Voyages of Samuel De Champlain Volume I Part 8

73. Pierre Jeannin was born at Autun, in 1540, and died about 1622. He began the practice of law at Dijon, in 1569. Though a Catholic, he always counselled tolerant measures in the treatment of the Protestants. By his influence he prevented the ma.s.sacre of the Protestants at Dijon in 1572. He was a Councillor, and afterward President, of the Parliament of Dijon. He was the private adviser of the Duke of Mayenne. He united himself with the party of the League in 1589. He negotiated the peace between Mayenne and Henry IV. The king became greatly attached to him, and appointed him a Councillor of State and Superintendent of Finances. He held many offices and did great service to the State. After the death of the king, Marie de Medicis, the regent, continued him as Superintendent of Finances.

74. Count de Soissons, Charles de Bourbon, was born at Nogent-le-Rotrou, in 1556, and died Nov. 1, 1612. He was educated in the Catholic religion.

He acted for a time with the party of the League, but, falling in love with Catherine, the sister of Henry IV., better to secure his object he abandoned the League and took a military command under Henry III., and distinguished himself for bravery when the king was besieged in Tours.

After the death of the king, he espoused the cause of Henry IV., was made Grand Master of France, and took part in the siege of Paris. He attempted a secret marriage with Catherine, but was thwarted; and the unhappy lovers were compelled, by the Duke of Sully, to renounce their matrimonial intentions. He had been Governor of Dauphiny, and, at the time of his death, was Governor of Normandy, with a pension of 50,000 crowns.

75. Prince de Conde, Henry de Bourbon II., the posthumous son of the first Henry de Bourbon, was born at Saint Jean d'Angely, in 1588. He married, in 1609, Charlotte Marguerite de Montmorency, the sister of Henry, the Duke de Montmorency, who succeeded him as the Viceroy of New France. To avoid the impertinent gallantries of Henry IV., who had fallen in love with this beautiful Princess, Conde and his wife left France, and did not return till the death of the king. He headed a conspiracy against the Regent, Marie de Medicis, and was thrown into prison on the first of September, 1616, where he remained three years. Influenced by ambition, and more particularly by his avarice, he forced his son Louis, Le Grand Conde, to marry the niece of Cardinal Richelieu, Claire Clemence de Maille-Breze. He did much to confer power and influence upon his family, largely through his avarice, which was his chief characteristic. The wit of Voltaire attributes his crowning glory to his having been the father of the great Conde. During the detention of the Prince de Conde in prison, the Mareschal de Themins was Acting Viceroy of New France, having been appointed by Marie de Medicis, the Queen Regent.--_Vide Voyages du Sieur de Champlain_, Paris, 1632, p.

211.

76. In making the portage from what is now known as Portage du Fort to Muskrat Lake, a distance of about nine miles, Champlain, though less heavily loaded than his companions, carried three French arquebusses, three oars, his cloak, and some small articles, and was at the same time bitterly oppressed by swarms of hungry and insatiable mosquitoes.

On the old portage road, traversed by Champlain and his party at this time, in 1613, an astrolabe, inscribed 1603, was found in 1867. The presumptive evidence that this instrument was lost by Champlain is stated in a brochure by Mr. O. H. Marshall.--_Vide Magazine of American History_ for March, 1879.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAMPLAIN OBTAINS MISSIONARIES FOR NEW FRANCE.--MEETS THE INDIANS AT MONTREAL AND ENGAGES IN A WAR AGAINST THE IROQUOIS.--HIS JOURNEY TO THE HURONS, AND WINTER IN THEIR COUNTRY.

During the whole of the year 1614, Champlain remained in France, occupied for the most part in adding new members to his company of a.s.sociates, and in forming and perfecting such plans as were clearly necessary for the prosperity and success of the colony. His mind was particularly absorbed in devising means for the establishment of the Christian faith in the wilds of America. Hitherto nothing whatever had been done in this direction, if we except the efforts of Poutrincourt on the Atlantic coast, which had already terminated in disaster. [77] No missionary of any sort had had hitherto set his foot upon that part of the soil of New France lying within the Gulf of St. Lawrence. [78] A fresh interest had been awakened in the mind of Champlain. He saw its importance in a new light. He sought counsel and advice from various persons whose wisdom commended them to his attention.

