[436] The measurement and distance here given are very nearly correct. Lake Champlain is 126 miles long by about 14 in width at its broadest part. Burlington is not far from 240 miles from Boston.
[437] In regard to the imaginary attractions and advantages of Laconia and its great lake, see Belknap’s American Biography, vol. i. p. 377.
[438] The two brothers, William and Emery de Caen, became prominent in the history of Canadian settlement in 1621, and remained so for a number of years. They did not, however, plant a colony of French in America, nor was the name of Canada, or of its famous river, derived from their name. On this point see Parkman’s Pioneers of France, pp. 184, note, and 391-5. Morton’s derivation of the name Canada is entitled to much the same weight as his derivation of the names Pantucket and Mattapan. (Supra, [124].) It was not, however, peculiar to him as, forty years later, Josselyn also speaks (Rarities, p. 5) of “the River Canada, (so called from Monsieur Cane).”
[439] On the breaking out of the war between England and France in 1627, under the influence of Buckingham, Sir William Alexander had been instrumental in organizing an expedition to seize the French possessions in America. At its head were three Huguenots of Dieppe,—David, Louis and Thomas Kirk, brothers. The expedition was successful, and on the 20th of July, 1629, Champlain surrendered Quebec to Louis Kirk. Daniel Kirk, the admiral of the expedition, returned to England in November of the same year; but his brother Thomas remained in Canada and held Quebec as an English conquest until July, 1632, when, in accordance with the conditions of the peace of April 14, 1629, it was restored to France. See Kirke’s First English Conquest of Canada, pp. 63-93; Parkman’s Pioneers of France, pp. 401-11; also Mr. Deane’s note in Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc. for 1875-6, pp. 376-7.
[440] The number of beaver-skins really carried to England by Kirk was seven thousand. (Kirke’s First English Conquest of Canada, p. 85.)
[441] It is unnecessary to say that Morton was here writing at random. He confounds the Potomac with the Hudson, though, a few paragraphs further on (Infra, [*99]), he states the facts in regard to the latter river correctly; and the latitude he gives has no significance, being that of Poughkeepsie, on the Hudson, and Cleveland, on Lake Erie. The Potomac nowhere flows so far north as 40°. The falls referred to are probably those of Niagara. They had not then been discovered (Parkman’s Jesuits in North America, p. 142), though vague reports concerning them had reached the French through the Indians, and they are plainly indicated on Champlain’s map of 1629. (Voyages, Prince Soc. ed., vol. i. p. 271, note.) Some loose stories in regard to the rivers, falls, lakes and islands of the interior had been picked up by Morton, probably in his talks with seamen and others who had taken part in Kirk’s expedition. He certainly fell in with these in London, and it is more than likely that at the house of Gorges he saw Champlain’s map of 1629; though upon that the falls are placed at 43½ degrees of latitude, instead of at 41½. In 1634 there was no other map. On the strength of the information thus gathered, he made the statements contained in this chapter. The little he knew had been obtained in England, after his return there in 1631; for the Massachusetts Indians can hardly have known much of the remote interior, and in 1630 no attempts even at exploration away from the seashore had been made by the straggling occupants of the New England coast.
[442] The stories here referred to probably came from the Indians of Connecticut and Maine, and referred to the rivers and lakes of New England, but were afterwards supposed to have had a wider significance.
[443] Williams (Key, 64) gives Macháug as the Indian word for No, but it really signifies no-thing (Key, 182). Matta, as Morton gives it, is the simple negative.
[444] Henry Josselyn was a brother of John Josselyn, author of New Englands Rarities and the Two Voyages to New England, frequently quoted in the notes to this edition of the New Canaan. He came out from England in the interest of Mason, as stated in the text, in 1634, and passed the remainder of his life in Maine, living at Black Point in the town of Scarborough. He died in 1683. He was deputy-governor of the province, and one of the most active and influential men in it, holding, through all changes of proprietorship and government, the most important offices. See Mr. Tuckerman’s Introduction to the New Englands Rarities; Hist. of Cumberland County, Maine, p. 362.
[445] Of Captain John Mason of New Hampshire and the Laconia enterprise, it is not necessary to speak at length in this connection. Mason was the most prominent character in the early history of New Hampshire, and the loss which his death, in December 1635, entailed on the projects of Gorges and Morton has already been referred to (Supra, [76]). The late Charles W. Tuttle, of Boston was at the time of his death engaged in preparing a life of Mason, which would unquestionably have been a valuable addition to the history of the settlement of New England. The material he had collected is now in the possession of his family. In regard to the Laconia Company and its projects, see Belknap’s American Biography, under the title Gorges, and Mr. Deane’s note in the Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., 1875-6, pp. 376-80.