That night the sun hung so high above the southern horizon that the men rose by mistake to embark at twelve o'clock. They did not realize that they were in the region of midnight sun; but Mackenzie knew and rejoiced, for he must be near the sea. The next day he was not surprised to find a deserted Eskimo village. At that sight the enthusiasm of the others took fire. They were keen to reach the sea, and imagined that they smelt salt water. In spite of the lakelike expanse of the river, the current was swift, and the canoes went ahead at the rate of sixty and seventy miles a day—if it could be called day when there was no night. Between the 13th and 14th of July the voyageurs suddenly awakened to find themselves and their baggage floating in rising water. What had happened to the lake? Their hearts took a leap; for it was no lake. It was the tide. They had found the sea.

How hilariously jubilant were Mackenzie's men, one may guess from the fact that they chased whales all the next day in their canoes. The whales dived below, fortunately; for one blow of a finback or sulphur bottom would have played skittles with the canoes. Coming back from the whale hunt, triumphant as if they had caught a dozen finbacks, the men erected a post, engraving on it the date, July 14, 1789, and the names of all present.

It had taken six weeks to reach the Arctic. It took eight to return to Chipewyan, for the course was against stream, in many places tracking the canoes by a tow-line. The beaver meadows along the shore impeded the march. Many a time the quaking moss gave way, and the men sank to mid-waist in water. While skirting close ashore, Mackenzie discovered the banks of the river to be on fire. The fire was a natural tar bed, which the Indians said had been burning for centuries and which burns to-day as when Mackenzie found it. On September 12, with a high sail up and a driving wind, the canoes cut across Lake Athabasca and reached the beach of Chipewyan at three in the afternoon, after one hundred and two days' absence. Mackenzie had not found the Northwest Passage. He had proved there was no Northwest Passage, and discovered the Mississippi of the north—Mackenzie River.



Mackenzie spent the long winter at Fort Chipewyan; but just as soon as the rivers cleared of ice, he took passage in the east-bound canoes and hurried down to the Grand Portage or Fort William on Lake Superior, the headquarters of the Northwest Company, where he reported his discovery of Mackenzie River. His report was received with utter indifference. The company had other matters to think about. It was girding itself for the life-and-death struggle with its rival, the Hudson's Bay Company. "My expedition was hardly spoken of, but that is what I expected," he writes to his cousin. But chagrin did not deter purpose. He asked the directors' permission to explore that other broad stream—Peace River—rolling down from the mountains. His request was granted. Winter saw him on furlough in England, studying astronomy and surveying for the next expedition. Here he heard much of the Western Sea—the Pacific—that fired his eagerness. The voyages of Cook and Hanna and Meares were on everybody's lips. Spain and England and Russia were each pushing for first possession of the northwest coast. Mackenzie hurried back to his Company's fort on the banks of Peace River, where he spent a restless winter waiting for navigation to open. Doubts of his own ambitions began to trouble him. What if Peace River did not lead to the west coast at all? What if he were behind some other discoverer sent out by the Spaniards or the Russians? "I have been so vexed of late that I cannot sit down to anything steadily," he confesses in a letter to his cousin. Such a tissue-paper wall separates the aims of the real hero from those of the fool, that almost every ambitious man must pass through these periods of self-doubt before reaching the goal of his hopes. But despondency did not benumb Mackenzie into apathy, as it has weaker men.

By April he had shipped the year's furs from the forks of Peace River to Chipewyan. By May his season's work was done. He was ready to go up Peace River. A birch canoe thirty feet long, lined with lightest of cedar, was built. In this were stored pemmican and powder. Alexander Mackay, a clerk of the company, was chosen as first assistant. Six Canadian voyageurs—two of whom had accompanied Mackenzie to the Arctic—and two Indian hunters made up the party of ten who stepped into the canoes at seven in the evening of May 9, 1793.

Peace River tore down from the mountains flooded with spring thaw. The crew soon realized that paddles must be bent against the current of a veritable mill-race; but it was safer going against, than with, such a current, for unknown dangers could be seen from below instead of above, where suction would whirl a canoe on the rocks. Keen air foretold the nearing mountains. In less than a week snow-capped peaks had crowded the canoe in a narrow canon below a tumbling cascade where the river was one wild sheet of tossing foam as far as eye could see. The difficulty was to land; for precipices rose on each side in a wall, down which rolled enormous boulders and land-slides of loose earth. To portage goods up these walls was impossible. Fastening an eighty-foot tow-line to the bow, Mackenzie leaped to the declivity, axe in hand, cut foothold along the face of the steep cliff to a place where he could jump to level rock, and then, turning, signalled through the roar of the rapids for his men to come on. The voyageurs were paralyzed with fear. They stripped themselves ready to swim if they missed the jump, then one by one vaulted from foothold to foothold where Mackenzie had cut till they came to the final jump across water. Here Mackenzie caught each on his shoulders as the voyageurs leaped. The tow-line was then passed round trees growing on the edge of the precipice, and the canoe tracked up the raging cascade. The waves almost lashed the frail craft to pieces. Once a wave caught her sideways; the tow-line snapped like a pistol shot, for just one instant the canoe hung poised, and then the back-wash of an enormous boulder drove her bow foremost ashore, where the voyageurs regained the tow-line.



The men had not bargained on this kind of work. They bluntly declared that it was absurd trying to go up canons with such cascades. Mackenzie paid no heed to the murmurings. He got his crew to the top of the hill, spread out the best of a regale—including tea sweetened with sugar—and while the men were stimulating courage by a feast, he went ahead to reconnoitre the gorge. Windfalls of enormous spruce trees, with a thickness twice the height of a man, lay on a steep declivity of sliding rock. Up this climbed Mackenzie, clothes torn to tatters by devil's club (a thorn bush with spines like needles), boots hacked to pieces by the sharp rocks, and feet gashed with cuts. The prospect was not bright. As far as he could see the river was one succession of cataracts fifty feet wide walled in by stupendous precipices, down which rolled great boulders, shattering to pebbles as they fell. The men were right. No canoe could go up that stream. Mackenzie came back, set his men to repairing the canoe and making axe handles, to avoid the idleness that breeds mutiny, and sent Mackay ahead to see how far the rapids extended. Mackay reported that the portage would be nine miles over the mountain.

Leading the way, axe in hand, Mackenzie began felling trees so that the trunks formed an outer railing to prevent a fall down the precipice. Up this trail they warped the canoe by pulling the tow-line round stumps, five men going in advance to cut the way, five hauling and pushing the canoe. In one day progress was three miles. By five in the afternoon the men were so exhausted that they went to bed—if bare ground with sky overhead could be called bed. One thing alone encouraged them: as they rose higher up the mountain side, they saw that the green edges of the glaciers and the eternal snows projected over the precipices. They were nearing the summit—they must surely soon cross the Divide. The air grew colder. For three days the choppers worked in their blanket coats. When they finally got the canoe down to the river-bed, it was to see another range of impassable mountains barring the way westward. All that kept Mackenzie's men from turning back was that awful portage of nine miles. Nothing ahead could be worse than what lay behind; so they embarked, following the south branch where the river forked. The stream was swift as a cascade. Half the crew walked to lighten the canoe and prevent grazing on the rocky bottoms.

Once, at dusk, when walkers and paddlers happened to have camped on opposite shores, the marchers came dashing across stream, wading neck-high, with news that they had heard the firearms of Indian raiders. Fires were put out, muskets loaded, and each man took his station at the foot of a tree, where all passed a sleepless night. No hostiles appeared. The noise was probably falling avalanches. And once when Mackenzie and Mackay had gone ahead with the Indian interpreters, they came back to find that the canoe had disappeared. In vain they kindled fires, fired guns, set branches adrift on the swift current as a signal—no response came from the voyageurs. The boatmen evidently did not wish to be found. What Mackenzie's suspicions were one may guess. It would be easier for the crew to float back down Peace River than pull against this terrific current with more portages over mountains. The Indians became so alarmed that they wanted to build a raft forthwith and float back to Chipewyan. The abandoned party had not tasted a bite of food for twenty-four hours. They had not even seen a grouse, and in their powder horns were only a few rounds of ammunition. Separating, Mackenzie and his Indian went up-stream, Mackay and his went down-stream, each agreeing to signal the other by gunshots if either found the canoe. Barefooted and drenched in a terrific thunderstorm, Mackenzie wandered on till darkness shrouded the forest. He had just lain down on a soaking couch of spruce boughs when the ricochetting echo of a gun set the boulders crashing down the precipices. Hurrying down-stream, he found Mackay at the canoe. The crew pretended that a leakage about the keel had caused delay; but the canoe did not substantiate the excuse. Mackenzie said nothing; but he never again allowed the crew out of his sight on the east side of the mountains.

So far there had been no sign of Indians among the mountains; and now the canoe was gliding along calm waters when savages suddenly sprang out of a thicket, brandishing spears. The crew became panic-stricken; but Mackenzie stepped fearlessly ashore, offered the hostiles presents, shook hands, and made his camp with them. The savages told him that he was nearing a portage across the Divide. One of them went with Mackenzie the next day as guide. The river narrowed to a small tarn—the source of Peace River; and a short portage over rocky ground brought the canoe to a second tarn emptying into a river that, to Mackenzie's disappointment, did not flow west, but south. He had crossed the Divide, the first white man to cross the continent in the North; but how could he know whether to follow this stream? It might lead east to the Saskatchewan. As a matter of fact, he was on the sources of the Fraser, that winds for countless leagues south through the mountains before turning westward for the Pacific.

