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Editor: Norton Shaw

WORKS ISSUED BY

The Hakluyt Society.

SAMUEL CHAMPLAIN.

Edited by Norton Shaw.

Burt Franklin, Publisher New York, New York

Published by Burt Franklin 514 West 113th Street New York 25, N.Y.

Originally Published by The Hakluyt Society Reprinted by Permission

Printed in the U.S.A.

THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY.

SIR RODERICK IMPEY MURCHISON, G.C.St.S., F.R.S., D.C.L., Corr. Mem. Inst. Fr., Hon. Mem. Imp. Acad. So. St. Petersburg, &c., &c., PRESIDENT.

THE MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE. } }VICE-PRESIDENTS. REAR-ADMIRAL C. R. DRINKWATER BETHUNE, C.B. }

RT. HON. LORD BROUGHTON.

BERIAH BOTFIELD, ESQ.

THE LORD ALFRED SPENCER CHURCHILL.

CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE, ESQ., F.S.A.

RT. HON. SIR DAVID DUNDAS.

SIR HENRY ELLIS, K.H., F.R.S.

JOHN FORSTER, ESQ.

R. W. GREY, ESQ., M.P.

EGERTON HARCOURT, ESQ.

JOHN WINTER JONES, ESQ., F.S.A.

HIS EXCELLENCY THE COUNT DE LAVRADIO.

RT. HON. ROBERT LOWE, M.P.

R. H. MAJOR, ESQ., F.S.A.

SIR HENRY RAWLINSON, K.C.B.

THE EARL OF SHEFFIELD.

CLEMENTS R. MARKHAM, ESQ., HONORARY SECRETARY.

INTRODUCTION.

M. F?ret obtained this valuable document from a resident in Dieppe, where it has been for an unknown time; and it is more than probable that it had been in the possession of M. de Chastes, governor of the town and castle of Dieppe, who was Champlain's chief friend and protector, under whose auspices he had been employed in the war in Brittany against the League, and by whom, after his return from the West Indies, he was sent to Canada. To him, it is most likely that Champlain would present a narrative of his voyage. On M. de Chastes' death, the manuscript probably passed into the possession of the Convent of the Minimes at Dieppe, to which he was a great benefactor during his life, and by testament after his death. He was also, by his desire, buried in the church of the convent. The library of the Minime fathers was, with the rest of their property, and that of the other convents of the town, dispersed at the great Revolution; but most of the books remained at Dieppe, as may be seen by a reference to the numerous works which have gradually found their way, by gift or purchase, to the "Public Library" of that town, bearing inscriptions as having belonged to the convent.

The relation of this voyage was never published, and this should rather confirm the supposition that the manuscript had been presented to M. Chastes. It was evidently finished in haste; as the omission of several drawings, which are mentioned but not inserted, and the character of the writing, shews. Champlain returned from this voyage early in 1602, and before the autumn of the year was occupied in making preparations for his first voyage to Canada, before his return from which in the next year, 1603, M. de Chastes had died. Had Champlain kept the manuscript of his West India voyage, he would surely have published it in 1604, at the same time that the account of his first expedition to Canada was printed, and to none is it so likely that he would have given his "Brief Discourse" as to his best friend and patron, at whose death it would pass into private hands, or the Minime Convent, and be lost sight of.

The narrative is highly interesting as exhibiting the state of some of the West India Islands two hundred and fifty years ago, many of them being then uninhabited by Europeans; and of the condition of Mexico, and of the Spanish policy there, where no foreigner was then permitted to set his foot. Gage, who travelled some five and twenty years after Champlain, bears witness to the difficulty of proceeding thither, being obliged to hide himself in an empty biscuit-cask to avoid the search of the Spanish officials, till the vessel in which he had embarked should sail.

The account of the capture of Porto-rico, by the Earl of Cumberland, and the state in which it appeared, after the English had abandoned the island, is curious; and the combat with the Anglo-Franco-Flemish fleet, amusing. The idea of the junction of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans is also remarkable.

