CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.
A LARGE portion of the manuscript sources of this chapter may be found in the invaluable collection of papers relating to New France in the Archives of the Marine and Colonies, the Archives Nationales, and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris; and in the office of the Provincial Registrar at Quebec. The archives of New York, Massachusetts, and Canada have made extensive transcripts from these documents, as follows:—
1. Correspondance Officiele, first series, vols. i.-v. There are transcripts from the Paris documents copied in France for the State of New York, and translations of them all are in the ninth and tenth volumes of the Documents relating to the Colonial History of the State of New York.[709]
2. Correspondance Officiele, second series, vols. ii., iv.-viii. These papers exist in manuscript, and have not been translated into English. Copies are in the Library of Parliament, Ottawa, and in the Archives Office of the Quebec Government.
3. A collection of papers made by an agent of Massachusetts at Paris, relating chiefly to Acadian matters, contains also a good deal about Frontenac. They were copied afterward in Boston on an order from the Quebec Government, and are in the keeping of the Registrar at Quebec. The Quebec administration intends publishing these papers.[710] [They have since been published.]
The original Register and Proceedings of Council, in several volumes, remain in very fair condition in the archives of the Quebec Government. The first, a folio bound in calf and indexed, bears two titles, the first of which is, Registre des Insinuations du Conseil Supérieur de 1663 à 1682, ninety-six pages. It begins with the King’s edict creating the Superior Council, dated April 1, 1663, and ends with the “Procès Verbal” of the Superior Council concerning the Redaction of the Code Civil, or ordinance of Louis, April 14, 1667.
The second title is, Jugements et Délibérations du Conseil Souverain de la Nouvelle France, 1663 à 1676, two hundred and eighty-one pages. It begins with an arrêt of the Superior Council ordering the registration of the King’s edict of April 1, 1663, creating the Superior Council for New France, to be held at Quebec; and ends with an interlocutory judgment, dated Dec. 19, 1676, upon a petition of François Noir Roland, complaining of his curate for refusing him absolution. This book, or register, is authenticated by the certificate of the Governor, Comte de Frontenac, on the first page, as follows:—
“Le Présent Régîstre du Conseil Souverain contenant trois cens soixante et seize feuillets a été ce jour paraphé ne varietur par premier et dernier, par nous Louis de Buade de Frontenac Chevallier Comte de Palluau, Conseiller du Roy en ses Conseils, Gouverneur et Intendant Général pour sa Majesté, en la Nouvelle France, Québec le quinzième Janvier Mille six cents soixante et quinze.”