Full of doubt and misgivings, uncertain whether he had crossed the Divide at all, Mackenzie ordered the canoe down this river. Snowy peaks were on every side. Glaciers lay along the mountain tarns, icy green from the silt of the glacier grinding over rock; and the river was hemmed in by shadowy canons with roaring cascades that compelled frequent portage. Mackenzie wanted to walk ahead, in order to lighten the canoe and look out for danger; but fear had got in the marrow of his men. They thought that he was trying to avoid risks to which he was exposing them; and they compelled him to embark, vowing, if they were to perish, he was to perish with them.

To quiet their fears, Mackenzie embarked with them. Barely had they pushed out when the canoe was caught by a sucking undercurrent which the paddlers could not stem—a terrific rip told them that the canoe had struck—the rapids whirled her sideways and away she went down-stream—the men jumped out, but the current carried them to such deep water that they were clinging to the gunwales as best they could when, with another rip, the stern was torn clean out of the canoe. The blow sent her swirling—another rock battered the bow out—the keel flattened like a raft held together only by the bars. Branches hung overhead. The bowman made a frantic grab at these to stop the rush of the canoe—he was hoisted clear from his seat and dropped ashore. Mackenzie jumped out up to his waist in ice-water. The steersman had yelled for each to save himself; but Mackenzie shouted out a countermand for every man to hold on to the gunwales. In this fashion they were all dragged several hundred yards till a whirl sent the wreck into a shallow eddy. The men got their feet on bottom, and the wreckage was hauled ashore. During the entire crisis the Indians sat on top of the canoe, howling with terror.

All the bullets had been lost. A few were recovered. Powder was spread out to dry; and the men flatly refused to go one foot farther. Mackenzie listened to the revolt without a word. He got their clothes dry and their benumbed limbs warmed over a roaring fire. He fed them till their spirits had risen. Then he quietly remarked that the experience would teach them how to run rapids in the future. Men of the North—to turn back? Such a thing had never been known in the history of the Northwest Fur Company. It would disgrace them forever. Think of the honor of conquering disaster. Then he vowed that he would go ahead, whether the men accompanied him or not. Then he set them to patching the canoe with oil-cloth and bits of bark; but large sheets of birch bark are rare in the Rockies; and the patched canoe weighed so heavily that the men could scarcely carry it. It took them fourteen hours to make the three-mile portage of these rapids. The Indian from the mountain tribe had lost heart. Mackenzie and Mackay watched him by turns at night; but the fellow got away under cover of darkness, the crew conniving at the escape in order to compel Mackenzie to turn back. Finally the river wound into a large stream on the west side of the main range of the Rockies. Mackenzie had crossed the Divide.

For a week after crossing the Divide, the canoe followed the course of the river southward. This was not what Mackenzie expected. He sought a stream flowing directly westward, and was keenly alert for sign of Indian encampment where he might learn the shortest way to the Western Sea. Once the smoke of a camp-fire rose through the bordering forest; but no sooner had Mackenzie's interpreters approached than the savages fired volley after volley of arrows and swiftly decamped, leaving no trace of a trail. There was nothing to do but continue down the devious course of the uncertain river. The current was swift and the outlook cut off by the towering mountains; but in a bend of the river they came on an Indian canoe drawn ashore. A savage was just emerging from a side stream when Mackenzie's men came in view. With a wild whoop, the fellow made off for the woods; and in a trice the narrow river was lined with naked warriors, brandishing spears and displaying the most outrageous hostility. When Mackenzie attempted to land, arrows hissed past the canoe, which they might have punctured and sunk. Determined to learn the way westward from these Indians, Mackenzie tried strategy. He ordered his men to float some distance from the savages. Then he landed alone on the shore opposite the hostiles, having sent one of his interpreters by a detour through the woods to lie in ambush with fusee ready for instant action. Throwing aside weapons, Mackenzie displayed tempting trinkets. The warriors conferred, hesitated, jumped in the canoes, and came, backing stern foremost, toward Mackenzie. He threw out presents. They came ashore and were presently sitting by his side.

From them he learned the river he was following ran for "many moons" through the "shining mountains" before it reached the "midday sun." It was barred by fearful rapids; but by retracing the way back up the river, the white men could leave the canoe at a carrying place and go overland to the salt water in eleven days. From other tribes down the same river, Mackenzie gathered similar facts. He knew that the stream was misleading him; but a retrograde movement up such a current would discourage his men. He had only one month's provisions left. His ammunition had dwindled to one hundred and fifty bullets and thirty pounds of shot. Instead of folding his hands in despondency, Mackenzie resolved to set the future at defiance and go on. From the Indians he obtained promise of a man to guide him back. Then he frankly laid all the difficulties before his followers, declaring that he was going on alone and they need not continue unless they voluntarily decided to do so. His dogged courage was contagious. The speech was received with huzzas, and the canoe was headed upstream.

The Indian guide was to join Mackenzie higher upstream; but the reappearance of the white men when they had said they would not be back for "many moons" roused the suspicions of the savages. The shores were lined with warriors who would receive no explanation that Mackenzie tried to give in sign language. The canoe began to leak so badly that the boatmen had to spend half the time bailing out water; and the voyageurs dared not venture ashore for resin. Along the river cliff was a little three-cornered hut of thatched clay. Here Mackenzie took refuge, awaiting the return of the savage who had promised to act as guide. The three walls protected the rear, but the front of the hut was exposed to the warriors across the river; and the whites dared not kindle a fire that might serve as a target. Two nights were passed in this hazardous shelter, Mackay and Mackenzie alternately lying in their cloaks on the wet rocks, keeping watch. At midnight of the third day's siege, a rustling came from the woods to the rear and the boatmen's dog set up a furious barking. The men were so frightened that they three times loaded the canoe to desert their leader, but something in the fearless confidence of the explorer deterred them. As daylight sifted through the forest, Mackenzie descried a vague object creeping through the underbrush. A less fearless man would have fired and lost all. Mackenzie dashed out to find the cause of alarm an old blind man, almost in convulsions from fear. He had been driven from this river hut. Mackenzie quieted his terror with food. By signs the old man explained that the Indians had suspected treachery when the whites returned so soon; and by signs Mackenzie requested him to guide the canoe back up the river to the carrying place; but the old creature went off in such a palsy of fear that he had to be lifted bodily into the canoe. The situation was saved. The hostiles could not fire without wounding one of their own people; and the old man could explain the real reason for Mackenzie's return. Rations had been reduced to two meals a day. The men were still sulking from the perils of the siege when the canoe struck a stump that knocked a hole in the keel, "which," reports Mackenzie, laconically, "gave them all an opportunity to let loose their discontent without reserve." Camp after camp they passed, which the old man's explanations pacified, till they at length came to the carrying place. Here, to the surprise and delight of all, the guide awaited them.



On July 4, provisions were cached, the canoe abandoned, and a start made overland westward, each carrying ninety pounds of provisions besides musket and pistols. And this burden was borne on the rations of two scant meals a day. The way was ridgy, steep, and obstructed by windfalls. At cloud-line, the rocks were slippery as glass from moisture, and Mackenzie led the way, beating the drip from the branches as they marched. The record was twelve miles the first day. When it rained, the shelter was a piece of oil-cloth held up in an extemporized tent, the men crouching to sleep as best they could. The way was well beaten and camp was frequently made for the night with strange Indians, from whom fresh guides were hired; but when he did not camp with the natives, Mackenzie watched his guide by sleeping with him. Though the fellow was malodorous from fish oil and infested with vermin, Mackenzie would spread his cloak in such a way that escape was impossible without awakening himself. No sentry was kept at night. All hands were too deadly tired from the day's climb. Once, in the impenetrable gloom of the midnight forest, Mackenzie was awakened by a plaintive chant in a kind of unearthly music. A tribe was engaged in religious devotions to some woodland deity. Totem poles of cedar, carved with the heads of animals emblematic of family clans, told Mackenzie that he was nearing the coast tribes. Barefooted, with ankles swollen and clothes torn to shreds, they had crossed the last range of mountains within two weeks of leaving the inland river. They now embarked with some natives for the sea.

One can guess how Mackenzie's heart thrilled as they swept down the swift river—six miles an hour—past fishing weirs and Indian camps, till at last, far out between the mountains, he descried the narrow arm of the blue, limitless sea. The canoe leaked like a sieve; but what did that matter? At eight o'clock on the morning of Saturday, July 20, the river carried them to a wide lagoon, lapped by a tide, with the seaweed waving for miles along the shore. Morning fog still lay on the far-billowing ocean. Sea otters tumbled over the slimy rocks with discordant cries. Gulls darted overhead; and past the canoe dived the great floundering grampus. There was no mistaking. This was the sea—the Western Sea, that for three hundred years had baffled all search overland, and led the world's greatest explorers on a chase of a will-o'-the-wisp. What Cartier and La Salle and La Verendrye failed to do, Mackenzie had accomplished.

But Mackenzie's position was not to be envied. Ten starving men on a barbarous coast had exactly twenty pounds of pemmican, fifteen of rice, six of flour. Of ammunition there was scarcely any. Between home and their leaky canoe lay half a continent of wilderness and mountains. The next day was spent coasting the cove for a place to take observations. Canoes of savages met the white men, and one impudent fellow kept whining out that he had once been shot at by men of Mackenzie's color. Mackenzie took refuge for the night on an isolated rock which was barely large enough for his party to gain a foothold. The savages hung about pestering the boatmen for gifts. Two white men kept guard, while the rest slept. On Monday, when Mackenzie was setting up his instruments, his young Indian guide came, foaming at the mouth from terror, with news that the coast tribes were to attack the white men by hurling spears at the unsheltered rock. The boatmen lost their heads and were for instant flight, anywhere, everywhere, in a leaky canoe that would have foundered a mile out at sea. Mackenzie did not stir, but ordered fusees primed and the canoe gummed. Mixing up a pot of vermilion, he painted in large letters on the face of the rock where they had passed the night:—

"Alexander Mackenzie, from Canada, by land, the twenty-second of July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three."