The accuracy of Champlain's observations of all that he saw, is evident; as to the hearsay descriptions, we may entertain doubts of the fidelity of his informant, but not of the good faith of the narrator. He had a certain amount of credulity in his character, the more remarkable in a man of such natural penetration and sagacity; but the belief in strange monsters was prevalent before, during, and for a long time after, his epoch; and it was the more to be excused from the hermetically closed state of the Spanish colonies, and the strange stories to which the consequent mystery gave rise. The curious details of the "Brief Discourse" seemed worthy of the attention of the geographer, the naturalist, and of the inquiring general reader. As the founder of the capital of our principal North American colony, Champlain's name is, in some sort, associated with English adventure. With that idea, permission was requested of M. F?ret, to translate this narrative into English, which was most kindly and unhesitatingly granted by him. In the translation, endeavour has been made to preserve Champlain's style, as much as possible. The drawings are fac-similes of those in the manuscript. Discoverers are general benefactors: after a time, all nations profit by their labours. In Champlain's case, we are the principal gainers; but for his indomitable courage, enterprise, and determination, Quebec might never have existed, the colonization of Canada have been indefinitely retarded, and instead of a valuable country, advanced in civilization, and sufficing to itself, England might have conquered only a small colony struggling for existence, or scattered and insignificant settlements, feebly subsisting on a precarious and badly organized trade with native tribes. For nearly a century Champlain's predecessors had endeavoured, with all means and appliances, to found colonies in various parts of North America; all failed, and, for long after his time, Canada remained in a semi-torpid state. It required the solid foundations laid down by Champlain, to enable the young settlement to pass through the struggles of its infancy and arrive at maturity. None were found capable of carrying out his views for years after his death. Had he died earlier, no one could have replaced him; had he not lived, in all probability expedition after expedition would, as before, have been sent out with the same success which had attended all previous attempts, from Cartier to De la Roche.

Notes have been made on the various subjects which appear to require some explanation.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF CHAMPLAIN.

It will be well, perhaps, to preface the notice of Champlain's career with a rapid sketch of the various expeditions, discoveries, and attempts at colonisation, of the French in North America, from the discoveries of Sebastian Cabot, in 1497, to the beginning of the seventeenth century.

The errors, disasters, and failures of his predecessors will throw out in stronger relief the sound common sense and sagacity, the determined courage and unfaltering resolution, and the prudent wariness, which enabled Champlain to note and avoid their errors, to meet and to overcome difficulties, to foresee and to prepare for possible evil contingencies.

It is certain that the French were among the first, if not the very first, who followed in the track, and profited by the discovery, of Cabot. The Basques, Bretons, and Normans, as early as 1504, practised the cod fishery along the coast and on the Great Bank of Newfoundland--the ancestors, probably, of the Basques and Bretons who, a century later, so stoutly resisted the pretensions of the companies which were then forming, to the exclusive privilege of the fishery and trade in those parts.

In 1506, Jean Denys, of Harfleur, published a map of the newly known country, and, two years after, a pilot of Dieppe, named Thomas Aubert, commanding a vessel named the "Pens?e," belonging to Jean Ange, father of the celebrated Vicomte de Dieppe, brought a North American Indian with him to France.

Navarrete and Ramusio.

In the year 1518, the Baron de L?ry undertook a voyage to North America with the intention of forming a settlement; but, being detained at sea for a long time, was obliged to return to France without accomplishing his object, leaving on the Isle des Sables and at Campseau his cattle and pigs, which multiplied considerably, and were subsequently of the greatest service to certain of the Marquis de la Roche's people, who, about eighty years later, were left on Sable Island, without any other resource but fish and the flesh of the cattle they found there.

Fournier.

