FOOTNOTES:
[II.] We shall add to the letters of our first missionaries to Canada a fragment of a memoir entitled: Records of New France, from the year 1607 to the year 1737.—Of the Island of Martinique from the year 1678.—Of the Island of Cayenne from the year 1668.
The translation of chapter II. of this manuscript, preserved in our archives at Rome, will give a collection of facts about New [2] France, which are not found in the letters we publish.
Among the gentlemen who offered themselves to Henry the Great, of happy memory, to undertake the colonization of New France, was sieur de Potrincourt. The king granted him all that he asked, but at the same time gave him to understand that he must take with him some religious persons from our Society for the purpose of securing, according to his orders, the salvation of the savages; furthermore, that the expense of this mission would in no respect devolve upon him, but would be provided for from the royal Treasury.
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.
They both departed in 1608 for Bordeaux, where they intended to embark, but they were obliged to wait three years. For the gentleman, of whom we have already spoken, postponed his departure; then he offered as an excuse the necessity of making a trial voyage, in order, said he, to prepare a suitable dwelling for the Fathers. In fact he did make this journey, accompanied by a secular priest, who, yielding to a thoughtless zeal, baptized a hundred savages without having sufficiently instructed and tested them. Later, it was discovered that these poor people had not even understood what they had received.
Three years afterwards, on returning from his voyage, sieur de Potrincourt, urged by the queen-mother, undertook to convey our Fathers to [3] Canada. But it was not without great difficulty and much suffering that they reached Port Royal, upon the coast of Acadia.
The year following their arrival, two others of our Society went to join them, namely, Father Quentin and Gilbert du Thet, a Brother-coadjutor.[30] A two years' sojourn in Port Royal demonstrated to them the impossibility of making that the center of their mission, either on account of the difficulty of attracting there a great assemblage of savages, or because of the bickerings of those in command. They transferred the seat of their mission to another point upon the same coast, in latitude 45° 30', according to a decree of the king. This settlement received the name of Saint Savior. They had been established there but a short time, when the English, coming upon them suddenly, took possession of the French ship, seized the letters-patent of the commander, and, by a piece of outrageous rascality, treated him as a pirate. At the moment of attack several Frenchmen were killed, and among them brother Gilbert du Thet, a man remarkable for his courage and piety.
The victorious English, after having pillaged as much as they liked, abandoned part of the French in a miserable bark, and took with them to Virginia Fathers Biard and Quentin. Our two prisoners expected to be condemned to death, especially when, being taken back to Port Royal they refused to make known the hiding-place of the French who were concealed in the neighborhood. Turning their course a second time toward Virginia, they would probably have met death there, had not divine Providence frustrated all the efforts of the English sailors to land. A violent storm cast them upon the Azores islands, which belong to Portugal; and there, in spite of all their efforts, they were obliged to disembark.
Even the English were forced to admire the loyalty and charity [4] of our Fathers, who, by showing themselves to the Portuguese, might have caused the seizure of the ship, and had the English condemned and executed as pirates. Before entering port they exacted from their prisoners the promise not to denounce them, and to keep themselves concealed during their entire sojourn at the Azores. While the Portuguese were visiting the ship, the Fathers remained in the bottom of the hold, where they escaped observation. This generosity and loyalty in keeping their word so surprised the English that they immediately changed their treatment of their captives, and took them directly to England, where they publicly eulogized them.
The French ambassador, on hearing of their arrival, hastened to reclaim them, and had them taken back honorably into their own country, in the month of May, 1614.
This first voyage of our missionaries, apparently so futile, had, however, fortunate results. Beside the experience acquired, of which good use was made, the zeal of French catholics, revived by the stories of the Fathers, created new resources; and as soon as the French colony was delivered from the English, the Jesuits resumed their voyages to Canada, where they finally founded one of the finest missions of the Society.—[Carayon.]