Among the rest was Louis Houel, an intimate friend, who held some office about the person of the king, and who was the chief manager of the salt works at Brouage. This gentleman took a hearty interest in the project, and a.s.sured Champlain that it would not be difficult to raise the means of sending out three or four Fathers, and, moreover, that he knew some of the order of the Recollects, belonging to a convent at Brouage, whose zeal he was sure would be equal to the undertaking. On communicating with them, he found them quite ready to engage in the work. Two of them were sent to Paris to obtain authority and encouragement from the proper sources. It happened that about this time the chief dignitaries of the church were in Paris, attending a session of the Estates. The bishops and cardinals were waited upon by Champlain, and their zeal awakened and their co-operation secured in raising the necessary means for sustaining the mission. After the usual negotiations and delays, the object was fully accomplished; fifteen hundred _livres_ were placed in the hands of Champlain for outfit and expenses, and four Recollect friars embarked with him at Honfleur, on the s.h.i.+p "St. etienne," on the 24th of April, 1615, viz., Denis Jamay, Jean d'Olbeau, Joseph le Caron, and the lay-brother Pacifique du Plessis. [79]

On their arrival at Quebec, Champlain addressed himself immediately to the preparation of lodgings for the missionaries and the erection of a chapel for the celebration of divine service. The Fathers were impatient to enter the fields of labor severally a.s.signed to them. Joseph le Caron was appointed to visit the Hurons in their distant forest home, concerning which he had little or no information; but he nevertheless entered upon the duty with manly courage and Christian zeal. Jean d'Olbeau a.s.sumed the mission to the Montagnais, embracing the region about Tadoussac and the river Saguenay, while Denis Jamay and Pacifique du Plessis took charge of the chapel at Quebec.

At the earliest moment possible Champlain hastened to the rendezvous at Montreal, to meet the Indians who had already reached there on their annual visit for trade. The chiefs were in raptures of delight on seeing their old friend again, and had a grand scheme to propose. They had not forgotten that Champlain had often promised to aid them in their wars. They approached the subject, however, with moderation and diplomatic wisdom.

They knew perfectly well that the trade in peltry was greatly desired, in fact that it was indispensable to the French. The substance of what they had to say was this. It had become now, if not impossible, exceedingly hazardous, to bring their furs to market. Their enemies, the Iroquois, like so many prowling wolves, were sure to be on their trail as they came down the Ottawa, and, inc.u.mbered with their loaded canoes, the struggle must be unequal, and it was nearly impossible for them ever to be winners. The only solution of the difficulty known to them, or which they cared to consider, as in all Indian warfare, was to annihilate their enemies utterly and wipe out their name for ever. Let this be done, and the fruits of peace would return, their commerce would be safe, prosperous, and greatly augmented.

Such were the reasons presented by the allies. But there were other considerations, likewise, which influenced the mind of Champlain. It was necessary to maintain a close and firm alliance with the Indians in order to extend the French discoveries and domain into new and more distant regions, and on this extension of French influence depended their hope of converting the savages to the Christian faith. The force of these considerations could not be resisted. Champlain decided that, under the circ.u.mstances, it was necessary to give them the desired a.s.sistance.

A general a.s.sembly was called, and the nature and extent of the campaign fully considered. It was to be of vastly greater proportions than any that had hitherto been proposed. The Indians offered to furnish two thousand five hundred and fifty men, but they were to be gathered together from different and distant points. The journey must, therefore, be long and perilous. The objective point, viz., a celebrated Iroquois fort, could not be reached by the only feasible route in a less distance than eight hundred or nine hundred miles, and it would require an absence of three or four months. Preparations for the journey were entered upon at once. Champlain visited Quebec to make arrangements for his long absence. On his return to Montreal, the Indians, impatient of delay, had already departed, and Father Joseph le Caron had gone with them to his distant field of missionary labor among the Hurons.

