Voyages of Samuel De Champlain Volume III Part 15

They could not be said to be hostile, though they prudently put themselves in a state of defence, as, under the circ.u.mstances, it was very natural they should do.

208. They were then at Trois Rivieres.

209. The moat around the habitation at Quebec was fifteen feet wide and six feet deep, constructed with a drawbridge to be taken up in case of need. _Vide_ Vol II p. 182.

210. Probably Pere le Caron, who was in charge of the mission at Quebec at that time.

211. _Vide Histoire du Canada_, par Sagard, 1636, Vol. I. p 45.

212. They arrived on St. John's day, _antea, note 205_, and consequently this was the 2tth of June, 1618.

213. Jean d'Olbeau.

214. Frere Modeste Guines. _Vide Histoire du Canada_, par Sagard, a Paris, 1636, Vol. I.p. 40.

215. Joseph le Caron, Paul Huet, and Pacifique du Plessis.

216. Louis Hebert, an apothecary, settled at Port Royal in La Cadie or Nova Scotia, under Poutrincourt, was there when, in 1613, possession was taken in the name of Madame de Guercheville. He afterward took up his abode at Quebec with his family, probably in the year 1617. His eldest daughter Anne was married at Quebec to Estienne Jonquest, a Norman, which was the first marriage that took place with the ceremonies of the Church in Canada. His daughter Guillemette married William Couillard, and to her Champlain committed the two Indian girls, whom he was not permitted by Kirke to take with him to France, when Quebec was captured by the English in 1629. Louis Hebert died at Quebec on the 25th of January, 1627. _Histoire du Canada_, Vol. I. pp. 41, 591.

217. These fields were doubtless those of Louis Hebert, who was the first that came into the country with his family to live by the cultivation of the soil.

218. Platon. _Vide_ Vol. 1., note 155.

219. Champlain says, _donne charge d'aller vers les Entouhonorons a Carantouan_. By reference to the map of 1632. it will be seen that the Entouhonorons were situated on the southern borders of Lake Ontario.

They are understood by Champlain to be a part at least of the Iroquois; but the Carantouanais, allies of the Hurons, were south of them, occupying apparently the upper waters of the Susquehanna. A dotted line will be seen on the same map, evidently intended to mark the course of Brule's journey. From the meagre knowledge which Champlain possessed of the region, the line can hardly be supposed to be very accurate, which may account for Champlain's indefinite expression as cited at the beginning of this note.

The Entouhonorons, Quentouoronons, Tsonnontouans, or Senecas const.i.tuted the most western and most numerous canton of the Five Nations. _Vide Continuation of the New Discovery_, by Louis Hennepin, 1699, p. 95; also Origin of the name Seneca in Mr. O. H. Marshall's brochure on _De la Salle among the Senecas_, pp. 43-45.

220. _Vide antea_, p. 124.

221. The River Susquehanna.

222. He appears to have gone as far south at least as the upper waters of Chesapeake Bay.

223. The Dutch fur-traders. _Vide History of the State of New York_ by John Romeyn Brodhead, Vol. I. p. 44 _et pa.s.sim_.

224. Attigonantans or Attignaouantans the princ.i.p.al tribe of the Hurons, sometimes called _Les bons Iroquis_, as they and the Iroquois were of the same original stock. _Vide_ Vol. I. p. 276, note 212.

225. Lake Huron. For the different names which have been attached to this lake, _vide Local Names of Niagara Frontier_, by Orsamus H. Marshall, 1881, P. 37.

226. Brule was despatched on his mission Sept 8, 1615. _Vide antea_, p. 124.

As we have already stated in a previous note, it was the policy of Champlain to place competent young men with the different tribes of savages to obtain that kind of information which could only come from an actual and prolonged residence with them. This enabled him to secure not only the most accurate knowledge of their domestic habits and customs, the character and spirit of their life, but these young men by their long residence with the savages acquired a good knowledge of their language, and were able to act as interpreters. This was a matter of very great importance, as it was often necessary for Champlain to communicate with the different tribes in making treaties of friendship, in discussing questions of war with their enemies, in settling disagreements among themselves, and in making arrangements with them for the yearly purchase of their peltry. It was not easy to obtain suitable persons for this important office. Those who had the intellectual qualifications, and who had any high aspirations, would not naturally incline to pa.s.s years in the stupid and degrading a.s.sociations, to say nothing of the hardships and deprivations, of savage life. They were generally therefore adventurers, whose honesty and fidelity had no better foundation than their selfish interests. Of this sort was this etienne Brule, as well as Nicholas Marsolet and Pierre Raye, all of whom turned traitors, selling themselves to the English when Quebec was taken in 1629. Of Brule, Champlain uses the following emphatic language: "Le truchement Brusle a qui l'on donnoit cent pistolles par an, pour inciter les sauuages a venir a la traitte, ce qui estoit de tres-mauuais exemple, d'enuoyer ainsi des personnes si maluiuans, que l'on eust deub chastier seuerement, car l'on recognoissoit cet homme pour estre fort vicieux, & adonne aux femmes; mais que ne fait faire l'esperance du gain, qui pa.s.se par dessus toutes considerations." _Vide issue of_ 1632, Quebec ed., pp. 1065, 1229.