The canoe was then headed eastward for the homeward trip. Only once was the explorer in great danger on his return. It was just as the canoe was leaving tide-water for the river. The young Indian guide led him full tilt into the village of hostiles that had besieged the rock. Mackenzie was alone, his men following with the baggage. Barely had he reached the woods when two savages sprang out, with daggers in hand ready to strike. Quick as a flash, Mackenzie quietly raised his gun. They dropped back; but he was surrounded by a horde led by the impudent chief of the attack on the rock the first night on the sea. One warrior grasped Mackenzie from behind. In the scuffle hat and cloak came off; but Mackenzie shook himself free, got his sword out, and succeeded in holding the shouting rabble at bay till his men came. Then such was his rage at the indignity that he ordered his followers in line with loaded fusees, marched to the village, demanded the return of the hat and cloak, and obtained a peace-offering of fish as well. The Indians knew the power of firearms, and fell at his feet in contrition. Mackenzie named this camp Rascal Village.

At another time his men lost heart so completely over the difficulties ahead that they threw everything they were carrying into the river. Mackenzie patiently sat on a stone till they had recovered from their panic. Then he reasoned and coaxed and dragooned them into the spirit of courage that at last brought them safely over mountain and through canon to Peace River. On August 24, a sharp bend in the river showed them the little home fort which they had left four months before. The joy of the voyageurs fairly exploded. They beat their paddles on the canoe, fired off all the ammunition that remained, waved flags, and set the cliffs ringing with shouts.

Mackenzie spent the following winter at Chipewyan, despondent and lonely. "What a situation, starving and alone!" he writes to his cousin. The hard life was beginning to wear down the dauntless spirit. "I spend the greater part of my time in vague speculations. . . . In fact my mind was never at ease, nor could I bend it to my wishes. Though I am not superstitious, my dreams cause me great annoyance. I scarcely close my eyes without finding myself in company with the dead."

The following winter Mackenzie left the West never to return. The story of his travels was published early in the nineteenth century, and he was knighted by the English king. The remainder of his life was spent quietly on an estate in Scotland, where he died in 1820.



CHAPTER XI

1803-1806

LEWIS AND CLARK

The First White Men to ascend the Missouri to its Sources and descend the Columbia to the Pacific—Exciting Adventures on the Canons of the Missouri, the Discovery of the Great Falls and the Yellowstone—Lewis' Escape from Hostiles

The spring of 1904 witnessed the centennial celebration of an area as large as half the kingdoms of Europe, that has the unique distinction of having transferred its allegiance to three different flags within twenty-four hours.

At the opening of the nineteenth century Spain had ceded all the region vaguely known as Louisiana back to France, and France had sold the territory, to the United States; but post-horse and stage of those old days travelled slowly. News of Spain's cession and France's sale reached Louisiana almost simultaneously. On March 9, 1804, the Spanish grandees of St. Louis took down their flag and, to the delight of Louisiana, for form's sake erected French colors. On March 10, the French flag was lowered for the emblem that has floated over the Great West ever since—the stars and stripes. How vast was the new territory acquired, the eastern states had not the slightest conception. As early as 1792 Captain Gray, of the ship Columbia, from Boston, had blundered into the harbor of a vast river flowing into the Pacific. What lay between this river and that other great river on the eastern side of the mountains—the Missouri? Jefferson had arranged with John Ledyard of Connecticut, who had been with Captain Cook on the Pacific, to explore the northwest coast of America by crossing Russia overland; but Russia had similar designs for herself, and stopped Ledyard on the way. In 1803 President Jefferson asked Congress for an appropriation to explore the Northwest by way of the Missouri. Now that the wealth of the West is beyond the estimate of any figure, it seems almost inconceivable that there were people little-minded enough to haggle over the price paid for Louisiana—$15,000,000—and to object to the appropriation required for its exploration—$2500; but fortunately the world goes ahead in spite of hagglers.

May of 1804 saw Captain Meriwether Lewis, formerly secretary to President Jefferson, and Captain William Clark of Virginia launch out from Wood River opposite St. Louis, where they had kept their men encamped all winter on the east side of the Mississippi, waiting until the formal transfer of Louisiana for the long journey of exploration to the sources of the Missouri and the Columbia. Their escort consisted of twenty soldiers, eleven voyageurs, and nine frontiersmen. The main craft was a keel boat fifty-five feet long, of light draft, with square-rigged sail and twenty-two oars, and tow-line fastened to the mast pole to track the boat upstream through rapids. An American flag floated from the prow, and behind the flag the universal types of progress everywhere—goods for trade and a swivel-gun. Horses were led alongshore for hunting, and two pirogues—sharp at prow, broad at stern, like a flat-iron or a turtle—glided to the fore of the keel boat.



The Missouri was at flood tide, turbid with crumbling clay banks and great trees torn out by the roots, from which keel boat and pirogues sheered safely off. For the first time in history the Missouri resounded to the Fourth of July guns; and round camp-fire the men danced to the strains of a voyageur's fiddle. Usually, among forty men is one traitor, and Liberte must desert on pretence of running back for a knife; but perhaps the fellow took fright from the wild yarns told by the lonely-eyed, shaggy-browed, ragged trappers who came floating down the Platte, down the Osage, down the Missouri, with canoe loads of furs for St. Louis. These men foregathered with the voyageurs and told only too true stories of the dangers ahead. Fires kindled on the banks of the river called neighboring Indians to council. Council Bluffs commemorates one conference, of which there were many with Iowas and Omahas and Ricarees and Sioux. Pause was made on the south side of the Missouri to visit the high mound where Blackbird, chief of the Omahas, was buried astride his war horse that his spirit might forever watch the French voyageurs passing up and down the river.



By October the explorers were sixteen hundred miles north of St. Louis, at the Mandan villages near where Bismarck stands to-day. The Mandans welcomed the white men; but the neighboring tribes of Ricarees were insolent. "Had I these white warriors on the upper plains," boasted a chief to Charles Mackenzie, one of the Northwest Fur Company men from Canada, "my young men on horseback would finish them as they would so many wolves; for there are only two sensible men among them, the worker of iron [blacksmith] and the mender of guns." Four Canadian traders had already been massacred by this chief. Captain Lewis knew that his company must winter on the east side of the mountains, and there were a dozen traders—Hudson Bay and Nor'westers—on the ground practising all the unscrupulous tricks of rivals, Nor'westers driving off Hudson Bay horses, Hudson Bay men driving off Nor'-westers', to defeat trade; so Captain Lewis at once had a fort constructed. It was triangular in shape, the two converging walls consisting of barracks with a loopholed bastion at the apex, the base being a high wall of strong pickets where sentry kept constant guard. Hitherto Captain Lewis had been able to secure the services of French trappers as interpreters with the Indians; but the next year he was going where there were no trappers; and now he luckily engaged an old Nor'wester, Chaboneau, whose Indian wife, Sacajawea, was a captive from the Snake tribe of the Rockies.[1] On Christmas morning, the stars and stripes were hoisted above Fort Mandan; and all that night the men danced hilariously. On New Years of 1805, the white men visited the Mandan lodges, and one voyageur danced "on his head" to the uproarious applause of the savages. All winter the men joined in the buffalo hunts, laying up store of pemmican. In February, work was begun on the small boats for the ascent of the Missouri. By the end of March, the river had cleared of ice, and a dozen men were sent back to St. Louis.

At five, in the afternoon of April 7, six canoes and two pirogues were pushed out on the Missouri. Sails were hoisted; a cheer from the Canadian traders and Indians standing on the shore—and the boats glided up the Missouri with flags flying from foremost prow. Hitherto Lewis and Clark had passed over travelled ground. Now they had set sail for the Unknown. Within a week they had passed the Little Missouri, the height of land that divides the waters of the Missouri from those of the Saskatchewan, and the great Yellowstone River, first found by wandering French trappers and now for the first time explored. The current of the Missouri grew swifter, the banks steeper, and the use of the tow-line more frequent. The voyage was no more the holiday trip that it had been all the way from St. Louis. Hunters were kept on the banks to forage for game, and once four of them came so suddenly on an open-mouthed, ferocious old bear that he had turned hunter and they hunted before guns could be loaded; and the men saved themselves only by jumping twenty feet over the bank into the river.

For miles the boats had to be tracked up-stream by the tow-line. The shore was so steep that it offered no foothold. Men and stones slithered heterogeneously down the sliding gravel into the water. Moccasins wore out faster than they could be sewed; and the men's feet were cut by prickly-pear and rock as if by knives. On Sunday, May 26, when Captain Lewis was marching to lighten the canoes, he had just climbed to the summit of a high, broken cliff when there burst on his glad eyes a first glimpse of the far, white "Shining Mountains" of which the Indians told, the Rockies, snowy and dazzling in the morning sun. One can guess how the weather-bronzed, ragged man paused to gaze on the glimmering summits. Only one other explorer had ever been so far west in this region—young De la Verendrye, fifty years before; but the Frenchman had been compelled to turn back without crossing the mountains, and the two Americans were to assail and conquer what had proved an impassable barrier. The Missouri had become too deep for poles, too swift for paddles; and the banks were so precipitous that the men were often poised at dizzy heights above the river, dragging the tow-line round the edge of rock and crumbly cliff. Captain Lewis was leading the way one day, crawling along the face of a rock wall, when he slipped. Only a quick thrust of his spontoon into the cliff saved him from falling almost a hundred feet. He had just struck it with terrific force into the rock, where it gave him firm handhold, when he heard a voice cry, "Good God, Captain, what shall I do?"



