II. JACQUES CARTIER AND HIS SUCCESSORS…

II. 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.”

CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.

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.

THE CARTOGRAPHY

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]

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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III. 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.

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Book I

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.

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Part II

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.

CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.

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.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

IV. 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.

[Illustration: PORT ROYAL, OR ANNAPOLIS BASIN (after Lescarbot).

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.

CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.

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.

EDITORIAL NOTES.

=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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