But among Champlain's interpreters there were doubtless some who bore a very different character. Jean Nicolet was certainly a marked exception. Although Champlain does not mention him by name, he appears to have been in New France as early as 1618, where he spent many years among the Algonquins, and was the first Frenchman who penetrated the distant Northwest. He married into one of the most respectable families of Quebec, and is often mentioned in the Relations des Jesuites. _Vide_ a brief notice of him in _Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley_, by John Gilmary Shea, 1852, p. xx. A full account of his career has recently been published, ent.i.tled _History of the Discovery of the Northwest by John Nicolet in_ 1634, _with a Sketch of his Life_. By C. W. b.u.t.terfield. Cincinnati, 1881. _Vide_ also _Details fur la Vie de Jean Nicollet_, an extract from _Relation des Jesuites_, 1643, in _Decouveries_, etc, par Pierre Margry, p. 49.

227. Paul Huet and Pacifique du Plessis. The latter had been in New France more than a year and a half, having arrived in 1615. _Vide antea_, pp. 104-5.

EXPLANATION OF TWO GEOGRAPHICAL MAPS OF NEW FRANCE.

It has seemed to me well to make some statements in explanation of the two geographical maps. Although one corresponds to the other so far as the harbors, bays, capes, promontories, and rivers extending into the interior are concerned, nevertheless they are different in respect to the bearings.

The smallest is in its true meridian, in accordance with the directions of Sieur de Castelfranc in his book on the mecometry of the magnetic needle [228] where I have noted, as will be seen on the map, several declinations, which have been of much service to me, so also all the alt.i.tudes, lat.i.tudes, and longitudes, from the forty-first degree of lat.i.tude to the fifty-first, in the direction of the North Pole, which are the confines of Canada, or the Great Bay, where more especially the Basques and Spaniards engage in the whale fishery. In certain places in the great river St. Lawrence, in lat.i.tude 45, I have observed the declination of the magnetic needle, and found it as high as twenty-one degrees, which is the greatest I have seen.

The small map will serve very well for purposes of navigation, provided the needle be applied properly to the rose [229] indicating the points of the compa.s.s. For instance, in using it, when one is on the Grand Bank where fresh fishing is carried on, it is necessary, for the sake of greater convenience, to take a rose where the thirty-two points are marked equally, and put the point of the magnetic needle 12, 15, or 16 degrees from the _fleur de lis_ on the northwest side, which is nearly a point and a half, that is north a point northwest or a little more, from the fleur de lis of said rose, and then adjust the rose to the compa.s.s. By this means the lat.i.tudes of all the capes, harbors, and rivers can be accurately ascertained.

I am aware that there are many who will not make use of it, but will prefer to run according to the large one, since it is made according to the compa.s.s of France, where the magnetic needle varies to the northeast, for the reason that they are so accustomed to this method that it is difficult for them to change. For this reason I have prepared the large map in this manner, for the a.s.sistance of the majority of the pilots and mariners in the waters of New France, fearing that if I had not done so, they would have ascribed to me a mistake, not knowing whence it proceeded. For the small plans or charts of Newfoundland are, for the most part, different in all their statements with respect to the positions of the lands and their lat.i.tudes. And those who may have some small copies, reasonably good, esteem them so valuable that they do not communicate a knowledge of them to their country, which might derive profit therefrom.

Now the construction of these maps is such that they have their meridian in a direction north-northeast, making west west-northwest, which is contrary to the true meridian of this place, namely, to call north-northeast north, for the needle instead of varying to the northwest, as it should, varies to the northeast as if it were in France. The consequence of this is that error has resulted, and will continue to do so, since this antiquated custom is practised, which they still retain, although they fall into grave mistakes.