Windsor, a frontiersman, had slipped to the very verge of the rock, where he lay face down with right arm and leg completely over the precipice, his left hand vainly grabbing empty air for grip of anything that would hold him back. Captain Lewis was horrified, but kept his presence of mind; for the man's life hung by a thread. A move, a turn, the slightest start of alarm to disturb Windsor's balance—and he was lost. Steadying his voice, Captain Lewis shouted back, "You're in little danger. Stick your knife in the cliff to hoist yourself up."

With the leverage of the knife, Windsor succeeded in lifting himself back to the narrow ledge. Then taking off his moccasins, he crawled along the cliff to broader foothold. Lewis sent word for the crews to wade the margin of the river instead of attempting this pass—which they did, though shore water was breast high and ice cold.



The Missouri had now become so narrow that it was hard to tell which was the main river and which a tributary; so Captain Lewis and four men went in advance to find the true course. Leaving camp at sunrise, Captain Lewis was crossing a high, bare plain, when he heard the most musical of all wilderness sounds—the far rushing that is the voice of many waters. Far above the prairie there shimmered in the morning sun a gigantic plume of spray. Surely this was the Great Falls of which the Indians told. Lewis and his men broke into a run across the open for seven miles, the rush of waters increasing to a deafening roar, the plume of spray to clouds of foam. Cliffs two hundred feet high shut off the view. Down these scrambled Lewis, not daring to look away from his feet till safely at bottom, when he faced about to see the river compressed by sheer cliffs over which hurled a white cataract in one smooth sheet eighty feet high. The spray tossed up in a thousand bizarre shapes of wind-driven clouds. Captain Lewis drew the long sigh of the thing accomplished. He had found the Great Falls of the Missouri.



Seating himself on the rock, he awaited his hunters. That night they camped under a tree near the falls. Morning showed that the river was one succession of falls and rapids for eighteen miles. Here was indeed a stoppage to the progress of the boats. Sending back word to Captain Clark of the discovery of the falls, Lewis had ascended the course of the cascades to a high hill when he suddenly encountered a herd of a thousand buffalo. It was near supper-time. Quick as thought, Lewis fired. What was his amazement to see a huge bear leap from the furze to pounce on the wounded quarry; and what was Bruin's amazement to see the unusual spectacle of a thing as small as a man marching out to contest possession of that quarry? Man and bear reared up to look at each other. Bear had been master in these regions from time immemorial. Man or beast—which was to be master now? Lewis had aimed his weapon to fire again, when he recollected that it was not loaded; and the bear was coming on too fast for time to recharge. Captain Lewis was a brave man and a dignified man; but the plain was bare of tree or brush, and the only safety was inglorious flight. But if he had to retreat, the captain determined that he would retreat only at a walk. The rip of tearing claws sounded from behind, and Lewis looked over his shoulder to see the bear at a hulking gallop, open-mouthed,—and off they went, explorer and exploited, in a sprinting match of eighty yards, when the grunting roar of pursuer told pursued that the bear was gaining. Turning short, Lewis plunged into the river to mid-waist and faced about with his spontoon at the bear's nose. A sudden turn is an old trick with all Indian hunters; the bear floundered back on his haunches, reconsidered the sport of hunting this new animal, man, and whirled right about for the dead buffalo.



It took the crews from the 15th to the 25th of June to portage past the Great Falls. Cottonwood trees yielded carriage wheels two feet in diameter, and the masts of the pirogues made axletrees. On these wagonettes the canoes were dragged across the portage. It was hard, hot work. Grizzlies prowled round the camp at night, wakening the exhausted workers. The men actually fell asleep on their feet as they toiled, and spent half the night double-soling their torn moccasins, for the cactus already had most of the men limping from festered feet. Yet not one word of complaint was uttered; and once, when the men were camped on a green along the portage, a voyageur got out his fiddle, and the sore feet danced, which was more wholesome than moping or poulticing. The boldness of the grizzlies was now explained. Antelope and buffalo were carried over the falls. The bears prowled below for the carrion.

After failure to construct good hide boats, two other craft, twenty-five and thirty-three feet long, were knocked together, and the crews launched above the rapids for the far Shining Mountains that lured like a mariner's beacon. Night and day, when the sun was hot, came the boom-boom as of artillery from the mountains. The voyageurs thought this the explosion of stones, but soon learned to recognize the sound of avalanche and land-slide. The river became narrower, deeper, swifter, as the explorers approached the mountains. For five miles rocks rose on each side twelve hundred feet high, sheer as a wall. Into this shadowy canon, silent as death, crept the boats of the white men, vainly straining their eyes for glimpse of egress from the watery defile. A word, a laugh, the snatch of a voyageur's ditty, came back with elfin echo, as if spirits hung above the dizzy heights spying on the intruders. Springs and tenuous, wind-blown falls like water threads trickled down each side of the lofty rocks. The water was so deep that poles did not touch bottom, and there was not the width of a foot-hold between water and wall for camping ground. Flags were unfurled from the prows of the boats to warn marauding Indians on the height above that the voyageurs were white men, not enemies. Darkness fell on the canon with the great hushed silence of the mountains; and still the boats must go on and on in the darkness, for there was no anchorage. Finally, above a small island in the middle of the river, was found a tiny camping ground with pine-drift enough for fire-wood. Here they landed in the pitchy dark. They had entered the Gates of the Rockies on the 19th of July. In the morning bighorn and mountain goat were seen scrambling along the ledges above the water. On the 25th the Three Forks of the Missouri were reached. Here the Indian woman, Sacajawea, recognized the ground and practically became the guide of the party, advising the two explorers to follow the south fork or the Jefferson, as that was the stream which her tribe followed when crossing the mountains to the plains.



It now became absolutely necessary to find mountain Indians who would supply horses and guide the white men across the Divide. In the hope of finding the Indian trail, Captain Lewis landed with two men and preceded the boats. He had not gone five miles when to his sheer delight he saw a Snake Indian on horseback. Ordering his men to keep back, he advanced within a mile of the horseman and three times spread his blanket on the ground as a signal of friendship. The horseman sat motionless as bronze. Captain Lewis went forward, with trinkets held out to tempt a parley, and was within a few hundred yards when the savage wheeled and dashed off. Lewis' men had disobeyed orders and frightened the fellow by advancing. Deeply chagrined, Lewis hoisted an American flag as sign of friendship and continued his march. Tracks of horses were followed across a bog, along what was plainly an Indian road, till the sources of the Missouri became so narrow that one of the men put a foot on each side and thanked God that he had lived to bestride the Missouri. Stooping, all drank from the crystal spring whose waters they had traced for three thousand miles from St. Louis. Following a steep declivity, they were presently crossing the course of a stream that flowed west and must lead to some branch of the Columbia.



Suddenly, on the cliff in front, Captain Lewis discovered two squaws, an Indian, and some dogs. Unfurling his flag, he advanced. The Indians paused, then dashed for the woods. Lewis tried to tie some presents round the dogs' necks as a peace-offering, but the curs made off after their master. The white men had not proceeded a mile before they came to three squaws, who never moved but bowed their heads to the ground for the expected blow that would make them captives. Throwing down weapons, Lewis pulled up his sleeve to show that he was white. Presents allayed all fear, and the squaws had led him two miles toward their camp when sixty warriors came galloping at full speed with arrows levelled. The squaws rushed forward, vociferating and showing their presents. Three chiefs at once dismounted, and fell on Captain Lewis with such greasy embraces of welcome that he was glad to end the ceremony. Pipes were smoked, presents distributed, and the white men conducted to a great leathern lodge, where Lewis announced his mission and prepared the Indians for the coming of the main force in the boats.



The Snakes scarcely knew whether to believe the white man's tale. The Indian camp was short of provisions, and Lewis urged the warriors to come back up the trail to meet the advancing boats. The braves hesitated. Cameahwait, the chief, harangued till a dozen warriors mounted their horses and set out, Lewis and his men each riding behind an Indian. Captain Clark could advance only slowly, and the Indians with Lewis grew suspicious as they entered the rocky denies without meeting the explorers' party. Half the Snakes turned back. Among those that went on were three women. To demonstrate good faith, Lewis again mounted a horse behind an Indian, though the bare-back riding over rough ground at a mad pace was almost jolting his bones apart. A spy came back breathless with news for the hungry warriors that one of the white hunters had killed a deer, and the whole company lashed to a breakneck gallop that nearly finished Lewis, who could only cling for dear life to the Indian's waist. The poor wretches were so ravenous that they fell on the dead deer and devoured it raw. It was here that Lewis expected the boats. They were not to be seen. The Indians grew more distrustful. The chief at once put fur collars, after the fashion of Indian dress, round the white men's shoulders. As this was plainly a trick to conceal the whites in case of treachery on their part, Lewis at once took off his hat and placed it on the chief's head. Then he hurried the Indians along, lest they should lose courage completely. To his mortification, Captain Clark did not appear. To revive the Indians' courage, the white men then passed their guns across to the Snakes, signalling willingness to suffer death if the Indians discovered treachery. That night all the Indians hid in the woods but five, who slept on guard round the whites. If anything had stopped Clark's advance, Lewis was lost. Though neither knew it, Lewis and Clark were only four miles apart, Clark, Chaboneau, the guide, and Sacajawea, the Indian woman, were walking on the shore early in the morning, when the squaw began to dance with signs of the most extravagant joy. Looking ahead, Clark saw one of Lewis' men, disguised as an Indian, leading a company of Snake warriors that the squaw had recognized as her own people, from whom she had been wrested when a child. The Indians broke into songs of delight, and Sacajawea, dashing through the crowd, threw her arms round an Indian woman, sobbing and laughing and exhibiting all the hysterical delight of a demented creature. Sacajawea and the woman had been playmates in childhood and had been captured in the same war; but the Snake woman had escaped, while Sacajawea became a slave and married the French guide.