On the 9th of July, 1615, Champlain embarked, taking with him an interpreter, probably Etienne Brule, a French servant, and ten savages, who, with their equipments, were to be accommodated in two canoes. They entered the Riviere des Prairies, which flows into the St. Lawrence some leagues east of Montreal, crossing the Lake of the Two Mountains, pa.s.sed up the Ottawa, taking the same route which he had traversed some years before, revisiting its long succession of reaches, its placid lakes, impetuous rapids, and magnificent falls, and at length arrived at the point where the river, by an abrupt angle, begins to flow from the northwest. Here, leaving the Ottawa, they entered the Mattawan, pa.s.sing down this river into Lac du Talon, thence into Lac la Tortue, and by a short portage, into Lake Nip.i.s.sing. After remaining here two days, entertained generously by the Nip.i.s.singian chiefs, they crossed the lake, and, following the channel of French River, entered Lake Huron, or rather the Georgian Bay. They coasted along until they reached the northern limits of the county of Simcoe. Here they disembarked and entered the territory of their old friends and allies, the Hurons.

The domain of this tribe consisted of a peninsula formed by the Georgian Bay, the river Severn, and Lake Simcoe, at the farthest, not more than forty by twenty-five miles in extent, but more generally cultivated by the native population, and of a richer soil than any region hitherto explored north of the St. Lawrence and the lakes. They visited four of their villages and were cordially received and feasted on Indian corn, squashes, and fish, with some variety in the methods of cooking. They then proceeded to Carhagouha, [80] a town fortified with a triple palisade of wood thirty-five feet in height. Here they found the Recollect Father Joseph Le Caron, who, having preceded them but a few days, and not antic.i.p.ating the visit, was filled with raptures of astonishment and joy. The good Father was intent upon his pious work. On the 12th of August, surrounded by his followers, he formally erected a cross as a symbol of the faith, and on the same day they celebrated the ma.s.s and chanted TE DEUM LAUDAMUS for the first time.

Lingering but two days, Champlain and ten of the French, eight of whom had belonged to the Suite of Le Caron, proceeded slowly towards Cahiague, [81]

the rendezvous where the mustering hosts of the savage warriors were to set forth together upon their hostile excursion into the country of the Iroquois. Of the Huron villages visited by them, six are particularly mentioned as fortified by triple palisades of wood. Cahiague, the capital, encircled two hundred large cabins within its wooden walls. It was situated on the north of Lake Simcoe, ten or twelve miles from this body of water, surrounded by a country rich in corn, squashes, and a great variety of small fruits, with plenty of game and fish. When the warriors had mostly a.s.sembled, the motley crowd, bearing their bark canoes, meal, and equipments on their shoulders, moved down in a southwesterly direction till they reached the narrow strait that unites Lake Chouchiching with Lake Simcoe, where the Hurons had a famous fis.h.i.+ng wear. Here they remained some time for other more tardy bands to join them. At this point they despatched twelve of the most stalwart savages, with the interpreter, etienne Brule, on a dangerous journey to a distant tribe dwelling on the west of the Five Nations, to urge them to hasten to the fort of the Iroquois, as they had already received word from them that they would join them in this campaign.

Champlain and his allies soon left the fis.h.i.+ng wear and coasted along the northeastern sh.o.r.e of Lake Simcoe until they reached its most eastern border, when they made a portage to Sturgeon Lake, thence sweeping down Pigeon and Stony Lakes, through the Otonabee into Rice Lake, the River Trent, the Bay of Quinte, and finally rounding the eastern point of Amherst Island, they were fairly on the waters of Lake Ontario, just as it merges into the great River St. Lawrence, and where the Thousand Islands begin to loom into sight. Here they crossed the extremity of the lake at its outflow into the river, pausing at this important geographical point to take the lat.i.tude, which, by his imperfect instruments, Champlain found to be 43 deg. north. [82]