They also make use of a compa.s.s marked north and south; that is, so that the point of the magnetic needle is directly on the _fleur de lis_. In accordance with such a compa.s.s many construct their small maps, which seems to me the better way, and so approach nearer to the true meridian of New France, than the compa.s.ses of France proper, which point to the northeast. It has come about, consequently, in this way that the first navigators who sailed to New France thought there was no greater deviation in going to these parts than to the Azores, or other places near France, where the deviation is almost imperceptible in navigation, the navigators having the compa.s.ses of France, which point northeast and represent the true meridian. In sailing constantly westward with the purpose of reaching a certain lat.i.tude, they laid their course directly west by their compa.s.s, supposing that they were sailing on the one parallel where they wished to go. By thus going constantly in a straight line and not in a circle, as all the parallels on the surface of the globe run, they found after having traversed a long distance, and as they were approaching the land, that they were some three, four, or five degrees farther south than they ought to be, thus being deceived in their true lat.i.tude and reckoning.

It is true, indeed, that, when the weather was fair and the fun clearly visible, they corrected their lat.i.tude, but not without wondering how it happened that their course was wrong, which arose in consequence of their sailing in a straight instead of a circular line according to the parallel, so that in changing their meridian they changed with regard to the points of the compa.s.s, and consequently their course. It is, They therefore, very necessary to know the meridian, and the declination of the magnetic needle, for this knowledge can serve all navigators. This is especially so in the north and south, where there are greater variations in the magnetic needle, and where the meridians of longitude are smaller, so that the error, if the declination were not known, would be greater. This above-mentioned error has accordingly arisen, because navigators have either not cared to correct it, or did not know how to do so, and have left it in the state in which it now is. It is consequently difficult to abandon this manner of sailing in the regions of New France.

This has led me to make this large map, not only that it might be more minute than the small one, but also in order to satisfy navigators, who will thus be able to sail as they do according to their small maps; and they will excuse me for not making it better and more in detail, for the life of a man is not long enough to observe things so exactly that at least something would not be found to have been omitted. Hence inquiring and pains-taking persons will, in sailing, observe things not to be found on this map, but which they add to it, so that in the courte of time there will be no doubt as to any of the localities indicated. At least it seems to me that I have done my duty, so far as I could, not having sailed to put on my map anything that I have seen, and thus giving to the public special knowledge of what had never been described, nor so carefully explored as I have done it. Although in the past others have written of these things, yet very little in comparison with what we have explored within the past ten years.

MODE OF DETERMINING A MERIDIAN LINE.

Take a small piece of board, perfectly level, and place in the middle a needle C, three inches high, so that it shall be exactly perpendicular.

Expose it to the sun before noon, at 8 or 9 o'clock, and mark the point B at the end of the shadow cast by the needle. Then opening the compa.s.ses, with one point on C and the other on the shadow B, describe an arc AB.

Leave the whole in this position until afternoon when you see the shadow just reaching the arc at A. Then divide equally the arc AB, and taking a rule, and placing it on the points C and D, draw a line running the whole length of the board, which is not to be moved until the observation is completed. This line will be the meridian of the place you are in.

And in order to ascertain the declination of the place where you are with reference to the meridian, place a compa.s.s, which must be rectangular, along the meridian line, as shown in the figure above, there being upon the card a circle divided into 360 degrees. Divide the circle by two diametrical lines; one representing the north and south, as indicated by EF, the other the east and west, as indicated by GH. Then observe the magnetic needle turning on its pivot upon the card, and you will see how much it deviates from the fixed meridian line upon the card, and how many degrees it varies to the northeast of northwest.

CHAMPLAIN'S LARGE MAP.

GEOGRAPHICAL CHART OF NEW FRANCE, MADE BY SIEUR DE CHAMPLAIN OF SAINTONGE, CAPTAIN IN ORDINARY FOR THE KING IN THE MARINE. MADE IN THE YEAR 1612.

I have made this map for the greater convenience of the majority of those who navigate on these coasts, since they sail to that country according to compa.s.ses arranged for the hemisphere of Asia. And if I had made it like the small one, the majority would not have been able to use it, owing to their not knowing the declinations of the needle. [230]

Observe that on the present map north-northeast stands for north, and west-northwest for west; according to which one is to be guided in ascertaining the elevation of the degrees of lat.i.tude, as if these points were actually east and west, north and south, since the map is constructed according to the compa.s.ses of France, which vary to the northeast. [231]

SOME DECLINATIONS OF THE MAGNETIC NEEDLE, WHICH I HAVE CAREFULLY OBSERVED.

Cap Breton . . . . . . 14 50'

Cap de la Have . . . . 16 15'

Baye Ste Mane . . . . 17 16'

Port Royal . . . . . . 17 8'

En la grande R. St Laurent 21