Meanwhile, Captain Clark was being welcomed by Lewis and the chief, Cameahwait. Sacajawea was called to interpret. Cameahwait rose to speak. The poor squaw flung herself on him with cries of delight. In the chief of the Snakes she had recognized her brother. Laced coats, medals, flags, and trinkets were presented to the Snakes; but though willing enough to act as guides, the Indians discouraged the explorers about going on in boats. The western stream was broken for leagues by terrible rapids walled in with impassable precipices. Boats were abandoned and horses bought from the Snakes. The white men set their faces northwestward, the southern trail, usually followed by the Snakes, leading too much in the direction of the Spanish settlements. Game grew so scarce that by September the men were without food and a colt was killed for meat.

By October the company was reduced to a diet of dog; but the last Divide had been crossed. Horses were left with an Indian chief of the Flatheads, and the explorers glided down the Clearwater, leading to the Columbia, in five canoes and one pilot boat. Great was the joy in camp on November 8, 1805; for the boats had passed the last portage of the Columbia. When heavy fog rose, there burst on the eager gaze of the voyageurs the shining expanse of the Pacific. The shouts of the jubilant voyageurs mingled with the roar of ocean breakers. Like Alexander Mackenzie of the far North a decade before, Lewis and Clark had reached the long-sought Western Sea. They had been first up the Missouri, first across the middle Rockies, and first down the Columbia to the Pacific.

Seven huts, known as Fort Clatsop, were knocked up on the south side of the Columbia's harbor for winter quarters; and a wretched winter the little fort spent, beleaguered not by hostiles, but by such inclement damp that all the men were ill before spring and their very leather suits rotted from their backs. Many a time, coasting the sea, were they benighted. Spreading mats on the sand, they slept in the drenching rain. Unused to ocean waters, the inland voyageurs became deadly seasick. Once, when all were encamped on the shore, an enormous tidal wave broke over the camp with a smashing of log-drift that almost crushed the boats. Nez Perces and Flatheads had assisted the white men after the Snake guides had turned back. Clatsops and Chinooks were now their neighbors. Christmas and New Year of 1806 were celebrated by a discharge of firearms. No boats chanced to touch at the Columbia during the winter. The time was passed laying up store of elk meat and leather; for the company was not only starving, but nearly naked. The Pacific had been reached on November 14, 1805. Fort Clatsop was evacuated on the afternoon of March 23, 1806.

The goods left to trade for food and horses when Lewis and Clark departed from the coast inland had dwindled to what could have been tied in two handkerchiefs; but necessity proved the mother of invention, and the men cut the brass buttons from their tattered clothes and vended brass trinkets to the Indians. The medicine-chest was also sacrificed, every Indian tribe besieging the two captains for eye-water, fly-blisters, and other patent wares. The poverty of the white man roused the insolence of the natives on the return over the mountains. Rocks were rolled down on the boatmen at the worst portages by aggressive Indians; and once, when the hungry voyageurs were at a meal of dog meat, an Indian impudently flung a live pup straight at Captain Lewis' plate. In a trice the pup was back in the fellow's face; Lewis had seized a weapon; and the crestfallen aggressor had taken ignominiously to his heels. When they had crossed the mountains, the forces divided into three parties, two to go east by the Yellowstone, one under Lewis by the main Missouri.

Somewhere up the height of land that divides the southern waters of the Saskatchewan from the northern waters of the Missouri, the tracks of Minnetaree warriors were found. These were the most murderous raiders of the plains. Over a swell of the prairie Lewis was startled to see a band of thirty horses, half of them saddled. The Indians were plainly on the war-path, for no women were in camp; so Lewis took out his flag and advanced unfalteringly. An Indian came forward. Lewis and the chief shook hands, but Lewis now had no presents to pacify hostiles. Camping with the Minnetarees for the night, as if he feared nothing, Lewis nevertheless took good care to keep close watch on all movements. He smoked the pipe of peace with them as late as he dared; and when he retired to sleep, he had ordered Fields and the other two white men to be on guard. At sunrise the Indians crowded round the fire, where Fields had for the moment carelessly laid his rifle. Simultaneously, the warriors dashed at the weapons of the sleeping white men, while other Indians made off with the explorers' horses. With a shout, Fields gave the alarm, and pursuing the thieves, grappled with the Indian who had stolen his rifle. In the scuffle the Indian was stabbed to the heart. Drewyer succeeded in wresting back his gun, and Lewis dashed out with his pistol, shouting for the Indians to leave the horses. The raiders were mounting to go off at full speed. The white men pursued on foot. Twelve horses fell behind; but just as the Indians dashed for hiding behind a cliff, Lewis' strength gave out. He warned them if they did not stop he would shoot. An Indian turned to fire with one of the stolen weapons, and instantly Lewis' pistol rang true. The fellow rolled to earth mortally wounded; but Lewis felt the whiz of a bullet past his own head. Having captured more horses than they had lost, the white men at once mounted and rode for their lives through river and slough, sixty miles without halt; for the Minnetarees would assuredly rally a larger band of warriors to their aid. A pause of an hour to refresh the horses and a wilder ride by moonlight put forty more miles between Captain Lewis and danger. At daylight the men were so sore from the mad pace for twenty-four hours that they could scarcely stand; but safety depended on speed and on they went again till they reached the main Missouri, where by singularly good luck some of the other voyageurs had arrived.



The entire forces were reunited below the Yellowstone on August 12th. Traders on the way up the Missouri from St. Louis brought first news of the outer world, and the discoverers were not a little amused to learn that they had been given up for dead. At the Mandans, Colter, one of the frontiersmen, asked leave to go back to the wilds; and Chaboneau, with his dauntless wife, bade the white men farewell. On September 20th settlers on the river bank above St. Louis were surprised to see thirty ragged men, with faces bronzed like leather, passing down the river. Then some one remembered who these worn voyageurs were, and cheers of welcome made the cliffs of the Missouri ring. On September 23d, at midday, the boats drew quietly up to the river front of St. Louis. Lewis and Clark, the greatest pathfinders of the United States, had returned from the discovery of a new world as large as half Europe, without losing a single man but Sergeant Floyd, who had died from natural causes a few months after leaving St. Louis. What Radisson had begun in 1659-1660, what De la Verendrye had attempted when he found the way barred by the Rockies—was completed by Lewis and Clark in 1805. It was the last act in that drama of heroes who carved empire out of wilderness; and all alike possessed the same hero-qualities—courage and endurance that were indomitable, the strength that is generated in life-and-death grapple with naked primordial reality, and that reckless daring which defies life and death. Those were hero-days; and they produced hero-types, who flung themselves against the impossible—and conquered it. What they conquered we have inherited. It is the Great Northwest.



[1] Mention of this man is to be found in Northwest Company manuscripts, lately sold in the Masson collection of documents to the Canadian Archives and McGill College Library. It was also my good fortune—while this book was going to print—to see the entire family collection of Clark's letters, owned by Mrs. Julia Clark Voorhis of New York. Among these letters is one to Chaboneau from Clark. In spite of the cordial relations between the Nor'westers and Lewis and Clark, these fur traders cannot conceal their fear that this trip presages the end of the fur trade.



APPENDIX

For the very excellent translations of the almost untranslatable transcripts taken from the Marine Archives of Paris, and forwarded to me by the Canadian Archives, I am indebted to Mr. R. Roy, of the Marine Department, Ottawa, the eminent authority on French Canadian genealogical matters.

Some of the topics in the Appendices are of such a controversial nature—the whereabouts of the Mascoutins, for instance—that at my request Mr. Roy made the translation absolutely literal no matter how incongruous the wording. To those who say Radisson was not on the Missouri I commend Appendix E, where the tribes of the West are described.



APPENDIX A

COPY OF LETTER WRITTEN TO M. COMPORTE BY M. CHOUART, AT LONDON, THE 29TH APRIL, 1685

SIR,

I have received the two letters with which you have honored me; I have even received one inclosed that I have not given, for reasons that I will tell you, God willing, in a few days.

I have received your instructions contained in the one and the other, as to the way I should act, and I should not have failed to execute all that you order me for the service of our Master, if I had been at full liberty so to do; you must have no doubt about it, because my inclination and my duty agree perfectly well. All the advantages that I am offered did not for a moment cause me to waver, but, in short, sir, I could not go to Paris, and I shall be happy to go and meet you by the route you travel. I shall be well pleased to find landed the people you state will be there; in case they may have the commission you speak of in your two letters, have it accompanied if you please with a memorandum of what I shall have to do for the service of our Master. I know of a case whereby I am sufficiently taught that it is not safe to undertake too many things, however advantageous they may be, nor undertaking too little. I am convinced, sir, that having orders, I will carry them out at the risk of my life, and I flatter myself that you do not doubt it.

There is much likelihood that the men you sent last year are lost.

I should like, sir, to be at the place you desire me to go; be assured I will perish, or be there as soon as I possibly can; it is saying enough. I do not answer to the rest of your letter, it is sufficient that I am addressing a sensible man, who, knowing my heart, will not doubt that I will keep my word with him, as I believe he will do all he can for my interests.

I am, with much anxiety to see you, sir, your most humble and most obedient servant,

(signed) CHOUART.

I will leave here only on the 25th of next month.



APPENDIX B

COPY OF LETTER WRITTEN BY M. CHOUART TO MRS. DES GROSEILLERS, HIS MOTHER

AT LONDON, 11TH APRIL, 1685.

MY VERY DEAR MOTHER,

I learn by the letter you have written me, of the 2nd November last, that my father has returned from France without obtaining anything at that Court, which made you think of leaving Quebec; my sentiment would be that you abandon this idea as I am strongly determined to go and be by you at the first opportunity I get, which shall be, God willing, as soon as I have taken means to that effect when I have returned from the North.