Sailing down to the southern side of the lake, after a distance, by their estimate, of about fourteen leagues, they landed and concealed their canoes in a thicket near the sh.o.r.e. Taking their arms, they proceeded along the lake some ten miles, through a country diversified with meadows, brooks, ponds, and beautiful forests filled with plenty of wild game, when they struck inland, apparently at the mouth of Little Salmon River. Advancing in a southerly direction, along the course of this stream, they crossed Oneida River, an outlet of the lake of the same name. When within about ten miles of the fort which they intended to capture, they met a small party of savages, men, women, and children, bound on a fis.h.i.+ng excursion. Although unarmed, nevertheless, according to their custom, they took them all prisoners of war, and began to inflict the usual tortures, but this was dropped on Champlain's indignant interference. The next day, on the 10th of October, they reached the great fortress of the Iroquois, after a journey of four days from their landing, a distance loosely estimated at from twenty-five to thirty leagues. Here they found the Iroquois in their fields, industriously gathering in their autumnal harvest of corn and squashes. A skirmish ensued, in which several were wounded on both sides.

The fort, a drawing of which has been left us by Champlain, was situated a few miles south of the eastern terminus of Oneida Lake, on a small stream that winds its way in a northwesterly direction, and finally loses itself in the same body of water. This rude military structure was hexagonal in form, one of its sides bordering immediately upon a small pond, while four of the other laterals, two on the right and two on the left were washed by a channel of water flowing along their bases. [83] The side opposite the pond alone had an un.o.bstructed land approach. As an Indian military work, it was of great strength. It was made of the trunks of trees, as large as could be conveniently transported. These were set in the ground, forming four concentric palisades, not more than six inches apart, thirty feet in height, interlaced and bound together near the top, supporting a gallery of double paling extending around the whole enclosure, proof not only against the flint-headed arrows of the Indian, but against the leaden bullets of the French arquebus. Port-holes were opened along the gallery, through which effective service could be done upon a.s.sailants by hurling stones and other missiles with which they were well provided. Gutters were laid along between the palisades to conduct water to every part of the fortification for extinguis.h.i.+ng fire, in case of need.

It was obvious to Champlain that this fort was a complete protection to the Iroquois, unless an opening could be made in its walls. This could not be easily done by any force which he and his allies had at their command. His only hope was in setting fire to the palisades on the land side. This required the dislodgement of the enemy, who were posted in large numbers on the gallery, and the protection of the men in kindling the fire, and s.h.i.+elding it, when kindled, against the extinguis.h.i.+ng torrents which could be poured from the water-spouts and gutters of the fort. He consequently ordered two instruments to be made with which he hoped to overcome these obstacles. One was a wooden tower or frame-work, dignified by Champlain as a _cavalier_, somewhat higher than the palisades, on the top of which was an enclosed platform where three or four sharp-shooters could in security clear the gallery, and thus destroy the effective force of the enemy. The other was a large wooden s.h.i.+eld, or _mantelet_, under the protection of which they could in safety approach and kindle a fire at the base of the fort, and protect the fire thus kindled from being extinguished by water coming from above.

When all was in readiness, two hundred savages bore the framed tower and planted it near the palisades. Three arquebusiers mounted it and poured a deadly fire upon the defenders on the gallery. The battle now began and raged fiercely for three hours, but Champlain strove in vain to carry out any plan of attack. The savages rushed to and fro in a frenzy of excitement, filling the air with their discordant yells, observing no method and heeding no commands. The wooden s.h.i.+elds were not even brought forward, and the burning of the fort was undertaken with so little judgment and skill that the fire was instantly extinguished by the fountains of water let loose by the skilful defenders through the gutters and water-spouts of the fort.

The sharp-shooters on the tower killed and wounded a large number, but nevertheless no effective impression was made upon the fortress. Two chiefs and fifteen men of the allies were wounded, while one was killed, or died of wounds received in a skirmish before the formal attack upon the fort began. After a frantic and desultory fight of three hours, the attacking savages lost their courage and began to clamor for a retreat. No persuasions could induce them to renew the attack.

After lingering four days in vain expectation of the arrival of the allies to whom Brule had been sent, the retreat began. Champlain had been wounded in the knee and leg, and was unable to walk. Litters in the form of baskets were fabricated, into which the wounded were packed in a constrained and uncomfortable att.i.tude, and carried on the shoulders of the men. As the task of the carriers was lightened by frequent relays, and, as there was little baggage to impede their progress, the march was rapid. In three days they had reached their canoes, which had remained in the place of their concealment near the sh.o.r.e of the lake, an estimated distance of twenty-five or thirty leagues from the fort.

