“ The island colony proved valuable as a supply and repair station for traders and explorers, and thus served as a nucleus of both French and English settlement in America.
It is difficult for us of to-day to realize that, at any time in the world's history, enlightened folk should have thought good colonists could be made out of the sweepings of the jails and gutters of the Old World. ”

“ With all these vices, they are exceedingly vainglorious: they think they are better, more valiant and more ingenious than the French; and, what is difficult to believe, richer than we are. They consider themselves, I say, braver than we are, boasting that they have killed Basques and Malouins, and that they do a great deal of harm to the ships, and that no one has ever resented it, insinuating that it was from a lack of courage. ”

“ For my part, I shall always believe that, in any settlement whatsoever, nothing will be accomplished without the presence of women. Without them life is sad, sickness comes, and we die uncared-for. Therefore I despise those woman-haters who have wished them all sorts of evil, which I hope will overtake that lunatic in particular, who has been placed among the number of the seven Sages, who said that woman is a necessary evil, since there is no blessing in the world to be compared to her. ”

“ He was thus the first Jesuit martyr in the Huron mission, and the second in New France,—for Jogues had been tortured to death in the Iroquois towns, two years before. The spirit of the Hurons was crushed in this bloody foray; large bands, deserting their towns, fled in terror to seek protection of the Petuns, while others made their way to the Manitoulin Islands of Lake Huron, and even as far west as the islands of Green Bay and the matted pine forests of Northern Wisconsin. ”

“ So they themselves compose songs long beforehand, in order that they may repeat them if they should by chance be captured. The rest of the crowd consume the corpse in a brutal feast. The chief reserves for himself the scalp as a sign of victory, a trophy of cruelty. ”

“ The prisoner who has beheld and endured stake, knives and wounds with an unchanging countenance, who has not groaned, who with laughter and song has ridiculed his tormentors, is praised; for they think that to sing amid so many deaths is great and noble. ”

“ What each boy sees in his dreams, when his reason begins to develop, is to him thereafter a deity, whether it be a dog, a bear, or a bird. They often derive their principles of life and action from dreams; as, for example, if they dream that any person ought to be killed, they do not rest until they have caught the man by stealth and slain him. It is wearisome to recount the tales which they invent concerning the creation of the world. Soothsayers and worthless quacks fill with these the idle and greedy ears of the people in order that they may acquire an impious gain. ”

“ They are, I say, savage, haunting the woods, ignorant, lawless and rude: they are wanderers, with nothing to attach them to a place, neither homes nor relationship, neither possessions nor love of country; as a people they have bad habits, are extremely lazy, gluttonous, profane, treacherous, cruel in their revenge, and given up to all kinds of lewdness, men and women alike, the men having several wives and abandoning them to others, and the women only serving them as slaves, whom they strike and beat unmercifully, and who dare not complain ”

“ Happiness of the Savages.And, in this respect, I consider all these poor savages, whom we commiserate, to be very happy; for pale Envy doth not emaciate them, neither do they feel the inhumanity of those who serve God hypocritically, harassing their fellow-creatures under this mask; nor are they subject to the artifices of those who, lacking virtue and goodness wrap themselves up in a mantle of false piety to nourish their ambition. If they do not know God, at least they do not blaspheme him, as the greater number of Christians do. ”

“ Soon after I published my History of New France,10 there was an embarkation of eight hundred men to be sent there. It is not reported that they bathed their hands in the blood of those people, for which they are neither to be praised nor blamed: for there is no law nor pretext which permits us to kill anyone, whosoever he may be, and especially the persons whose property we have seized. But they are 63 to be commended if they show to these poor ignorant people the way of salvation by the true and unvarnished doctrine of the Gospel. ”

“ But, strange to say, they will leave this heat, dripping with perspiration, and in the very coldest part of winter cast themselves into a lake or river, careless of pleurisy.
They never bear out the corpses of the dead through the door of the lodge, but through that part toward which the sick person turned when he expired. They think that the soul flies out through the smoke-hole ”

“ The water of an entire river often falls in the form of an arch, in such fashion that it is possible to walk dry-shod beneath the stream which rushes overhead. The savages, when they come to such a spot, shoulder their boats, which are constructed of light bark, and carry them, together with the baggage, to the calm portion of the river flowing below. The chief city of new France is called Kebec, and is situated on the St. Lawrence river. The whole country possesses a healthful climate, but is harassed by a cold and long winter. ”

