A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL NOTE BY THE EDITOR.
LA HONTAN, a young Gascon, born about 1667, had come to Canada in 1683, and from being a common soldier, had by his ability risen to an officer’s position. He became a favorite of Frontenac, and was selected by him to bear the despatch to Paris which conveyed an account of Phips’s failure before Quebec in 1690. He was not long after made deputy-governor of Placentia, where he quarrelled with his superior and fled to France; and here, fearing arrest, he was obliged to escape beyond its boundaries. After the Peace of Ryswick he sought reinstatement, but was not successful; and it is alleged that his book, which he now published, was in some measure the venting of his spleen. It appeared in 1703, at La Haye, as Nouveaux Voyages dans l’Amérique septentrionale, qui contiennent une Relation des différens Peuples que y habitent, in two volumes (the second entitled Mémoires de l’Amérique septentrionale, ou la suite des Voyages), with twenty-six maps and plates (Sabin, vol. x. nos. 38,635-38,638; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 36; Quaritch, 25 shillings; Leclerc, no. 737, 40 francs). Another edition, in somewhat larger type and better engravings, with a vignette in place of the sphere on the title, appeared the same year. Dr. Shea is inclined to think this the authorized edition, and the other a pirated one, with reversed cuts. La Hontan, being in London, superintended an edition published there the same year in English, called New Voyages to North America (in Harvard College Library; cf. Brinley Catalogue, no. 101; Field, Indian Bibliography, no. 852; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 39), likewise in two volumes, but containing in addition a Dialogue between La Hontan and a Huron Indian (the Rat), which had not been included in the Hague edition, and which was the vehicle of some religious scepticism. There were thirteen plates in vol. i., and eleven in vol. ii., and La Hontan speaks of them as being much better than those of the Holland edition (Sabin, vol. x. no. 38,644). This same Dialogue was issued separately the next year (1704) at Amsterdam in French,—Dialogue du Baron de La Hontan et d’un Sauvage dans l’Amérique; and also, with a changed title (Supplément aux Voyages du Baron La Hontan), as the third volume or “suite” of the Voyages, and sometimes with added pages devoted to travels in Portugal and Denmark (Sabin, vol. x. nos. 38,633, 38,634, 38,637; Field, no. 853; Leclerc, nos. 738, 739; Muller, Books on America, 1872, no. 864). These editions are found with the dates also of 1704 and 1705. What is called a “seconde Édition, revue, corrigée, et augmentée,” with twenty-seven plates (but not from the same coppers, however, with the earlier issues), and omitting the “Carte générale,” appeared likewise at La Haye in 1705 and 1706. This is professedly “almost recast, to make the style more pure, concise, and simple, with the Dialogues rewritten.” The Denmark and Portugal voyage being omitted, it is brought within two volumes, the second of which is still called Mémoires, etc. (Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 68). There were later French editions in 1707, 1709, and 1715, and at Amsterdam in 1721, with the “suite,” dated 1728, three volumes in all, and sometimes all three are dated 1728; and still other editions are dated 1731 and 1741 (Sabin, vol. x. no. 38,640, who says it is quite impossible to make a clear statement of all the varieties of these several editions; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 689). The English version appeared again at London in 1735 (Menzies, no. 1,178; Brinley, no. 101; Sabin, vol. x. nos. 38,645, 38,646, who says there are various imprints; and it is also included in Pinkerton’s Voyages, vol. xiii.). There are also a German edition, Des beruhmten Herrn Baron de La Hontan Neueste Reisen, 1709 (Sabin, vol. x. no. 38,647; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 123; Stevens, Bibl. Hist., no. 2,505), and a Dutch, Reizen van den Baron van La Hontan, 1739 (Sabin, vol. x. no. 38,648; Stevens, no. 2,506).
PART OF LA HONTAN’S MAP.
This is the western part of the Carte Générale de Canada, which appeared in the Nouveaux Voyages, La Haye, 1709, vol. ii., and was re-engraved in his Mémoires, Amsterdam, 1741, vol. iii.
PART OF LA HONTAN’S MAP.
A middle section from his “Carte Générale de Canada,” in his Nouveaux Voyages, La Haye, 1709, vol. ii.; re-engraved in the Amsterdam, 1741, edition of the Mémoires, vol. iii.