Such was the character of a great battle among the contending savages, an undisciplined host, without plan or well-defined purpose, rus.h.i.+ng in upon each other in the heat of a sudden frenzy of pa.s.sion, striking an aimless blow, and following it by a hasty and cowardly retreat. They had, for the time being at least, no ulterior design. They fought and expected no substantial reward of their conflict. The sweetness of personal revenge and the blotting out a few human lives were all they hoped for or cared at this time to attain. The invading party had apparently destroyed more than they had themselves lost, and this was doubtless a suitable reward for the hazards and hards.h.i.+ps of the campaign.

The retreating warriors lingered ten days on the sh.o.r.e of Lake Ontario, at the point where they had left their canoes, beguiling the time in preparing for hunting and fis.h.i.+ng excursions, and for their journey to their distant homes. Champlain here took occasion to call the attention of the allies to their promise to conduct him safely to his home. The head of the St.

Lawrence as it flows from the Ontario is less than two hundred miles from Montreal, a journey by canoes not difficult to make. Champlain desired to return this way, and demanded an escort. The chiefs were reluctant to grant his request. Masters in the art of making excuses, they saw many insuperable obstacles. In reality, they did not desire to part with him, but wished to avail themselves of his knowledge, counsel, and personal aid against their enemies. When one obstacle after another gave way, and when volunteers were found ready to accompany him, no canoes could be spared for the journey. This closed the debate. Champlain was not prepared for the exposure and hards.h.i.+p of a winter among the savages, but there was left to him no choice. He submitted as gracefully as he could, and with such patience as necessity made it possible for him to command.

The bark flotilla was at length ready to leave the borders of the present State of New York. According to their usual custom in canoe navigation, they crept along the sh.o.r.e of the Ontario, revisiting an island at the eastern extremity of the lake, not unlikely the same place where Champlain had stopped to take the lat.i.tude a few weeks before. Crossing over from the island to the mainland on the north, they appear to have continued up the Cataraqui Creek east of Kingston, and, after a short portage, entered Loughborough Lake, a sheet of water then renowned as a resort of waterfowl in vast numbers and varieties. Having bagged all they desired, they proceeded inland twenty or thirty miles, to the objective point of their excursion, which was a famous hunting-ground for wild game. Here they constructed a deer-trap, an enclosure into which the unsuspecting animals were beguiled and from which it was impossible for them to escape.

Deer-hunting was of all pursuits, if we except war, the most exciting to the Indians. It not only yielded the richest returns to their larder, and supplied more fully other domestic wants, but it possessed the element of fascination, which has always given zest and inspiration to the sportsman.

They lingered here thirty-eight days, during which time they captured one hundred and twenty deer. They purposely prolonged their stay that the frost might seal up the marshes, ponds, and rivers over which they were to pa.s.s.

Early in December they began to arrange into convenient packages their peltry and venison, the fat of which was to serve as b.u.t.ter in their rude huts during the icy months of winter. On the 4th of the month they broke camp and began their weary march, each savage bearing a burden of not less than a hundred pounds, while Champlain himself carried a package of about twenty. Some of them constructed rude sledges, on which they easily dragged their luggage over the ice and snow. During the progress of the journey, a warm current came sweeping up from the south, melted the ice, flooded the marshes, and for four days the overburdened and weary travellers struggled on, knee-deep in mud and water and slush. Without experience, a lively imagination alone can picture the toil, suffering, and exposure of a journey through the tangled forests and half-submerged bogs and marshes of Canada, in the most inclement season of the year.