“ Finally, they kindle a fire about them, and roast the miserable creatures with slow heat. Sometimes they pierce the flesh of the muscles with red-hot plates and with spits, or cut it off and devour it, half-burned and dripping with gore and blood. Next, they plant blazing torches all over the body, and especially in the gaping wounds; then, after scalping him they scatter ashes and live coals upon his naked head; then they tear the tendons of the arms and legs, lacerate them, or, after removing a little of the skin, leisurely cut them with a knife at the ankle and wrist. ”

“ From this port where we now are, it is very convenient for us to spread out to the Armouchiquois, Iroquois, and Montagnais, our neighbors, which are populous nations and till the soil as we do; this situation, I say, makes us hope something for the future. For, if our Souriquois are few, they may become numerous; if they are savages, it is to domesticate and civilize them that we have come here; if they are rude, that is no reason that we should be idle ”

“ Arrived at last, at his journey's end, we often find him vainly seeking for shelter in the squalid huts of the natives, with every man's hand against him, but his own heart open to them all. We find him, even when at last domiciled in some far-away village, working against hope to save the unbaptized from eternal damnation; we seem to see the rising storm of opposition, invoked by native medicine-men,—who to his seventeenth-century imagination seem devils indeed,—and at last the bursting climax of superstitious frenzy which sweeps him and his before it. ”

“ The French colonies of Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal, had suffered from repeated raids of the New York confederates, and their forest trade was now almost wholly destroyed. In this hour of darkness, light suddenly broke upon New France. The politic Iroquois, attacked on either side by the Eries and the Susquehannas, and fearing that while thus engaged their northern victims might revive for combined vengeance, sent overtures of peace to Quebec, and cordially invited to their cantonments the once detested black gowns. ”

“ I know that there are any number of people who are willing to go there. But why is it that [11] the Church, which has so much wealth; why is it that the Nobility, who expend so much needlessly, do not establish some fund for the execution of so holy a work? Two courageous Gentlemen, Sieurs de Monts and de Poutrincourt, have in these later times shown such great zeal in this work, that they have weakened their resources by their outlays, and have done more than their strength justified them in doing. ”

“ As the smoke passes out with difficulty, it usually fills the whole hut, so that strangers compelled to live in these cabins suffer injury and weakening of the eyes; the savages, a coarse race, and accustomed to these discomforts, ridicule this. The care of household affairs, and whatever work there may be in the family, are placed upon the women. They build and repair the wigwams, carry water and wood, and prepare the food; their duties and position are those of slaves, laborers and beasts of burden. The pursuits of hunting and war belong to the men. ”

“ There are in that country some men of the Church, of good scholarship, whom nothing but their religious zeal has taken there, and who will not fail to do all that piety requires in this respect. Now, for the present, there is no need of any learned Doctors who may be more useful in combating vices and heresies at home. Besides, there is a certain class of men in whom we cannot have complete confidence, who are in the habit of censuring everything that is not in harmony with their maxims, and wish to rule wherever they are. ”

“ But if a few honest people were seized with a desire to [26] advance the cause of the Gospel there, I would advise them to make up five or six parties, each one having a well-equipped ship, and to go and establish colonies in different parts of New France, as at Tadoussac, Gachepé, Campseau, la Héve, Oigoudi, Ste. Croix, Pemptegoet, Kinibeki, and in other places, where there are assemblages of Savages, whom time must lead to the Christian Religion: unless the head of some great family, like the King, wishes to have the sole glory of peopling these lands. ”

“ In 1590, the Marquis de la Roche was sent out with the usual dissolute crew to succeed Roberval as the king's agent on the banks of the St. Lawrence. Leaving part of his ill-favored gang on the desert Sable Isle, off Nova Scotia (where early in the century Baron de Léry had vainly attempted to plant a colony) , La Roche set forth to explore the mainland for a site. A wild storm blew his vessels to France, and the wretched skin-clad survivors of the band which he had left behind were not rescued until thirteen years had elapsed. Their tale of horror long rang in the ears of France. ”

“ At Port Royal, the name of the Captain or Sagamore of the place is Membertou.19 He is at least a hundred years old, and may in the course of nature live more than fifty years longer. He has under him a number of families whom he rules, not with so much authority as does our King over his subjects, but with sufficient power to harangue, advise, and lead them to war, to render justice to one who has a grievance, and like matters. He does not impose taxes upon the people, but if there are any profits from the chase he has a share of them, without being obliged to take part in it. ”

