gave possession for his sovereign to any one who discovered a new land not formerly claimed by any Christian prince or inhabited by any Christian nation. To have a base for their operations in America against Spain, Holland required territory not so claimed, and the shrewd projectors undoubtedly deemed it most advisable to establish this base not only in an unclaimed but also in a hitherto unknown country. Therefore it was necessary to claim for Hudson the discovery of the river bearing his name, as the West India Company did in 1634,[802] although a few years before, in 1632, they had admitted by inference[803] that Hudson’s River was known to other nations under the name of Rio de Montañas, and of Rio de Montaigne, before Hudson saw it.[804] In the following decade the statement of 1634 was forgotten, and the company in 1644 claimed title by the first discovery of the Hudson and Delaware rivers, through ships of the Greenland Company in 1598.[805] Still later, in 1659, by the mouth of their diplomatic agents in Maryland and Virginia, it is asserted that Holland derived its title to New Netherland through Spain as “first discoverer and founder of that New World,” and through the French, who, by one Jehan de Verrazano[806] a Florentine, were in 1524 the second followers and discoverers in the northern parts of America.[807] Falsification in politics was evidently then, as it is now, a venial sin; the statements made for political purposes, although emanating from official sources, must, therefore, be accepted with due caution.[808]

As the history of New Netherland is closely connected with that of the West India Company, and as the West India Company was one of the great political factors in the United Provinces, the Dutch State-Papers[809] and the writings of contemporaneous authors[810] must be duly considered by the student of this period of our history.

Most prominent among contemporaneous writers is Willem Usselinx, the originator of the Dutch West India and Swedish South Companies, even though his writings have not always a direct bearing upon the history of New Netherland. We know little of the life of this remarkable man, beyond the facts that he was a native of Belgium and a merchant at Antwerp, whom the political and religious troubles of the period had compelled to leave his fatherland and to seek refuge in Holland; that, inspired by hatred against Spain, he conceived the plan of the West India Company; that for some unexplained reason the West India Company lost his services, which were then, about 1626, offered to King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden in the establishment of the South Company.[811] As Usselinx chiefly wrote before the West India Company was organized, and as its advocate, his books and pamphlets, instead of being historical, are of a more or less polemical character. He never forgets what he had to suffer through Spain, and points out constantly how important to Holland is the commerce of the West Indies, and that in their peace negotiations with Spain the States-General must by all means preserve the freedom of trading to America. These writings date from before Hudson’s voyage in 1609, and Usselinx disappears from the list of writers after the publication of the patent granted by Sweden to the South Company in 1627, unless we admit the above-quoted West-Indische Spieghel to be his work. Asher, in his Bibliographical Essay, gives as the latest of his works the Argonautica Gustaviana,[812] and had evidently no knowledge of the Advice to Establish a new South Company, written by Usselinx in 1636.

The next writer to be considered had exceptional facilities in gathering his material. As director of the West India Company, Johannes de Laet[813] had of course ready access to the records, while as co-patroon of Rensselaerswyck he had an especial interest in the country where his daughter and son-in-law[814] had made their home. Two manuscript volumes in folio, written by De Laet himself, and now in the collection of Mr. J. Carson Brevoort, give us an idea of the painstaking diligence with which De Laet collected the matter of the books which he intended to write. These two volumes contain no material relating specially to New Netherland, but he made undoubtedly as extensive preparations for the chapter on the Dutch colony in North America in his Nieuwe Wereld,[815] as he had made for the others, by copying from the most authentic works on the subject, by talking with seafarers returned from the transatlantic colony, and by transcribing letters from private persons residing there. His intention to give to his fellow-citizens as perfect a description of the New World as circumstances would allow, was carefully carried out. It would have been difficult to produce anything better at the time when he wrote; and we must accept this book as the standard work on New Netherland of the seventeenth century, even though he makes in the book, as well as on its accompanying map, a few slight errors; saying, for instance, that “Manhattan Island is separated from the mainland by the Hellgate,” or that “Fort Orange stood [at the time of his writing, 1625] on an island close to the left [western] shore of [Hudson’s] river.”

The title of De Laet’s next work[816] is very misleading, for one would naturally expect to find the history of the first settlement on the soil of New York in all its details;[817] but the name of New Netherland is only mentioned, as it were, by accident. Still the book has its value for the student of the philosophy of American history, for in the preface the author frankly admits that the object of the West India Company was war on Spain, and he congratulates the country upon the successes so far obtained; and he further shows how the Company, organized for warlike purposes, could not give any attention to a country which, under the circumstances, required the utmost care for its profitable development. Considering that De Laet was personally interested in New Netherland as co-patroon of Rensselaerswyck and through the marriage of his daughter to an inhabitant of the province, it is astonishing to find so little said by him of the actual occurrences there. It may be that reasons of policy and prudence restrained him from baring to the public eye many things for which the Company could be called to account. The new race, however, with which his countrymen had come in contact, had sufficiently excited his interest to induce him to study their habits and speculate upon their origin, so that when the learned Grotius published a treatise on the American Indians,[818] De Laet rushed into the field combating Grotius’s theories.

While De Laet reports the events in New Netherland up to a given date as a member of the Government saw them, we have two authors before whose eyes some of these events took place, and who in writing about them criticise them in the manner of subjects and citizens. To the first of these, David Pietersen de Vries, Artillerie-Meester van d’ Noorder Quartier, Mr. Bancroft gives the credit of being the founder of the State of Delaware.[819] How far the abortive attempt of establishing the colony of Zwanendael, mentioned in the narrative, and the voyage bringing over the colonists may be called “the cradling of a state,” I leave others to decide. De Vries published in 1655 an account of his voyages[820] made twenty years before, and tells us in his book, in the most unvarnished manner and with the bluntness of a sailor, how badly New Netherland was being governed under the administration of Minuit and Van Twiller. No doubt as to the veracity of his statements can be entertained, as in his case there could be no motive for “divagation.” He views the loss of his Delaware colony with the proverbial equanimity both of a Dutchman and of a sailor, and stands so far above the coarseness of manners and life in his time, that he considers officials addicted to drink not much better than criminals. Where he speaks of matters not seen by himself, and of the Indians and their mode of life, he follows closely the best authority to be found; namely, the work of Domine Johannis Megapolensis.