In 1524, Francis I sent Giovanni Ferazzano, a Florentine, on an expedition of discovery to the coast of North America. The only document extant of this voyage is a letter from Ferazzano to the king, dated the 8th July, 1524, wherein he supposes that His Majesty is acquainted with his progress, the events of the voyage, and the success of this first attempt. In the following year he again sailed, and in March arrived at the coast of Florida. He ranged the coast from about the 30th to the 50th degree north latitude, as far as an island which the Bretons had before discovered. Ferazzano took possession, in the name of the most Christian king, of all the country which he visited. The next year he undertook a third voyage, of which nothing authentic was ever known, save that he perished in it.

Ramusio. Mark Lescarbot, who wrote a history of New France , also gives a detailed account of the voyages of Ferazzano.

Fournier quaintly says: "Il avait l'intention d'aller jusques au P?le, mais il fust pris et mang? par des sauvages."

In 1534, Jacques Cartier, of St. Malo, sailed thence on the 20th April, with two vessels of the burthen of sixty tons each, furnished by Philippe Chabot, admiral of France, and the Comte de Brion, for the purpose of continuing the discoveries of Ferazzano, and on the 10th May arrived at Cape Bonavista, in Newfoundland. After some discoveries in that island he proceeded to the southward, and entering the great gulf, explored a bay, which he named La Baye des Chaleurs. The rigour of the season prevented his pursuing his discoveries that year, and he returned to France.

Champlain says that he was "fort ?tendu et experiment? au faict de la marine, autant qu'autre de son temps."

At the instance of Charles de Mo?ry, sieur de la Maill?res, then vice-admiral of France, Cartier returned in the following year to the gulf, to which he gave the name of Saint Lawrence, subsequently extended to the great river which flows into it, and which the natives called the river of Canada. On the 15th August, he discovered the island of Naliscolet, calling it Isle de l'Assomption, now Anticosti. On the 1st September he arrived at the Saguenay river, flowing into the St. Lawrence. He ascended the latter stream to an island about a hundred and twenty leagues from the sea, which he named Isle d'Orl?ans, and wintered at a little river which he called Ste. Croix, afterwards rivi?re St. Charles. He then continued his voyage up the St. Lawrence to a place called Hochelaga, a large Indian village on an island at the foot of a mountain which he called Mont Royal, and which, altered to Montr?al, is now the name of the whole island. Finding it impossible to surmount the rapids , he returned to his vessels, but was obliged again to winter on the banks of a small river falling into the Ste. Croix, and which he named "the river Jacques Cartier." The greater part of his people died of scurvy, and Cartier, discontented and disappointed at the little progress he had made, and grieved for the loss of his people, returned to France. "And thinking the air was so contrary to our nature that we could hardly live there, having so suffered during the winter from the disease of the scurvy, which he called 'mal de terre,' he so made his relation to the king and the vice-admiral de Maill?res, who not looking deeply into the matter, the enterprise was fruitless. And, to say truth, those who have the conduct of discoveries are often the cause of the failure of the best plans, if their reports are too implicitly trusted; for in thus entirely confiding in them, enterprises are judged to be impossible, or so traversed by difficulties, that they cannot be carried out, save with almost insupportable expenses and pains."

In 1541, Jean Fran?ois de la Roque, sieur de Roberval, a gentleman of Picardy, was named viceroy of Nouvelle France, and renewed the attempt to form a colony in Canada. He first sent out Cartier as his deputy, to commence a settlement in the island of Mont Royal, and despatched one of his pilots, Jean Alphonse, of Saintonge, one of the best French navigators of his time, to reconnoitre the coast beyond Labrador, and to endeavour to find a shorter passage for Eastern commerce than round Cape Horn or the Straits of Magellan; but, meeting with great obstacles and risk from the ice, Alphonse was obliged to return. The proposed settlement had no better success. Cartier remained nearly eighteen months abandoned to his own resources, as De Roberval, who was to have shortly followed him, delayed his departure, and when at last he set out on his voyage, he met Cartier on his way back to France, having lost many of his people, and suffered extreme distress from famine. De Roberval wished to force him to return to Canada, but Cartier refused.

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