“ For, they say, if the bears, beaver, and other wild animals which we capture in hunting should know that their bones were given to dogs and broken to pieces, they would not suffer themselves to be taken so easily. They wipe off upon their hair the grease which is collected from fatty foods; sometimes they smear their cheeks or arms for the sake, as they say, of elegance and health; for they think that not only is the skin made resplendent with grease, but that the limbs are thus strengthened. ”

“ The inner life of New France, throughout its century and a half of existence, was largely a warring between these several interests.
Missionaries came early upon the scene. With the Calvinist De Monts were Huguenot ministers for the benefit of the settlers, and Catholic priests to open a mission among the savages, for the court had stipulated with him that the latter were to be instructed only in the faith of Rome. But no missionary work was done, for the colony was through several years on the verge of dissolution, and the priests became victims of scurvy. ”

“ Antoinette de Pons, Marquise de Guercheville, patroness of Jesuit missions in New France, was lady of honor to Marie de Médicis, and accounted one of the most beautiful and zealously religions women of her time. Taking up the defence of the Jesuits against Poutrincourt, she not only bought the ship in which to transport them to America, but the cargo and the royal patent of De Monts, thus succeeding the latter as proprietor of all Acadia, excepting Port Royal, which still remained in Poutrincourt's possession. ”

“ How great is the impunity and wantonness of licentiousness among men uncivilized and free from all restraint, especially among the youth, maybe readily observed; for the elder men confine their lust within fixed limits, after the violence of their passions has subsided, and an erring woman does not go unpunished. ”

“ The Reverend Father Pierre Coton, then confessor and preacher to the king, and who was very highly esteemed by His Majesty, as we know, was commissioned by him to select, from his Society, some men capable of conducting to a successful issue this perilous and holy enterprise.
Many of our religious offered themselves for this distant mission. Among them was noticed Father Pierre Biard, a man whose integrity equaled his talent and who then occupied the chair of theology at Lyons. The choice of the superiors fell upon him and upon Father Ennemond Masse, of whom we shall speak hereafter. ”

“ The corpse, wrapped in beaver skins, and placed upon a bier made of bark and rushes, with his 265 limbs bent and pressed tightly against his body in order that, as they say, he may be committed to the earth in the same position in which he once lay in his mother's womb, is borne out on the shoulders of the relatives. The bier is set down at the appointed place, the gifts which each one offers to the dead are fastened to poles, and the donors are named by the master of the funeral. ”

“ In feasts it is the rule, by general consent and custom of the race, that all the food shall be consumed. 287 If any one eats sparingly and urges his poor health as an excuse, he is beaten or ejected as ill-bred, just as if he were ignorant of the art of living. ”

“ Isaiah assures us that the kingdom of our Redeemer shall be recognized throughout the earth; and that there shall be neither caves of dragons nor dens of cockatrices, nor inaccessible rocks, nor abysses so deep, that his grace will not soften and his salvation cure, his abundance fertilize, his humility raise up, and over which his cross will not at last victoriously triumph. ”

“ And now you have had, my Reverend Father, an account of our voyage, of what happened in it, and before it, and since our arrival at this settlement. It now remains to tell you that the conversion of this country to the Gospel, and of these people to civilization, is not a small undertaking nor free from great difficulties; for, in the first place, if we consider the 173 country, it is only a forest, without other conveniences of life than those which will be brought from France, and what in time may be obtained from the soil after [31] it has been cultivated. ”

“ There is a dramatic unity in the Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, as they will be presented in this series. Commencing with a report of the first conversion of savages in New France, in 1610, by a secular priest, and soon drifting into the records of Jesuit missionary effort, they touch upon practically every important enterprise of the Jesuits, in Canada and Louisiana, from the coming of Fathers Biard and Massé, in 1611, to the death, in the closing decade of the eighteenth century, of Father Well, "the last Jesuit of Montreal." ”

“ Dense ignorance prevails in all these countries, where there is no evidence that they have ever felt the breath of the Gospel, except in this last century when the Spaniard carried thither some light of the Christian religion, together with his cruelty and avarice.7 But this was so little that it should not receive much consideration, since by the very confession of those who have written their histories, they have killed almost all the natives of the country, who, only seventy years ago, according to a certain historian,8 numbered more than twenty millions. ”