The other author, Jonker[821] Adrian van der Donck, Doctor of Laws and Advocate of the Supreme Court of Holland, has done more to give to his contemporaries a full knowledge of the country of his adoption, and to implant in the country itself better institutions, than any other man. Sent over in 1642 as Schout (sheriff) of the Patroons’ Colony of Rensselaerswyck, he in 1647 left this service in consequence of a quarrel with the vice-director, and purchased from the Indians the colony of Colen Donck, now Yonkers, for which he received a patent in 1648.[822] A controversy arose about this time between the Government and several colonists, among whom was Van der Donck, which led to a remonstrance being drawn up, to be laid before the States-General for a redress of certain grievances which they had so far failed to obtain either from the provincial governor or the West India Company.[823] It is a contemporaneous relation of events in New Netherland signed by eleven residents of New Amsterdam. Its probable author was Van der Donck; at least his original journal was the source from which this “Remonstrance” was derived. The form in which Governor Stuyvesant seized it[824] is, however, different from the one in which it was published. In the latter it is divided in three parts: 1. A description of the natives and of the physical features of the country; 2. Events connected with the earliest settlements of the country; 3. Remonstrance against the policy of the West India Company. The tone and character of such a document must be necessarily aggressive; but, even though the reply to it by the provincial secretary, Van Tienhoven,[825] denies most of its allegations, it certainly contains valuable and trustworthy information.

Van der Donck’s next work, acknowledged by him as his own,[826] is an improvement on De Laet’s similar description. The time which had elapsed since De Laet’s publication had taught different lessons, and Van der Donck’s personal experience in the country described by him could not fail to give him a better insight than even the best written reports afforded to De Laet. But, with the latter, this author falls into the error of ascribing to the Indians a statement that the Dutch were the first white people seen by them, and that they did not know there were any other people in the world. This assertion is contradicted by the Long Island Indians, who talked with a later traveller, telling him that “the first strangers seen in these parts were Spaniards or Portuguese, who did not remain long, and afterwards the Dutch came.”[827] The so-called “Pompey Stone,” in the State Geological Museum, might be taken for another contradiction of De Laet’s and Van der Donck’s statements. Still more apparently contradictory evidence might be the similarity of some so-called Indian words with words of the Latin tongues.[828] Nor is Van der Donck correct in the relation of the discovery of the country by Hudson, and the map accompanying his work has several grave errors. The description of the physical features of the country, of the animals, and of the Indians is followed by a discourse between a patriot and a New Netherlander on the conveniences of the new colony, in which the questions are asked and answered, whether it is to the advantage of Holland to have such a flourishing colony, and whether this colony will ever be able to defend itself against foreign enemies.

Another resident of New Netherland, the Reverend Johannis Megapolensis (van Mekelenburg), one of the few educated men who came to this country at that early date, has given us a book which, though not strictly referring to the history of the country, must yet be considered as one of the collateral sources, and finds its most appropriate place here, following the Descriptions. As minister of the Reformed Church at Rensselaerswyck, whither he was called by the patroon in 1642, he came soon in close contact with the Indians; and having learned the difficult Mohawk language, he became, several years earlier than the New England preacher, John Eliot, a missionary among the Indians. The result of his labors was an account of the Mohawks, their country, etc.[829] This account was closely followed by De Vries, as mentioned above, and by most of the other writers on the Indians.

A large share of the material for this work Megapolensis must have received from Father Jogues, a Jesuit missionary whom the Dominie rescued from captivity among the Mohawks. The letters of this courageous and zealous servant of the Church to his superiors teem with information concerning the Indians, whom he endeavored to Christianize,[830] and at whose hands he died.

Either the financial success of De Laet’s works, whose copyright had in the mean time expired, or else the interest in New Netherland affairs which had been newly aroused by the presentation to, and discussion before, the States-General of the Vertoogh, led to the compilation in 1651[831] of a book on New Netherland by Joost Hartgers, a bookseller of Amsterdam, which is nothing more than a clever arrangement of extracts from De Laet’s Description, second edition, the Vertoogh, and Megapolensis’ Indian treatise. Of much greater importance and value to the historical student is an anonymous publication of 1659, the title of which gives no idea of its real contents. Like most popularly written works of the day discussing topics of public interest, it is in the form of a conversation between a countryman, a citizen, and a sailor, who discuss the deplorable depression of commerce, navigation, trade, and agriculture in Holland, and speculate on the best means to improve this state of affairs.[832] The author speaks of New Netherland matters with a positiveness which puts it beyond a doubt that he had been in that country.[833] Only a few pages are given to the description of New Netherland, but the propositions advanced on colonization, self-government of colonies, free-trade, and slavery are all aimed at the West India Company and its American territories. These propositions are of such a broad and liberal character, that they would do credit to any writer of our more enlightened times. A similar feeling of hostility against the West India Company and New Netherland, both then (1659) in a condition to invite criticism, pervades the work of Otto Keye,[834] who advocates the colonization of Guiana as being more rational and profitable than that of New Netherland. Starting with the argument that a warm climate is preferable to a colder one, on account both of physical comforts and of greater commercial advantages, he gives a description of the two countries, the bias being of course in favor of Guiana.

The most remarkable of all the contemporary Dutch books appeared also anonymously in 1662.[835] The description of the country given in this work adds nothing new to our store of information, and the book itself has therefore been ranked by American historians with such compilations as the works of Montanus, Melton, and others, who simply reprinted De Laet, Van der Donck, etc. It is, however, of great value, for through it we obtain an insight into the Dutch politics of the day, which had so far-reaching an influence on the history of New Netherland and on its colonization. The fight between the Gomarian (Orangist) and the Arminian[836] (Liberal) parties, which had so long prevented the first organization of the West India Company, had never been settled and was now revived. The De Witts, as leaders of the Arminians, were as much opposed to this organization as Oldenbarnevelt had been. Whether the ulterior loss of New Netherland, to which this opposition finally led, embarrassed them as much as is stated[837] or not, it was certainly at this time (1662) in the programme of the Arminian party to destroy the West India Company, and by reforming the government of New Netherland build up the country. This seems to have been the motive for writing the Kort Verhael, which, according to Asher,[838] was written by a journalist, opposing the third ultra-radical and the Orangist parties, in conjunction with a Mennonist. It will be remembered that in 1656-1657 part of the South River (Delaware) territory had been surrendered, for financial reasons, to the authorities of Amsterdam, and had ceased to be in the jurisdiction of the Governor-General of New Netherland. The plan[839] submitted to the burgomasters in the Requests and Representations, etc., aimed at a further curtailing of the Company’s territory in that region by planting there a colony of Mennonists, with the most liberal self-government, under the supreme jurisdiction of the city of Amsterdam; while the vehemence with which Otto Keye and his work favoring Guiana at the expense of New Netherland are attacked shows that the Anti-Orangists, though bent upon ruining one of the principal factors of the Orange party, were by no means inclined to give up New Netherland as a colony. A work from which copious extracts are given in the Kort Verhael, and called Zeker Nieuw-Nederlants geschrift,—“A Certain New Netherland Writing,”—seems to be lost to us; also a work, Noort Revier,—“North River,”—mentioned by Van der Donck.