At length, on the 23d of December, after nineteen days of excessive toil, they arrived at Cahiague, the chief town of the Hurons, the rendezvous of the allied tribes, whence they had set forth on the first of September, nearly four months before, on what may seem to us a bootless raid. To the savage warriors, however, it doubtless seemed a different thing. They had been enabled to bring home valuable provisions, which were likely to be important to them when an unsuccessful hunt might, as it often did, leave them nearly dest.i.tute of food. They had lost but a single man, and this was less than they had antic.i.p.ated, and, moreover, was the common fortune of war. They had invaded the territory and made their presence felt in the very home of their enemies, and could rejoice in having inflicted upon them more injury than they had themselves received. Though they had not captured or annihilated them, they had done enough to inspire and fully sustain their own grovelling pride.

To Champlain even, although the expedition had been accompanied by hards.h.i.+p and suffering and some disappointments, it was by no means a failure. He had explored an interesting and important region; he had gone where European feet had never trod, and had seen what European eyes had never seen; he had, moreover, planted the lilies of France in the chief Indian towns, and at all suitable and important points, and these were to be witnesses of possession and owners.h.i.+p in what his exuberant imagination saw as a vast French empire rising into power and opulence in the western world.

It was now the last week in December, and the deep snows and piercing cold rendered it impossible for Champlain or even the allied warriors to continue their journey further. The Algonquins and Nip.i.s.sings became guests of the Hurons for the winter, encamping within their princ.i.p.al walled town, or perhaps in some neighboring village not far removed.

After the rest of a few days at Cahiague, where he had been hospitably entertained, Champlain took his departure for Carhagouha, a smaller village, where his friend the Recollect Father, Joseph le Caron, had taken up his abode as the pioneer missionary to the Hurons. It was important for Le Caron to obtain all the information possible, not only of the Hurons, but of all the surrounding tribes, as he contemplated returning to France the next summer to report to his patrons upon the character, extent, and hopefulness of the missionary field which he had been sent out to explore.

Champlain was happy to avail himself of his company in executing the explorations which he desired to make.

They accordingly set out together on the 15th of January, and penetrated the trackless and show-bound forests, and, proceeding in a western direction, after a journey of two days reached a tribe called _Petuns_, an agricultural people, similar in habits and mode of life to the Hurons. By them they were hospitably received, and a great festival, in which all their neighbors partic.i.p.ated, was celebrated in honor of their new guests.

Having visited seven or eight of their villages, the explorers pushed forward still further west, when they came to the settlement of an interesting tribe, which they named _Cheveux-Releves_, or the "lofty haired," an appellation suggested by the mode of dressing their hair.

On their return from this expedition, they found, on reaching the encampment of the Nip.i.s.sings, who were wintering in the Huron territory, that a disagreement had arisen between the Hurons and their Algonquin guests, which had already a.s.sumed a dangerous character. An Iroquois captive taken in the late war had been awarded to the Algonquins, according to the custom of dividing the prisoners among the several bands of allies, and, finding him a skilful hunter, they resolved to spare his life, and had actually adopted him as one of their tribe. This had offended the Hurons, who expected he would be put to the usual torture, and they had commissioned one of their number, who had instantly killed the unfortunate prisoner by plunging a knife into his heart. The a.s.sa.s.sin, in turn, had been set upon by the Algonquins and put to death on the spot. The perpetrators of this last act had regretted the occurrence, and had done what they could to heal, the breach by presents: but there was, nevertheless, a smouldering feeling of hostility still lingering in both parties, which might at any moment break out into open conflict.

It was obvious to Champlain that a permanent disagreement between these two important allies would be a great calamity to themselves as well as disastrous to his own plans. It was his purpose, therefore, to bring them, if possible, to a cordial pacification. Proceeding cautiously and with great deliberation, he made himself acquainted with all the facts of the quarrel, and then called an a.s.sembly of both parties and clearly set before them in all its lights the utter foolishness of allowing a circ.u.mstance of really small importance to interfere with an alliance between two great tribes; an alliance necessary to their prosperity, and particularly in the war they were carrying on against their common enemy, the Iroquois. This appeal of Champlain was so convincing that when the a.s.sembly broke up all professed themselves entirely satisfied, although the Algonquins were heard to mutter their determination never again to winter in the territory of the Hurons, a wise and not unnatural conclusion.