I hope to start on this voyage in a month or six weeks at the latest; I cannot determine on what date I could be near you; my father may know what difficulties there are. However, I hope to surmount them, and there is nothing I would not do to that end.

The money I left with my cousin is intended to buy you a house, as I have had always in mind to do, had not my father opposed it, but now I will do it so as to give you a chance to get on, and always see you in the country where I will live.

I have been made, here, proposals of marriage, to which I have not listened, not being here under the rule of my king nor near my parents, and I would have left this kingdom had I been given the liberty to do so, but they hold back on me my pay and the price of my merchandise, and I cannot sail away as orders have been given to arrest me in case I should prepare to leave.

What you fear in reference to my money should not give you any uneasiness on account of the English. I will cause it to be pretty well known that I never intended to follow the English. I have been surprised and forced by my uncle's subterfuges to risk this voyage being unable to escape the English vessels where my uncle made me go without disclosing his plan, which he has worked out in bringing me here, but I will not disclose mine either: to abandon this nation. I am willing that my cousin should pay you the income on my money, until I return home. M. the earl of Denonville, your governor, will see to my mother's affairs, as they who render service to the country will not be forsaken as in the past, and being generous as he is, loyal and zealous for his country, he will inform the Court what there is to be done for the benefit of our nation.

I am, my dear mother, to my father and to you,

most obedient servant, (signed) CHOUART.

And below is written:—

MOTHER,

I pray you to see on my behalf M. du Lude, and assure him of my very humble services. I will have the honor of seeing him as soon as I can. Please do the same with M. Peray and all our good friends.



APPENDIX C

COUNCIL

Held at fort Pontchartrain, in lake Erie strait, 8th June, 1704.

By the indians Kiskacous, Ottawa, Sinagot of the Sable Nation, Hurons, Saulteurs (Sault Indians), Amikoique (Amikoues), Mississaugas, Nipissings, Miamis and Wolves, in the presence of M. de Lamothe-Cadillac, commanding at the said fort; de Tonty, captain of a detachment of Marines; the rev F. Constantin, Recollet missionary at the said post; Messrs Desnoyers and Radisson, principal clerks of the Company of the Colony, and of all the French, soldiers as well as voyageurs.

The one named FORTY SOLS, (40 half-penny), indian chief of the Huron nation speaks as much on behalf of the said nation as of all those present at the meeting.

The French having come, he said:—

"We ask that all the French be present at this Council so that they hear and know what we will say to you.

"We are well on this land, it is very good, and we are much pleased with it; listen well, father, we pray you.

"Mrs de Tonty went away last year; she did not return; we see you going away to-day, father, with your wife, your children and all the Frenchwomen as well as that of M. Radisson, who is going down with you; that reveals to us that you abandon us.

"We are angry for good and ill-disposed if the women go away. We pray you to pay attention to this because we could not stop you nor your young men: we demand that Radisson remains, or at least, that he returns promptly."

BY A NECKLACE (Wampum)

"We will escort your wife and the other Frenchwomen who intend to go down to Montreal. Now, mind well what we are asking you.

"We readily see that the Governor is a liar, as he does not keep to what he has promised us; as he has lied to us we will lie to him also, and we will listen no more to his word.

"What brings that man here (speaking of M. Desnoyers)? We do not know him and do not understand him; we are ill-disposed. It is two years since you have been gathering in our peltries, part of which has been taken down; we will allow nothing to leave until the French come up with goods."

BY ANOTHER NECKLACE

"Father, we pray you to send back that man (speaking of M. Desnoyers), because if he remains here, we do not answer for his safety; our people have told us that he despises our peltries and only wanted beaver; where does he want us to get it. We absolutely want him to go; nothing will leave the house where the trading is done and where the peltries and bundles are, until the French arrive here with merchandise and they be allowed to trade. When we came here, the Governor did not tell us that the merchants would be masters over the merchandise; he lied to us; we ask that all the Frenchmen trade here; we pray you to write and tell him what we are saying, and if he does not listen to us, we will also refuse to accept his word.

"The land is not yours, it is ours, and we will leave it to go where we like without anybody finding fault. We regret having allowed the surgeon to leave as we apprehend he will not come back.

"We pray you will cause to remain Gauvereau the blacksmith and gunsmith.

"I have nothing more to say, I have spoken for all the nations here present."

M. de Lamothe had a question put to the Ottawa and the other nations, if that was their sentiment; they all answered: Yes, and that they were of one and the same mind. He told them that, seeing they had taken time to think over what they had just said, he would consider as to what he had to answer them, and, put them off to the morrow, after having accepted their necklace.

(Not signed.)

COUNCIL

Held at fort Pontchartrain, in lake Erie strait, the 9th June, 1704.

By the Indians Kiskacous; Ottawas; Sinagotres, the Sable nation; Hurons; Sauteux (Sault Ste Marie Indians); Amikoique (Beaver nation); Mississaugas; Miamis and Wolves in the presence of M. de Lamothe-Cadillac, commanding at the said fort; de Tonty, captain of a detachment of Marines; the rev F. Constantin, Recollet missionary at the said post, Messrs Desnoyers and Radisson, principal clerks of the Company of the Colony, and of all the French, soldiers as well as voyageurs.

M. de Lamothe addressed all the said nations:—

"As you requested me to pay attention to your words, please listen, the same, to-day.

"I was aware that Mdme. de Tonty's trip to Montreal last year had given you umbrage, because she did not come back; and the cause of it is her pregnancy.

"I knew also that my wife's setting out for Montreal as also the other Frenchwomen was causing you uneasiness, because you believed I was going to abandon you. It is true she was going away, but it was not for ever. I showed her your necklace; that her children would miss her very much and that they begged of her to stay. When she heard of your grief, she accepted your necklace and she will stay for some time, because she does not like to refuse her children; the other Frenchwomen will remain also.

"You spoke ill of the Governor when you said he was a liar. If anyone told you that he was forsaking you, I will be pleased if you will tell me who it is. As for me I have no knowledge of it.

"M. Desnoyers was present when you offered your necklace, and like me he heard your statement. He told me you were wrong to complain about him because he would not take your peltries and that he wanted beaver only; you are complaining inopportunely seeing that he has not done any trading. You should tell me who made those reports. But as you are not glad to see him, he has decided to go back, and as I am going down to Montreal on good business, he will accompany me, and also M. Radisson, because the Governor wants him, and he must obey, and we will arrange so that we come back together.

"You have asked me to write down your speech to the Governor. I will be the bearer of it. I have not the authority to have the French to trade here; it is a matter that M. the Governor will settle with M. the Intendant.

"The Governor did not lie to you because he did not notify you the first year, that the merchants would be masters of the merchandise, because it was the King who sent it here then and I could dispose of it; since then, an order came from the King in favor of the merchants.

"This land is mine, because I am the first one who lighted a fire thereon, and you all took some to light yours.

"I am very glad that you like this land, and that you find it is good.

"It is of no consequence that the surgeon left, because when one goes another comes, and the same applies for the gunsmith.

"I have no more to tell you. Here is some tobacco that you may all smoke together, and that it may give you wisdom until I return and the Governor sends you his word. Attend to your mother during my absence, and see that she does not want for provisions, for if you do not take care of her, on my return I will not give you a drink of brandy.

"M. de Tonty replaces me; I pray you to be on good terms with him."

FORTY SOLS, chief of the Hurons, spoke for all the indians:—

"We remember well, father, of what we said yesterday because you repeat it to-day. We thank you for having listened to us and granted all we asked you. We thank the women for not going away, because their remaining is as if you remained. From to-morrow we will stimulate our young men to go after provisions for our mother.

"It is three years ago, when in Montreal at the general meeting our chiefs died, the governor told us to have courage, that he was sorry for us, that he saw we were very far to come and get goods in Montreal, and he invited us to come and settle around you, and that he would send us merchandise at the same price as in Montreal. This worked well for two years, but goods rose up too much in price the third year.

"The first year you came, we were very happy, but now we are naked, not even having a bad shirt to put on our back. We would be pleased by the establishment of several stores here, because if we were refused in one, we could go to another.

"We are very glad of M. Desnoyers' going back because we do not know him and we fear some of our young men may be ill-disposed.

"We were under the impression the Governor had sold us to the merchants since they are the masters of the commerce.

"It is true that we took of your fire to light ours but we have waited two years without anything coming this way so that your land is ours. I told the same thing to the Governor last year in Montreal.

"Have courage, father, we will pray God for you during your voyage so that you may bring back good news."

(Not signed.)



APPENDIX D

Cie des Indes

(Indies Co'y)

Renders account to the said company of the death of Mr. Radisson, receiver at Montreal, of the nomination ad interim of Mr. Gamelin to fill the vacancy of receiver, of account to render by Mr. Deplessis, heir of Mr. Radisson to reestablish price of summer beaver as before ordinance of the 4th January, 1733.

AT QUEBEC, THE 25TH OCTOBER, 1735.

GENTLEMEN,

I have received the letter you did me the honor to send me of the 9th March last.

M. Radisson, your receiver at Montreal, died there the 14th of June and immediately M. Gamelin, merchant, to whom Messrs La Gorgendiere and Daine had given three years ago, had commissioned to look after your interests in default or in case of death of M. Radisson, applied to M. Michel, my sub-delegate to affix the seals on of all your effects, which was done according to the account rendered you by Messrs. La Gorgendiere and Daine.