The works of Montanus,[840] Melton,[841] and a few others[842] deserve no more mention than by title, as being compilations of extracts from books already referred to; and with these closes the list of such contemporary and almost contemporary Dutch works on New Netherland as are either purely descriptive or both descriptive and historical.

Of the contemporary Dutch works of purely historical character, not one treats of New Netherland alone; but the Dutch historians of the time could not well write of the res gestæ of their nation without referring to what they had done on the other side of the Atlantic. The first of them in point of time, Emanuel van Meteren,[843] gives us in his Historie van de Oorlogen en Geschiedenissen der Nederlanderen,[844] a minute description of the discoveries made by Hudson, and must be specially consulted for the history of the origin of the West India Company. Although credulous to such an extent that the value of his painstaking labors is frequently endangered by the gross errors caused by his credulity, he had no chance of committing mistakes where, as in the case of the West India Company, everything was official. His information regarding Hudson’s voyage of 1609, we may assume, was derived from Hudson himself on his return to England, where Van Meteren lived as merchant and Dutch consul until 1612, the year of his death.

The next Dutch historian whose work is one of our sources, Nicolas Jean de Wassenaer,[845] takes us a step farther; but he too fails to give us much more than a record of the earliest years of the existence of the West India Company. His account of how this Company came to be organized differs somewhat as to the motives from all others.[846]

With the works of Aitzema,[847] Saken van Staat en Oorlogh in ende omtrent de Vereenigde Nederlanden, 1621-1669, and Herstelde Leeuw, 1650,[848] and with Costerus’s Historisch Verhael, 1572-1673, we come to the end of the list of Dutch historians giving us information of the events in New Netherland. But I cannot allow the reader to take leave of these Dutch books without a few words concerning the first book printed which treated of New Netherland. The Breeden Raedt aende Vereenichde Nederlandsche Provintien ... gemaeckt ende gestelt uijt diverse ... memorien door I. A. G. W. C., Antwerpen, 1649,[849] is neither purely historical nor descriptive, but its polemic character requires such constant allusion both to the events in, and to the geography of, New Netherland, that we must class it among the most important sources for our history. Its authorship is unknown, and has been subject to many surmises.

It may cause astonishment that the writers of Holland, a country then renowned for its learning, should not have thought it worth their while to write a history of their transatlantic colonies. But we must bear in mind, first, that the settlement of New Netherland was neither a governmental nor a popular undertaking; second, that in the beginning the West India Company had no intention of making it a colony, and that the people, who came here under the first governors as the Company’s servants, and also those who later came as freeholders, were hardly educated enough, even if they had not been too busy with their own affairs, to pay much attention to, or write of, public matters. The few educated men were officers of the Company, and did not care to lose their places by speaking with too much frankness of what was going on. Whatever they desired to publish they had to submit to the directors of the Company, and it is not likely that any unpleasant information would have passed the censor. Third, the Company did not desire any information whatever concerning New Netherland, except what they thought fit, to be given to the public,[850]—hence the obstacles which prevented Adrian Van der Donck from writing the history of New Netherland in addition to his Description,[851] and the scanty information which the contemporary historian has to give us.

Subsequent Dutch writers found a good deal to say about the Dutch colonies on the Hudson and Delaware rivers. The most trustworthy among them is Jean Wagenaar,[852] who, beginning life as a merchant’s clerk, felt a strong desire for acquiring fame as an author. He studied languages and history, and at last wholly devoted himself to Dutch history. His Vaderlandsche Historie is held in Holland to be the best historical work written, although his political bias as an opponent of the House of Orange is evident. Wagenaar is, however, more an annalist than a historian. As official historiographer, and later Secretary of the City of Amsterdam, he had free access to the archives; hence his statements are not to be discredited. His account of the circumstances under which Hudson was sent out in 1609 differs materially from all other writers. “The Company,” he says, “sent out a skipper to discover a passage to China by the northwest, not by the northeast.” A resolution of the States of Holland, quoted by Wagenaar, proves that previous to Hudson’s voyage the Dutch knew that they would find terra firma north of the Spanish possessions, and contiguous to them.[853]

The scantiness of information concerning New Netherland in Dutch books explains why we can learn still less from the writings of other nations; for sectional or national feeling caused either a complete silence on colonial affairs, or incorrect and contradictory statements, leading many to rely on hearsay, unsupported by records.

Among the earliest works (not in Dutch) speaking of New Netherland, we have the work of Levinus Hulsius (Hulse), a native of Ghent, distinguished for his learning, and after him his sons, who published, at Nürnberg, Frankfort, and Oppenheim, a Sammlung von 26 Schiffahrten in verschieden fremde Landen,—“Collection of twenty-six Voyages in many Foreign Countries,”—between the years 1598 and 1650; the twelfth part of this work chronicles the attempts of the English and Dutch to discover a passage by way of the North Pole, and includes Hudson’s voyage.[854] The twentieth part refers likewise to voyages to this continent, and specially to our coast. Other German works of this early period can only be mentioned by their title, because for the above reasons they are not sufficiently correct to be considered trustworthy sources of information.[855] Their titles show them to be not much more than “hackwork,” with little value to the contemporary or any later reader. But when we find that a celebrated geographer of the time, Philipp Cluvier (born at Dantzic, 1580, died 1623), omits all mention of the existence of such countries as New England and New Netherland, we can well understand how difficult it must have been to gather material for a universal geography.[856] Later editors of the same work, writing in 1697, had then apparently only just learned that up to 1665 a part of North America was called Novum Belgium. Hardly less ignorant, though he mentions Virginia and Canada in describing the bounds of Florida, is Gottfriedt in his Neuwe Archontologia Cosmica, Frankfort, 1638; yet he too was a distinguished geographer.[857]

Turning to the English, we find a few credible and a great many very fantastic and unreliable writers, treating either specially or incidentally of New Netherland. The first mention of the Dutch on the Hudson is made in a little work, republished in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society,[858] in which it is stated that an English sea-captain, Dermer, “met on his passage [from Virginia to New England] with certain Hollanders who had a trade in Hudson’s River some years before that time (1619).” This is probably the first application of Hudson’s name to the river. In a letter[859] from the same traveller, dated at a plantation in Virginia, December, 1619, he describes his passage through Hellgate and Long Island Sound, but does not say anything about the settlement on Manhattan Island.