Champlain's constant intercourse with these tribes for many months in their own homes, his explorations, observations, and inquiries, enabled him to obtain a comprehensive, definite, and minute knowledge of their character, religion, government, and mode of life. As the fruit of these investigations, he prepared in the leisure of the winter an elaborate memoir, replete with discriminating details, which is and must always be an unquestionable authority on the subject of which it treats.

ENDNOTES:

77. De Poutrincourt obtained a confirmation from Henry IV. of the gift to him of Port Royal by De Monts, and proceeded to establish a colony there in 1608. In 1611, a Jesuit mission was planted by the Fathers Pierre Biard and Enemond Ma.s.se. It was chiefly patronized by a bevy of ladies, under the leaders.h.i.+p of the Marchioness de Guerchville, in close a.s.sociation with Marie de Medicis, the queen-regent, Madame de Verneuil, and Madame de Soudis. Although De Poutrincourt was a devout member of the Roman Church, the missionaries were received with reluctance, and between them and the patentee and his lieutenant there was a constant and irrepressible discord. The lady patroness, the Marchioness de Guerchville, determined to abandon Port Royal and plant a new colony at Kadesquit, on the site of the present city of Bangor, in the State of Maine. A colony was accordingly organized, which included the fathers, Quentin and Lalemant with the lay brother, Gilbert du Thet, and arrived at La Heve in La Cadie, on the 6th of May, 1613, under the conduct of Sieur de la Saussaye. From there they proceeded to Port Royal, took the two missionaries, Biard and Ma.s.se, on board, and coasted along the borders of Maine till they came to Mount Desert, and finally determined to plant their colony on that island. A short time after the arrival of the colony, before they were in any condition for defence, Captain Samuel Argall, from the English colony in Virginia, suddenly appeared, and captured and transported the whole colony, and subsequently that at Port Royal, on the alleged ground that they were intruders on English soil. Thus disastrously ended Poutrincourt's colony at Port Royal, and the Marchioness de Guerchville's mission at Mount Desert.--_Vide Voyages par le Sr. de Champlain_, Paris ed. 1632, pp. 98-114. _Shea's Charlevoix_, Vol. I.

pp. 260-286.

78. Champlain had tried to induce Madame de Guerchville to send her missionaries to Quebec, to avoid the obstacles which they had encountered at Port Royal; but, for the simple reason that De Monts was a Calvinist, she would not listen to it.--_Vide Shea's Charlevoix_, Vol. I. p. 274; _Voyages du Sieur de Champlain_, Paris ed. 1632, pp.

112, 113.

79. _Vide Histoire du Canada, par Gabriel Sagard_, Paris, 1636, pp. 11-12.

80. _Carhagouha_, named by the French _Saint Gabriel_. Dr. J. C. Tache, of Ottawa, Canada, who has given much attention to the subject, fixes this village in the central part of the present towns.h.i.+p of Tiny, in the county of Simcoe.--_MS. Letter_, Feb. 11, 1880.

81. _Cahiague. Dr. Tache places this village on the extreme eastern limit of the towns.h.i.+p of Orillia. in the same county, in the bend of the river Severn, a short distance after it leaves Lake Couchiching. The Indian warriors do not appear to have launched their flotilla of bark canoes until they reached the fis.h.i.+ng station at the outlet of Lake Simcoe This village was subsequently known as _Saint-Jean Baptiste_.

82. The lat.i.tude of Champlain is here far from correct. It is not possible to determine the exact place at which it was taken. It could not, however have been at a point much below 44 deg. 7'.

83. There has naturally been some difficulty in fixing satisfactorily the site of the Iroquois fort attacked by Champlain and his allies.

The sources of information on which we are to rely in identifying the site of this fort are in general the same that we resort to in fixing any locality mentioned in his explorations, and are to be found in Champlain's journal of this expedition, the map contained in what is commonly called his edition of 1632, and the engraved picture of the fort executed by Champlain himself, which was published in connection with his journal. The information thus obtained is to be considered in connection with the natural features of the country through which the expedition pa.s.sed, with such allowance for inexactness as the history, nature, and circ.u.mstances of the evidence render necessary.