It was necessary to fill the vacancy. I have appointed temporarily in virtue of the authority, you gave, gentlemen, the same M. Gamelin; I thought I could not have your interests in better hands, as much for his honesty than his intelligence in regulating his sales and his receipts. Independently of the knowledge he has of the different qualities of beaver, I have had the honor to speak to you on this subject in my preceding letters and to say that the only obstacle I find to giving him the office of receiver at Montreal was his quality of merchant outfitter for the upper country, which might render him suspicious to you because of the returns he gets in beaver. Although I have a pretty good opinion of him to believe his loyalty proof against any particular interest, you shall see, gentlemen, by the copy of the commission I have given him, which is sent you, that it is on condition either directly or indirectly to do no traffic in the upper country, and to confine himself either to marine trade or other inland commerce, to which he has agreed, but nevertheless has represented to me that being engaged as a partner with M. Lamarque, another merchant, for the working out of the post named "the Western Sea" and that of the Sioux; this partnership only terminating in 1737; that he was looking around to sell his share, but, if this thing was impossible requesting me to kindly allow him to continue until that term, past which he would cease all commerce in the upper country. I agreed to this arrangement on account of his good qualities, and this will not turn to any account of consequence; whatever, selection you may make, gentlemen, you will not find a better one in this country.

M. de La Gorgendiere having offered me his son to act as clerk to M. Gamelin and comptroller in the Montreal office, for the auditing to be made, without increasing on that score the expenditure of your administration, I have consented on these conditions; M. Gamelin to give him 800 livres (shillings) on the commission of one per cent the company allow the receiver at Montreal, and M. Daine has assured me he was satisfied with his work.

I will not entertain, you, messieurs, with the discussion of the account to be rendered by M. Duplessis, M. Radisson's heir, to your agent, who claims he owes 5 to 6000 livres. Those discussions did not take place in my presence.

Most of the beaver shipped this year were put up in bundles, and shortage in cotton cloth for packing prevented shipment of the whole.

The disturbances which have occurred for some years in the upper country have effectively prevented the Indians from hunting; the post of the Bay which abounds ordinarily with beaver, produced nothing; those of Detroit and Michilimakinac, only furnished very little. Happily the post of the Sioux and of the Western Sea produced near to 100,000 which swelled up the receipt; otherwise it would have been very middling.

The party commanded by M. Desnoyelles against the Indians Sakis and Foxes was not as successful as expected on account of the desertion and retreat of 100 Hurons and Iroquois who left him when at the Kakanons (Kiskanons of Michilimakinac?) without his being able to hold them, so that this officer found himself after a long tramp at those Indians' fort, not only inferior in numbers but also much in want of provisions. He was under the necessity of returning after a rather sharp skirmish which took place between some of his men and the enemy. We lost two Frenchmen and one of our indians; the Foxes and Sakis lost 21 men, either killed, wounded or captured.

If the Sakis come back to the Bay, as they pledged themselves to M. Desnoyelles we are in hopes here that peace will again flourish and consequently the trade of the upper country.

I have seen, gentlemen, what you were pleased to say as to reduction in price on the summer-beaver. I had been assured by reliable persons that this reduction might become very injurious to your commerce. I have learned that some of this kind of beaver were carried to the English who pay two livres (shillings) for one and at a higher price than you pay over your counters. It was from what you wrote me in 1732, that the hatters could make no use of that beaver, that at your request I published an ordinance of the 4th January, 1733, reducing the price of summer-beaver either green (gras) or dry (sec) to ten pence a pound, on condition that it should be burned. There could be nothing suspicious in that. But since you now deem that that reduction may be harmful, as I have also had in mind to invite the indians and even the French under this pretence to take the good as well as the bad beaver to the English; I will restore the price of the summer-beaver as it was before my ordinance. I will not be at a loss for a cause: it is not in your interest to give a lower price. You run your commerce, gentlemen, with too much good faith to give rise to suspicion that you wished for a reduction in price to 10 pence for this kind of beaver, and having it burned only to procure it yourself at that price and not burn it. Besides, the quantity received is too small a matter to deserve consideration.

[Sidenote: Beaver hats half worked made in the country.]

M. the marquis de Beauharnois and I have received the orders of the King with reference to beaver hats half worked made in Canada. His Majesty has ordered us to break up the workmen's benches and to prevent any manufacture of hats. We have made some representations on this subject, to those made to us, namely by a man named ———, hatter, and your receiver at Quebec. It is true that the making of beaver hats half worked and other for export to France could turn out of consequence in ruining your privilege and the hat establishments in France. These are the only inconveniences, to my mind, to be feared, as I do not look upon such, the making of hats for the use of residents of the country. So that we have satisfied ourselves, until further orders, to forbid the going, out of the colony, of all kind of hats, as you will see by the ordinance we have published together, M. the General and I. If we had been more strict, the three hatters established in this colony, who know no other business than their trade, the man ——— amongst others, who follow that calling from father to son, would have been reduced to begging.

The quantity of hats they will manufacture when export is stopped, cannot be of any injury to the manufactures of the kingdom and be but of small matter to your commerce. Moreover, I am aware that these hatters employ the worst kind of beaver, which they get very cheap, and your stores at Paris are that much rid of them.

[Sidenote: Defects in list of cloth sent.]

The cloths you sent this year are of better quality than the precedding shipment. Messrs La Gorgendiere, Daine and Gamelin have observed on defects which happen in the lists; they told me they would inform you.

[Sidenote: Remittance of 300 livres (shillings) to the Baron de Longueuil.]

I have the honor to thank you, gentlemen, for the remittance of 300 livres you were pleased to grant to M. the Baron of Longueuil, on my recommendation.

It is very difficult to prevent the Indians going to Chouaguen; the brandy that the English give out freely is an invincible attraction.

I have heard, the same as you, that some Frenchmen disguised as Indians had been there; if I can discover some one, you may be sure that I will deal promptly with them. You may have heard that the man LENOIR, resident of Montreal, having gone to England three years ago without leave, I have kept him in prison till he had settled the fine he was condemned to pay, and which I transferred to the hospitals. I add that a part of the interest you have in the Indians not going to Chouaguen, I have another on account of the trading carried on for the benefit of the King at Niagara and at fort Frontenac which that English post has ruined. By all means you may rely on my attention to break up English trade. I fear I may not succeed in this so long as the brandy traffic, although moderate, will find adversaries among those who govern consciences.

[Sidenote: Foreign trade; Beaver at trade at Labrador.]

I will do my best to prevent the beaver which is traded at Labrador and the other posts in the lower part of the River to be smuggled to France by ships from Bayonne, St Malo and Marseille. This will be difficult as we cannot have at those posts any inspector. I will try, however, to give an ordinance so as to prevent that, which may intimidate some of those who carry on that commerce.

It is true that the commandants of the upper country posts have relaxed in the sending of the declarations made or to be made by the voyageurs as to the quantity and quality of the bundles of beaver they take down to Montreal. M. the General and I have renewed the necessary orders on this subject so that the commandants shall conform to them.

[Sidenote: Asks for continuation of gratuity received by Mr. Michel, even to increase it.]

M. Michel, my subdelegate at Montreal has received the bounty of 500 livres you have requested your agent to pay to him; he hopes that you will be pleased to have it continued next year. I have the honor to pray you to do so, and even augment it, if possible. I can assure you, gentlemen that he lends himself on all occasions to all that may concern your commerce. As for myself, I am very flattered by the opinion you entertain that I have at heart your interests. I always feel a true satisfaction in renewing you these assurances.

I am, respectfully,



[Sidenote: Thanks for the coffee sent.]

GENTLEMEN, M. de La Gorgendiere has delivered to me on your behalf, a bale of Moka coffee. I am very sensible, gentlemen, to this token of friendship on your part.

I have the honor to thank you, and to assure you that I am very truly and respectfully, etc.

(signed) HOCQUART.



APPENDIX E

MEMORANDUM RE CANADA

(No locality) 1697

All the discoveries in America were only made step by step and little by little, especially those of lands held by the French in that part of the North.

It being certain that during the reign of king Francis I, several of his subjects, amateurs of shipping and of discoveries, in imitation of the Portuguese and the Spaniards, made the voyage, where they found the great cod bank. The quality of birds frequenting this sea where they always find food, caused them to heave the lead, and bottom was found and the said great bank.

He got an opinion on the nearest lands, and other curious persons desired to go farther, and discovered Cape Breton, Virginia and Florida. Some even inhabited and took possession of the divers places, abandoned since, through misunderstanding of the commanders and their poor skill in knowing how to keep on good terms with the indians of those countries, who, good natured all at the beginning, could not suffer the rigor with which it was wanted to subjugate them, so that after a short occupation, they left to return to Europe. And since, the Spaniards and the English successfully have taken possession of the land and all the coasts that the said English have kept until this day to much advantage, so that Frenchmen who have returned since have been obliged to settle at Cape Breton and Acadia.

About the year 1540, the said Cape Breton was fortified by Jacques Carrier, captain of St Malo, who afterward entered the river St. Lawrence up to 7 or 8 leagues above Quebec, where desiring to know more, the season also being too far advanced he stopped off to winter at a small river which bears his name and which forms the boundary of M. de Becancourt's land whom he knew; he made sociable a number of Indians who came aboard his ship and brought back beaver pretty abundantly.

Since, he made another voyage with Saintonge men which did not prevent several other ships to go after the said beaver; men from Dieppe, Brittany and La Rochelle, some with a passport and others by fraud and piracy, especially the latter, the Civil war having carried away persons out of dutifulness, the Admiralty and the Marine being then held in very little consideration, which lasted a long time.

However, I believe for having heard it said, that the lands after new discoveries were given since to M. Chabot or to M. Ventadour, where a certain gentleman from Saintonge named M. du Champlain, had very free admittance and who may have mingled with those of his country who had navigated with Carrier and had given him a longing to see that of which he had only heard speak.

He was a proper man for such a scheme; a great courage, wisdom, sensible, pious, fair and of great experience; a robust body which would render him indefatigable and capable to resist hunger, cold and heat.