This letter of Dermer and the Brief Relation first informed the English that “the Hollanders as interlopers had fallen into ye middle betwixt the plantations” of Virginia and New England.[860] The Description of the Province of New Albion[861] informs us that “Capt. Samuel Argal and Thomas Dale on their return [from Canada in 1613] landed at Manhatas Isle in Hudson’s River, where they found four houses built, and a pretended Dutch governor under the West India Company’s of Amsterdam share or part, who kept trading-boats and trucking with the Indians;” but the official correspondence[862] between the authorities of Virginia and the Home Government proves that Argal and his party never went to New Netherland, although they intended to do so in 1621; for, hearing that the Dutch had settled on the Hudson, a “demurre in their p^rceding was caused.”[863] The motive for making the above-quoted statement concerning Argal’s visit in 1613 is apparent. The imposing pseudonym under which the Description of New Albion appeared was probably assumed by Sir Edmund Ploeyden (Plowden), to whom in 1634 Lord Strafford, then viceroy of Ireland, had granted the patent of New Albion[864] covering the Dutch possession, and who therefore had an obvious interest adverse to the Dutch title. Its publication at the time, when the right of the Dutch to the country was being discussed between England and the States-General of Holland, was intended to influence the British mind. It contains a queer jumble of fact and fancy, and it is not necessary to say more about its claims to be an historical authority than has already been published in the Memoirs of the Pennsylvania Historical Society.[865]

Considering that, according to Van der Donck, Sir Edmund Ploeyden had been in New Netherland several times, it seems almost incredible that he should have made such astonishing statements, if he was the author of the book. A perusal of a work published a few years previous to the Description of New Albion would have set him right, at least so far as the geography of the country was concerned.[866] The author of the Short Discovery has very correct notions of the hydrography of New Netherland, acquired apparently by the study of Dutch maps; but the distances and degrees of latitude are as great a puzzle to him as to many other geographers and seamen of that day. As he wrote before the Dutch title to New Netherland was disputed, he is of course silent concerning the English claims to the territory.

The historian writing of New Netherland to-day has the advantage of being able to consult the journal of a governor of Massachusetts, John Winthrop, who took an active part in the occurrences which he describes.[867] Although it does not cover the whole of the Dutch period of New York, and his puritanical bias is occasionally evident, we have no more reliable source for the history of the relations between the colonies.

The few historical data given in the next book to be considered[868] are of interest, as the author endeavors to “assert the rights of the English nation in vouching the legal interest of England in right of the first discovery or premier seizure to Novum Belgium.” They show, however, also how in so short a period as a man’s life even contemporary history can be distorted. According to Heylin, who takes Sir Samuel Argal as his source, Hudson had been commissioned by King James I. to make the voyage of 1609, and after making his discoveries sold his maps and charts to the Dutch. The Dutch were willing to surrender their claims to Sir Edmund Ploeyden, he says, for £2,500, but took advantage of the troubles in England, and, instead of surrendering, armed the Indians to help them in resisting any English attempt to reduce New Netherland. Leaving aside Plantagenet’s New Albion, we meet here, in a work which the author’s high reputation must immediately have placed among the standard works of the day, a most startling falsification of facts and events which had occurred during the lifetime of the author. It is impossible to account for it, even if we suppose that these statements were made for political effect; for the men who read Heylin’s book had also read the correct accounts of Hudson’s voyages, and knew that Heylin’s statements were false. The learned prelate is only little less at fault in his geographical account. Although he tells us that Hudson gave his name to one of the rivers, he mentions as the two principal ones only the Manhates or Nassau or Noort and the South rivers, being evidently in doubt which is the Hudson. Heylin had studied geography better than his contemporary Robert Fage, who published about the same time A Description of the whole World, London, 1658, but he is utterly silent as to New Netherland. In 1667, when he published his Cosmography, or a Description of the whole World, represented by a more exact and certain Discovery, he had learned that “to the Southwest of New England lyeth the Dutch plantation; it hath good ground and good air, but few of that Nation are inhabiting there, which makes that there are few plantations in the land, they chiefly intending their East India trade, and but one village, whose inhabitants are part English, part Dutch. Here hath been no news on any matter of war or state since the first settlement. There is the Port Orange, thirty miles up Hudson’s River,” etc. This was written three years after New Netherland had become an English colony, when New York city numbered almost two thousand inhabitants, and some ten or twelve villages were flourishing on Long Island.

The best description, or rather the most ample, written by an Englishman, is that of John Josselyn, who published his observations made during two voyages to New England in 1638-1639 and 1663-1671.[869] Although he had been in the country, his notions concerning it are somewhat crude. New England, under which name he includes New Netherland, is thought to be an island formed by the “spacious” river of Canada, the Hudson, two great lakes “not far off one another,” where the two rivers have their rise, and the ocean. His account of the Indians, of their mode of living and warfare, is highly amusing, and at the same time instructive, although no philologist would probably accept as correct his statement that the Mohawk language was a dialect of the Tartar. Nor would the botanist place implicit faith in the statement that in New England barley degenerated frequently into oats; and the zoölogist would be astonished to learn of “frogs sitting upon their breeches one foot high.” His credulity has led this eccentric raconteur into describing many similar wonderful details; but his work is nevertheless of value, as giving, I believe, the first complete description of the fauna and flora of the Middle Atlantic and New England States. In some of his historical data he follows Plantagenet, probably at second-hand through Heylin, and is so far without credit.

Religion, which had already done so much to increase the population of the colony on the Hudson, was to cause a new invasion by the Dutch into their old possessions. While Arminians and Gomarists, Cocceians and Vœtians, were continuing the religious strife in Holland, a new sect, the Labadists, sprang up. The intolerance with which they were treated compelled their leaders to look out for a country where they might exercise their religion with perfect freedom. An attempt at colonization in Surinam, ceded to Holland by England in the Treaty of Breda, 1667, having failed, they turned their eyes upon New York, then under English rule, and in 1679 sent two of their most prominent men—Jasper Danckers and Peter Sluyter—across the ocean to explore and report. The account of their travels was procured, translated, and published by Mr. Henry C. Murphy in the Collections of the Long Island Historical Society.[870] It tells in simple language, showing frequently their religious bias, what the travellers saw and heard. The drawings with which they illustrated their journal give us a vivid picture of New York two hundred years ago. As they talked with many of the men who had been prominent in Dutch times, their account of historical events acquires special interest. The tradition then current at Albany, that the ruins of a fort on Castle Island indicated the place where Spaniards had made a settlement before the Dutch, is discredited by them; but the discovery of the so-called Pompey Stone, an evident Spanish relic, at not too great a distance from the Hudson River, makes it desirable that this tradition should receive special investigation. It is true the Indians in Van der Donck’s time who were old enough to recollect when the Dutch first came, declared that they were the first white men whom they saw;[871] but their descendants told these travellers “that the first strangers seen in these parts were Spaniards or Portuguese; but they did not remain long, and afterwards the Dutch came.” The Spaniards under Licenciado d’ Aillon had made landings and explored the country south and east of New York, and may not one of their exploring parties have come to Albany and fortified themselves?

While Aitzema gives us, in his Saken van Staat, the Dutch side of the public affairs in the seventeenth century, Thurloe,[872] in his Collection of State Papers, uncovers English statesmanship and diplomacy. His official position as secretary to the Council of State under Charles I., and afterwards to the Protector and his son, gave him a thorough insight into the workings of the public machinery, and makes his selection of papers extremely valuable. Among them will be found a document of the year 1656 on the English rights to New Netherland, which is highly interesting. I can refer only by title to other works of the seventeenth century speaking of New Netherland, as they are only either more or less embellished and incorrect repetitions of former accounts, or because they are beyond my reach.[873]

Skipping over a century, we come to the work of a native of New York, the History of the Province of New York from its first Discovery to the Year 1732, by William Smith, Jr. Considering that it was written and published before the author had reached his thirtieth year,[874] and that he had to gather his information from the then rare and scanty libraries of America and the official records of the province, the work reflects no small credit on its author. For the discovery by Hudson, he follows the accepted version,—that Hudson in 1608, under a commission from King James I., first landed on Long Island, etc., and afterward sold the country, or rather his rights, to the Dutch. Smith’s knowledge of law should have prevented his repeating this statement, for he ought to have been aware that Hudson could not have had any individual claim to the country discovered by him. Another statement, repeated by Smith on the authority of elder writers,—namely, that James I. had conceded to the Dutch in 1620 the right to use Staten Island as a watering-place for their ships going to and coming from Brazil,—a careful perusal of the correspondence between the authorities of New Netherland and the Directors of the West India Company, then within easy reach, would have told him to be untrue or incorrect. If there were any truth in this statement, for which I have not found the slightest foundation, it would only prove that, with their usual tenacity of purpose, the Dutch, having once determined to settle on Manhattan’s Island, could not be deterred from carrying out their project. Although admitting that, in the long run, it would have been impossible for the Dutch to preserve their colony against the increasing strength of their English neighbors, he condemns the treachery with which New Netherland was wrested from the Dutch. It is to be regretted that with so many official Dutch documents as Smith found in the office of the secretary, he did not write the history of the Dutch period of the province with more detail, and that he studied those which he consulted with hardly sufficient care.

Before a proper interest in the history of New York had been reawakened after the exciting times of the Revolution and of 1812, it revived in the European cradle of New York to such an extent as to bring forth a valuable contribution to our historical sources from the pen of the learned Chevalier Lambrechtsen.[875] Its value consists principally in the fact that the author had access to the papers of the West India Company, since lost, and that it instigated research and called attention to the history of their State among New Yorkers, several of whom now set to work writing histories.[876] Not one of them is of great value now, the documents procured in the archives of Europe having thrown more and frequently a different light on many facts. Many statements are given as based on tradition, others are absolutely incorrect,[877] and none tell us anything about New Netherland that we have not already read in De Laet, Van der Donck, and other older writers.

To the anti-rent troubles in this State and to the researches into the rights of the patroons arising from them, we are indebted to the best work on New Netherland which has yet been written. Chancellor Kent’s assertion, that the Dutch annals were of a tame and pacific character and generally dry and uninteresting,[878] had deterred many from their study. Now it became an absolute necessity to discover what privileges had been held by the patroons under the Dutch government, and, upon examining the records, Dr. E. B. O’Callaghan was amazed to find a vast amount of historical material secluded from the English student by an unknown language. The writing of a history of that period, which had been a dark page for so long a time, immediately suggested itself; and as about the same time the papers relating to New York, which the State had procured abroad, were sent home by Mr. Brodhead, the agent of the State, the plan was carried into effect, and the History of New Netherland, or New York under the Dutch, by E. B. O’Callaghan, New York, 1846, vol. ii. 1850, made its appearance.[879]

It is perhaps beyond the possibilities of the human mind to write history, not simply annals, from a thoroughly objective point of view; but the historian must try to suppress his individuality as far as he can, or at least to criticise only the events of a remote period from the standpoint of that period, and not from his own, which is more modern and advanced. Dr. O’Callaghan followed no philosophy of history. He tried to suppress his individuality as Irishman, Canadian revolutionist, and devout Romanist; but occasionally it was stronger than his will, and impaired the objectivity and fairness of his judgment. Yet the descendants of the settlers of New Netherland owe to him a greater debt than to any of their own race, for he, first of any historian, has shown us the colony in its origin—the steadiness, sturdiness, and industry of the colonists, who were men as religious as the New England Puritans, but more tolerant towards adherents of other creeds. Notwithstanding this historian’s desire to be accurate in his statements, his unqualified reliance upon previous writers has on several occasions led him into errors, the gravest of which is perhaps the repetition of Plantagenet’s story of Argal’s invasion. I have tried to show above that the English documents disprove this statement, which O’Callaghan repeats on the authority of Heylin.

J. Romeyn Brodhead, the collaborator of Dr. O’Callaghan in editing the documents procured for the State by his agency, was the next to enter the field as a writer on the history of New York. While Dr. O’Callaghan in a few instances allows his inborn prejudices to make him criticise the actions of the Dutch too harshly, and without due allowance for the times and circumstances, Mr. Brodhead, a descendant both of Dutch and English early settlers, fails on the other side, and becomes too lenient. Generally, however, his History of New York is written with great independence of judgment and with thorough criticism of the authorities. It is to be regretted that death prevented the completion of the work, which does not go farther than 1691; but what Mr. Brodhead has given us must, for its completeness and accuracy of research, and for the genuine historical acumen displayed in it, rank as a standard work and a classical authority on the subject.[880]

There are many additional works to be consulted by those who desire reliable information on the early history of New York,—the more general histories (like Bancroft’s, chap. xv.), monographs,[881] and local histories, the Transactions of the various historical societies of the State, etc.; but the passing of them in review has been in some degree relegated to notes.