This gentleman then solicited permission to come to Canada and obtained it. His small estate and his friends supplied him with a medium sized vessel for the passage. This new commandant or governor pitied much the Indians and had the satisfaction at his arrival to see that he was much feared and loved by them. He took memoranda through his interpreter of their wars, their mode of living and of their interests. At that time they were numerous and proud of the great advantages they had over the Iroquois, their enemy. With this information he recrossed to France; gave an account of his voyage, and was so charmed with the land, the climate and of the good which would result from a permanent establishment that he persuaded his wife to accompany him. His example induced missionaries of St. Francois and some parisian families to follow him. He was granted a commission or governor's provisions to take his living from the country.

He erected a palissade fort at the place now occupied by the fort St Louis of Quebec.

To please the indians he went with them and three Frenchmen only, warring in the Iroquois country, which has no doubt given rise to our quarrel with this nation.

The Commerce was then in the hands of the Rochelois (?) who supplied some provisions to the said M. de Champlain, a man without interest and disposed to be content with little.

He returns to France in the interests of the country and took back Madam his wife who died in a Ursuline convent, at Saintes, I believe, and he at Quebec, after having worked hard there, with little help because of the misfortunes of France.

M. the Cardinal of Richelieu have inspired France with confidence by the humiliation of the Rochelois (?) wanted to take care of the marine and formed at that time, about 1626 or 1627 what was then called the "Society of One Hundred," in which joined persons of all qualifications, and also merchants from Dieppe and Rouen. Dieppe was then reputed for good navigators and for navigation.

The said M. the Cardinal got granted to the said company the islands of St Christophe, newly discovered and all the lands of Canada. The Company composed of divers states did not take long to disjoin, and of this great Company several were formed by themselves, the ones concerning themselves about the Isles and the others about Canada, where they were also divided up in a Company of Miscou, which is an island of the Bay in the lower part of the River, where all the Indians meet, and a Company of Tadoussac or Quebec.

The Basques, Rochelois, Bretons, and Normans, who during the disorders of the war had commenced secretly on the River, crossed their commerce much by the continuation of their runs without passport. Sometimes on pretext of cod or whale fishing, notwithstanding the interdiction of decrees, the gain made them risk everything, as the two sides of the river were all settled and many more came down from inland.

Those Companies for being badly served on account of inexperience and through poor economy, as will happen at the beginning of all affairs, were put to large expenses.

The English had already seized on Boston abandoned by the French after their new discovery; beaver and elk peltry were much sought after and at a very high price in Europe; they could be had for a needle, a hawk-bell or a tin looking-glass, a marked copper coin. Our possession was there very well-off. The English who made war to us in France, also made it in Canada, and began to take the fleet about Isle Percee, as it was ascending to Quebec.

As four or five vessels came every year loaded with goods for the Indians, it was at that time quantity of peas, plums, raisins, figs and others and provisions for M. de Champlain; a garrison of 15 or 20 men; a store in the lower town where the clerks of the Company lived with 10 or 12 families already used to the country. This succor failing, much hardship was endured in a country which then produced nothing by itself, so that the English presenting themselves the next year with their fleet, surrender was obligatory; the governor and the Recollets crossed over to France and the families were treated honestly enough.

Happily in 1628 or 1629, France made it up with England and the treaty gave back Canada to the French, when M. de Champlain, returned and died some years later.

Those of the Company of 100, who were persons of dignity and consideration, living in Paris, thought fit to leave the care and benefits of commerce for Canada with the Rouen and Dieppe merchants, with whom joined a few from Paris. They were charged with the payment of the governor's appointments, to furnish him with provisions and subsistence and to keep up the garrisons of Quebec and Three-Rivers where there was also a post on account of the large number of Indians calling; to furnish the things necessary for the war; to pay themselves off the product and give account of the surplus to the directors of the Company who had an office at Paris.

It has been said that Dieppe and Rouen benefitted and that Paris suffered and was disgusted.

To M. de Champlain succeeded M. de Montmagny, very wise and very dignified; knight of Malta; relative of M. de Poinsy, who commanded at the Island of St Christophe where the said M. de Montmagny died after leaving Canada after a sojourn of 14 or 15 years, loved and cherished by the French and the natives—we say the French, although the complaints made against him by the principals were the cause of his sorrow and he resigned voluntarily.

It is to be remarked that all the commerce was done at Rouen to go out through Dieppe on the hearsay and the fine connections that the Jesuit Fathers who had taken the Recollets' place, took great care to have printed and distributed every year.

Canada was in vogue and several families from Normandy and the Perche took sail to come and reside in it; there were nobles, the most of them poor, we might say, who found out from the first, that M. de Montmagny was too disinterested to be willing to consider the change they desired for their advantage. They intrigued against him five or six families without the participation of the others, got leave from him to go to France to ask for favors and there had one of themselves as governor; obtained liberty in the beaver trade, which until then had been strictly forbidden to the inhabitants who had been reserved the fruits of the country to advance the culture of the land such as pease, Indian corn, and wheat bread. That was the first title of the inhabitants to trade with the indians.

To arrive at that end they promised to pay annually 1000 beaver to the Paris office for its seignorial right which it did not receive through its attention and management of its affairs.

They got permission to form a Board from their principal men, to transact with the governor all matters in the country for peace, for war, the settlement of accounts of their society or little republic, and also sitting on cases concerning interests of private individuals.

It was then that to keep up this sham republic or society, a tax of one-fourth was imposed on the export of beaver.

By these means the authority of the Company and its store were ruined and the whole was turning to the advantage of those four or six families, the others, either poor or slighted by the authority of M. D'Ailleboust, their governor.

On this footing it was not hard for them to find large credit at La Rochelle, because loans were made in the name of the Community, although it consisted only of these four or six families; which from their being poor found themselves in large managements enlarged their household, ran into expense, that of their vessels and shipments was excessive and the wealth derived from the beaver was to pay all.

Their bad management altered their credit and brought them to agree, after several years' enjoyment so as not to pay La Rochelle, to take their ships to Havre-de-Grace, where, on arrival they sold to Messrs Lick and Tabac; this perfidy which they excused because of the large interest taken from them, alarmed La Rochelle who complained to Paris, and after much pressing a trustee was appointed to give bonds in the name of the society for large sums yet due to the city of La Rochelle.

Their vessels all bore off to Normandy; they took on their cargoes there in part, and part at La Rochelle, the trade having been allowed those two places, because Rouen and Dieppe had several persons on the roll of the Company and obligation was due La Rochelle for having loaned property.

The governor and the families addressed reproaches to each other, and the King being pleased to listen to them, had the kindness to appoint from the body of the company persons of first dignity to give attention to what was going on in this colony, who were called Commissioners; they were Messrs de Morangis, de la Marguerid, Verthamont and Chame, and since, Messrs de Lamoignon, de Boucherat and de Lauzon, the latter also of the body of the Company offered to pass over to this country to arrange the difficulties, and he asked for its government, which was accorded him.

He embarked at La Rochelle because of the obligation of the creditors of that city to treat him gently; Rouen did not care much. He was a literary man; he made friends with the R. F. Jesuits, and created a new council in virtue of the powers he had brought, rebuke the one and the other place, even the inhabitants, in forbidding them to barter in what was called the limits of Tadoussac, which he bounded for a particular lease as a security for his payment and of what has always since been called the offices of the country or the state of the 33,000 livres; the emoluments of the Councillors, the garrison, the Jesuits, the Parish, the Ursulines, the Hote-Dieu, etc.

The pretext given was that the Iroquois having burned and ruined the Hurons or Ottawa, the tax of one-fourth did not produce enough to meet those demands, and because Tadoussac also was not sufficient to meet all the expenditure contemplated to give war to the Iroquois, he it was also who began in not paying the thousand weight in beaver owing for seignorial right to the Company who was irritated and blamed his conduct, and after the lapse of some years his friends write him they could not longer shield him he anticipated his recall in returning to France, where he has since served as sub-dean of the Council, residing at the cloister of Notre-Dame with his son, canon at the said church.

I only saw him two years in Canada where he was hardly liked, by reason of the little care he took to keep up his rank, without servant, living on pork and peas like an artisan or a peasant.

However, having decided to go back, for a second time he threw open the Tadoussac trade, by an order of his Council.

M. de Lamoignon, the first president, got named to replace him, M. D'Argenson, young man of 30 to 32 years steady as could be, who remained four or five years to the satisfaction of everybody; he kept up the Council as it is intended for the security of his emoluments and of the garrison, selected twelve of the most notable persons to whom he gave the faculty of trading at Tadoussac and all the sureties to be wished for the administration and maintenance.

He had the misfortune to fall out with the Jesuit Fathers, and they, with messieurs de Mont Royal, of St Sulpice who had sent Mr the abbey de Queysac, in the hope of making a bishop of him; the former wishing to have one of their nomination presented to the Queen-mother of the reigning King, whom God preserve, M. de Laval, to-day elder and first bishop, who, very rigid, not only backed the Jesuits against the governor in all difficulties but specially in the matter of the liquor traffic with the indians. Although (D'Argenson) a much God-fearing-man he had his private opinions, and this offended him; he asked M. de Lamoignon for his recall, which was done in 1661, when M. d'Avaugour came out.

It was in 1660 that the Office in Paris, at the request of the governor, of the Local council and on the advice of Messrs de Lamoignon, Chame and other commissioners made an agreement with the Rouen merchants to supply the inhabitants with all goods they would require with 60% profit on dry goods and 100% on liquors, freight paid.

It was pretended that the country was not safely secured by ships of private parties, and that when they arrived alone by unforeseen accidents, they happened unexpectedly, to the ruin of the country; as well as the beaver fallen to a low price and which was restored only at the marriage of the king should keep up.