When the Greek philosopher Anaxagoras said that man was born to contemplate the heavens, the sun, and the moon, he might have added also the earth and its formation in all its details, and enjoined on his disciples the necessity of representing the result of such contemplations by maps and charts. We require a map fully to understand the geography and chorography of a country; hence a study of the maps made by contemporaneous makers becomes the duty of the writer of New Netherland history. I have already stated that the coast of New York and the neighboring districts were known to Europeans almost a century before Hudson ascended the “Great River of the North,” and that this knowledge is proved by various maps made in the course of the sixteenth century. Nearly all of them place the mouth of a river between the fortieth and forty-first degrees of latitude, or what should be this latitude, but which imperfect instruments have placed farther north. The configuration of the coast-line shows that they meant the mouth of the Hudson. Only one, however, of these sixteenth-century maps, made by Vaz Dourado at Lisbon, in 1571, gives the Hudson River in its almost entire course, from the mountains to the bay. A copy of this map, made in 1580, which found its way to Munich, was probably seen by Peter Plancius, who induced Hudson to explore that region of the New World, so little known to Europeans at that time. Although Vaz Dourado’s map enlightens us so very little, I mention it because his map must lead to the investigation of the question whether the Dutch under Hudson were the first to navigate the river.

The oldest map of the territory now comprising the States of New York, New Jersey, and Delaware, and known as “The Figurative Map,” was found by Mr. Brodhead in the archives at the Hague. It is on parchment, and is beautifully executed. A fac-simile copy, taken by Mr. Brodhead, was deposited in the State Library at Albany, and reproductions have been published in the New York Colonial Documents, vol. i., also in Dr. O’Callaghan’s History of New Netherland. It purports to have been submitted to the States-General of Holland in 1616, with an application for a charter to trade to New Netherland, but it was probably produced then a second time, having done duty before on a similar occasion in 1614, with a map exhibiting the Delaware region on a larger scale. This 1614 map was on paper, and was found by Mr. Brodhead in the same place, and may be seen in similar reproductions, accompanying those of the 1616 map. Who the draughtsman of either was, is unknown. An inscription on the latter refers to draughts formerly made, which were consulted, and to the report of some men, who had probably been the Dutchmen captured by the Mohawks and mentioned in Captain Hendricksen’s report (New York Colonial Documents, i. 13). De Laet seems to have had these maps before him when he wrote his Novus Orbis, and to have constructed the map accompanying his work from these two. Notwithstanding the great care and detail exhibited in them, they are necessarily inaccurate, but highly interesting and instructive, as they indicate the location of the several Indian tribes at the time of the arrival of the Dutch and of the Spaniards before them. The names given on these maps to some of the Indian tribes are so unmistakably of Spanish origin, that it is hard to believe they were not first applied by the Spaniards, and afterwards repeated by the Indians to the before-mentioned three Dutch prisoners among the Mohawks. We find one tribe called “Capitanasses,” while in colloquial Spanish capitanázo means a great warrior; another, whom the Dutch later knew as Black Minquas, is designated by the name of “Gachos,” the Spanish word gacho being applied to black cattle. Still another is called the “Canoomakers;” canoa being a word of the Indian tongues of South America,[882] the North American Indian could only have learned it from the Spaniards, and in turn have taught its meaning to the Dutch. Even the Indian name given to the island upon which the city of New York now stands, spelled on the earliest maps “Monados, Manados, Manatoes,” and said to mean “a place of drunkenness,” points to a Spanish origin from the colloquially-used noun moñas, drunkenness, moñados, drunken men. If to these indications of Spanish presence on the soil of New York before the Dutch period we add the evidence of the so-called Pompey Stone,[883] found in Oneida County, with its Spanish inscription and date of 1520, and the names of places given in their corruption by the Dutch in a grant covering part of Albany County (“Semesseerse,” Spanish semencera, land sown with seed; “Negogance,” place for trade, Spanish negocio, trade), we can no longer hesitate to believe that the traditions reported by Danckers and other writers mentioned before had some foundation, and that the Spaniards knew and had explored the country on the Hudson long before the Dutch came, but had thought, as Peter Martyr expresses it, after the failures of Esteban Gomez and the Licenciado d’ Aillon, “To the South, to the South, for the great and exceeding riches of the Equinoctial; they that seek gold must not go to the cold and frozen North.” The Spaniards never considered North America as of any value in itself; they looked upon it only as a barrier to the richer fields of Asia.

Dr. O’Callaghan had in his collection[884] a copy, on vellum, of a map entitled “Americæ Septentrionalis Pars,” from the West-Indische Paskaert, which he added to the maps in the first volume of the New York Colonial Documents. The maker of it was A. Jacobsen, and, to judge from the fac-simile of the West India Company’s seal exhibited on it, he made it for that company in 1621. It bears internal evidence that Jacobsen had as model one of the elder Spanish and English maps, as he retains some Spanish and English names for places, which on the Dutch maps just mentioned have Dutch names. No attempt is made to give details of interior chorography. The coast-line is fairly correct, and the rivers named are indicated by their mouths.[885]

The next in the order of date is also a manuscript map, of which a reduced copy was published by Dr. O’Callaghan in his History. Although it is only a delineation of part of New Netherland, the manor of Rensselaerswyck,[886] it is of importance to the historian, who in consulting it has to exercise his judgment to the utmost. Made in 1630 by Gillis van Schendel at the expense of six dollars, which paid also for four copies on paper, it shows, in the very year in which the land was purchased from the Indians and patented to the patroons, such a large number of settlements on both sides of the river, as to create the suspicion that it was made to induce emigration from Holland, where the four copies on paper were sent. De Laet, whose share of the land, as one of the patroons, is designated by De Laet’s Burg, De Laet’s Island, De Laet’s Mill Creek and Waterfall, makes no reference to this map.

The first printed map of New Netherland accompanies De Laet’s Novus Orbis, under the title of “Nova Anglia, Novum Belgium, et Virginia.” In outline it resembles the map of 1621 by Jacobsen, while the details are taken from the maps presented to the States-General. It is very vague, however, and does not even give the names of any river. Long Island is represented by three islands, and the Delaware River rises, as on the 1616 map, out of a large lake in the Seneca country.[887]

Jacobsen’s map of 1621 seems to have been used by Robert Dudley in his Atlas, upon which an Italian engraver, Antonio Francesco Lucini, worked; and Lucini’s signature is attached to a “Carta particolare della Nuova Belgia è parte della Nuova Anglia, d’America carta ii.,” which constitutes a part of Dudley’s work.[888] He seems to have consulted Spanish, Dutch, and English maps of more or less correctness, but understood none of them well. The Hudson is called “Rio Martins ò R. Hudsons.” Manhattan’s Island is in its proper place, with New Amsterdam marked on it; but the name “Isla Manhatas” is given to the land between Newark Bay, Passaic River on the west and the Hackensack on the east; while the strip of land now called Bergen Point is called “Oster’s Ilant.” The position of Manhattan has evidently troubled him very much, for we find the name again inserted covering the eastern townships of Westchester County. Stratford Point, at the mouth of the Housatonic, is “Cabo del Fieme,” while Long Island, called “I. di Gebrok Land,” is a group of six islands, the largest of which bears the correct name of Matouwacs, and Fisher’s Island is called “Isla Lange.” Staten Island, “I. State,” is relegated, shorn of its dimensions, to Newark Bay, and its space divided by “I. Godins” and one of the six islands in the Long Island group called “C. Godins.” The low coast of New Jersey, near Long Branch, is properly named “Costa Bassa.” Thence going south, we come to “Porto Eyer” (Egg Harbor) and “I. Eyer,” “C. Pedras Arenas” (Barnegat), “C. Mai,” “Rio Carlo” (Delaware), and “C. Hinlopen ò C. James.” The student of our early cartography must revert often to the rival maps and atlases of Blaeu and Jansson. The elder of the Blaeus, W. J. Blaeu, was long a maker of maps and globes,[889] and began to be known, with his map of the world, in 1606. He had issued many other maps when, in 1631, he collected them into his Appendix Theatri Ortelii (103 maps), the earliest of his atlases, which he later remodelled and enlarged, sometimes giving the text in French, and sometimes in Latin; that of 1638 being known as his Novas Atlas, and containing fourteen American maps. After several intermediate issues,[890] following upon the death of the elder Blaeu in 1638,[891] his atlas, under the care of his son, John Blaeu,[892] was issued with various texts, and with a wealth of skill rarely equalled since, as the Atlas Major.[893]

Jansson produced a rival of the earliest Blaeu atlas in 1633, with one hundred and six maps.[894] In 1638 it was called Atlas Novus, and had seventeen maps of America.[895] In 1639 a French edition was called Nouveau Théâtre du Monde, with new maps by Henry Hondius, son of the elder Hondius, eighteen of them being American, and that on New Netherland following De Laet’s map. It includes New England and Virginia, and is the original of various later maps.[896] A fifth part of the Nouveau Theatre was added in 1657, containing coast charts of America. Jansson reached his best in his Orbis Antiquus, of about even date (1661) with Blaeu’s best.

In Mr. Edward Armstrong’s essay on Fort Nassau a map in private hands is mentioned which seems to be little known. It exhibits the grant made to Sir Edmund Ploeyden of the Province of New Albion, and was printed at London in 1651. It is a strange combination of knowledge and ignorance, if not intentional deceit, purporting to have been made by “Domina Virginia Farrer,” and shows the headwaters of James River to be within ten days’ march of the California coast.[897]

A map of the Delaware territory was made, about 1638, by Måns Kling, for the Swedish Government. A later map of the same region, made by the Swedish engineer Peter Lindstroem in 1654, unfortunately destroyed by fire in 1697, when the Royal Palace at Stockholm burned down, is reviewed in another chapter. A Dutch map of the Delaware, made about 1656, has also been lost.[898]

Mr. Asher[899] and Mr. Armstrong incline to the opinion that the earliest of the later group of maps made during the Dutch occupancy is the original state of what is called Dancker’s map, known under the title of Novi Belgii Novæque Angliæ necnon Pennsylvaniæ et Partis Virginiæ tabula, multis in locis emendata a Justo Danckers, and supposed to date between 1650 and 1656.[900] The map purporting to be the oldest, and which there is reason to believe was this earlier plate retouched, is the Novi Belgii, etc., tabula multis in locis emendata a Nicolao Joannis Visschero, of which Asher speaks of a copy in the Royal Library at the Hague.[901]

It was afterward included in what is known as Visscher’s Atlas Minor.[902] Visscher’s map, with its view of New Amsterdam, was reproduced in what is known as Van der Donck’s map, Nova Belgica sive Nieuw Nederlandt,[903] which appeared in the second edition of the Beschrijvinge van Nieuw Nederlant, 1656.

A. Bibliography.—In the bibliography of New Netherland, the first place must be given to the Bibliographical and Historical Essay on the Dutch Books and Pamphlets relating to New Netherland, by G. M. Asher, Amsterdam, 1854-1867, the work appearing in parts. It embodies the results of work in the royal library and in the royal archives at the Hague; at Leyden in the library of the University and in that of Dr. Bodel Nyenhuis, rich in maps, and particularly in the Thysiana Library, which he found a rich field; and at Amsterdam, among the extensive stock of Mr. Frederick Muller, without whose assistance, the author says, the book would not have been written.[904] In his Introduction he gives a succinct sketch of the history and geography of New Netherland.

Next in importance are the catalogues of Frederick Muller of Amsterdam, particularly the series, Catalogue of Books, Maps, and Plates on America,[905] begun in 1872, and which he calls “an essay towards a Dutch-American bibliography.” It was also under Mr. Muller’s direction and patronage that Mr. P. A. Tiele prepared his Mémoire bibliographique sur les journaux des navigateurs néerlandais réimprimés dans les collections de De Bry et de Hulsius, etc., Amsterdam, 1867. It covers those voyages not Dutch of which accounts have appeared in Dutch, as well as the distinctively Dutch collections. The compiler dedicated it to Mr. James Lenox, from whose rich collection he derived much help. Muller’s Catalogue (1872), no. 110; Stevens, Hist. Coll., i. 1,002.

The best American collection of books on New Netherland is probably that now in the Lenox Library. Mr. Asher said of it some years ago (Essay, p. xlix, sub anno 1867) that it was “absolutely complete.”

B. New Amsterdam.—The earliest accounts of the town by Wassenaer (1623), De Laet (1625), De Rasiere (1627), and Michaelis (1628), have already been mentioned. (Cf. the paper on the first settlement by the Dutch in Doc. Hist. N. Y., vol. iii.) Stuyvesant, in his letter to Nicoll in 1664, claimed that the town was founded in 1623. This statement is repeated in De la Croix’s book, with De Vries’s additions, published in Dutch as Algemeene Wereldt-Beschrijving, 1705. (Asher, no. 19.) O’Callaghan, New Netherland, ii. 210, has established that the town was incorporated in 1653.

The original Dutch records of New Amsterdam have been put into English in MS. volumes in the archives of the city, and some parts of them are printed in Valentine’s New York City Manual, and in Historical Magazine, xi. 33, 108, 170, 224, 354; xii. 30; xiii. 39, 168. Cf. paper on the development of its municipal government in the Dutch period, in Mag. of Amer. Hist., May, 1882, and the papers on the city of New York in Doc. Hist. N. Y., vols. i. and iii. Some notes on the Indian incursions in and about New Amsterdam during the Dutch period are in Valentine’s New York City Manual, 1863, p. 533. The principal histories of the town are Martha J. Lamb’s (1877), M. L. Booth’s (1859), W. L. Stone’s (1872), and David T. Valentine’s (1853). The last comes down only to 1750, and this and Lamb’s are of the most importance.

Something can be derived from the gatherings of J. F. Watson in his Annals of New York City and State, 1846, and the appendix to his Annals of Philadelphia, 1830. The reader will find interest in various local antiquarian quests, as exemplified in J. W. Gerard’s Old Streets of New York under the Dutch (1874).[906] A map of the original grants of village lots on the island, from the Dutch West India Company, is in the City Manual (1857), and in the same (1856) is a map showing the made and swampy lands, as indicating the original surface of the town. In other volumes (1852 and 1853), and in Valentine’s History, p. 379, is a modern plan of the city, showing the line of the original high-water marks and the location of the early farms. It is one of these farms, that of Dominie Bogardus, the pastor of the Dutch church, who so vigorously opposed Kieft’s plans, that is now the property of Trinity Church, and the source of a large revenue. (See the Key in Valentine’s History, p. 380.) The same serial preserves views of sundry landmarks, like the canal in Broad Street, of 1659 (in 1862, p. 515), a windmill of 1661 (in 1862, p. 547), a house built in 1626 (in 1847, p. 346). A plan of the fort built in 1633-1635 is in Valentine’s New York, p. 27; and at p. 38 is a plan of the town in 1642, as well as the author could make it out from existing data.

For the northern part of the island, James Riker’s History of Harlem, 1881, affords much interest, tracing more minutely than usual the associations of the early comers with their family stocks in Europe, and showing by a map the original locations of their house-lots at Harlem.

C. Local Histories.—The Editor is not aware of any considerable bibliography of New York local histories, except as they are included in F. B. Perkins’s Check List of American Local History. Some help may be derived from the Brinley and Alofsen Catalogues, and others of a classified character. We have indicated in another Note the labors of Mr. Munsell for the Albany region. An edition of G. Furman’s Antiquities of Long Island, edited by F. Moore in 1875, includes a bibliography of Long Island by Henry Onderdonk, Jr. The most considerable of all the local histories is Stiles’s History of Brooklyn, 1867-1870, which gives a map of the Breuckelen settlements in 1646. The Faust Club in 1865 issued (125 copies) an older book, G. Furman’s Notes of Brooklyn, which had originally appeared in 1824. Benj. F. Thompson’s History of Long Island, 2d ed., 1843, is the most comprehensive of the accounts of that island, while N. S. Prime’s History of Long Island is more particularly concerned with its ecclesiastical history. There are various lesser monographs on the island towns, like Riker’s Newton (1852), Onderdonk’s Hempstead (1878), etc. Cf. also Historical Magazine, viii. 89; and in the same, vi. 145, Mr. G. P. Disosway recounts the early history of Staten Island.

Mr. Fernow translated and edited in the Documents relative to the Colonial History of New York, vol. xiii., the papers in the State archives upon the history and settlements on the Hudson and the Mohawk (1630-1684), as he has said in the text, which must stand as the basis for much which is given in the special treatises of Bolton on West Chester County (or such thorough monographs as that of C. W. Baird on the History of Rye, 1781 in this county), P. H. Smith on Duchess County, 1877, not to name others. The more remote parts of the State have little or no connection with the Dutch period.

D. The Dutch Governors.—Mr. George Folsom has a paper on the governors in 2 N. Y. Hist. Coll., vol. i. On Peter Minuit, the first governor, there is a paper by J. B. Moore in N. Y. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1849, p. 73, and another in Historical Magazine, xiii. 205. An autograph of Kieft is given herewith. Of Stuyvesant, the last governor, who survived the surrender, and died in 1672 (Brodhead, ii. 183), we have various memorials. His portrait is preserved, belonging to Mr. Robert Van Rensselaer Stuyvesant, and has been engraved several times,—Dunlap’s New York, vol. i.; O’Callaghan’s New Netherland, vol. ii.; Lamb’s New York, i. 127; Gay’s Popular History of the United States, vol. ii. (Cf. Catalogue of the N. Y. Hist. Soc. Gallery, no. 67.) Two reminders of him long remained to New Yorkers,—his house in the Bowery, which is shown as it existed at the time of his death in Valentine’s New York, p. 53, and in his Manual, 1852, p. 407; and in Watson’s Annals of New York, p. 196, as it stood later perched upon so much of the original knoll as improvements had not removed. The old pear-tree associated with his name is depicted in Valentine’s Manual, 1861, p. 533, and in Lossing’s Hudson River, p. 416.

Mr. Fernow contributed to the Magazine of American History, ii. 540, a monograph on Stuyvesant’s journey to Esopus in 1658. See also 4 Massachusetts Historical Collections, vi. 533.

E. Levinus Hulsius’s Collection of Voyages.—The twenty-six parts of this work were originally issued between 1598 and 1650, and this long interval, as well as their German text finding more popular use than the Latin of De Bry, has conduced to make sets much rarer of Hulsius than of De Bry. Scholars also award Hulsius the possession of more judgment in compiling and translating than is claimed for De Bry. Asher printed in 1833 a Short Bibliographical Memoir of Hulsius, which became, when extended, his Bibliographical Essay on the Voyages and Travels of Hulsius and his Successors, in 1839; and in this he doubts if a perfect set of all the editions of all the parts had ever been got together. An approximate completeness, however, pertains to the sets in the Carter-Brown and Lenox libraries, as described in the Catalogue of the former, vol. i. p. 467, and in the Contributions to a Catalogue of the Lenox Library, no. i, New York, 1877. The set described in this shows all the first editions of the twenty-six parts, with second issues of three of them, Latin as well as German of two of them; two parts successively issued of one of them (part xi.) and other copies with variations of three of them. There are eighteen second editions, counting variations (one is lacking); nine third editions or variations; six fourth editions (with one lacking); two fifth editions (with one lacking). This would indicate that an absolutely complete set, to include every part, edition, and variety, would increase the twenty-six parts to seventy-three. The Carter-Brown copy seems to be less perfect. The Huth Catalogue shows a complete series of first editions only.

Tiele’s Mémoire Bibliographique pertains to such voyages in this collection as were made by Dutch navigators. Sabin’s Dictionary, viii. 526, gives fuller collations for the parts relating to America. Quaritch printed a collation in 1860.

Bohn published a collation of Lord Lyndsay’s copy.

The Lenox Library possesses MS. Collations of the Grenville and other sets in the British Museum, of those in the Royal Library, Berlin, and the City Library of Hamburg.

Sets of such completeness as collectors may hope to attain have been quoted at £335 (Crowninshield sale, 1860,—all first editions but one), and 6,700 and 4,500 marks.

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