Another of these early adventurers who has left a personal account of his long-continued but fruitless attempts at American colonization is Nicolas Denys, a native of Tours. So early as 1632 he was appointed by the French king governor of the territory between Cape Canso and Cape Rosier. Forty years later, when he must have been well advanced in life, though he had lost none of his early enthusiasm, he published an historical and geographical description of this part of North America.[424] The work shows that he was a careful and observant navigator; but in its historical part it is confused and perplexing. The second volume is largely devoted to an account of the cod-fishery, and treats generally of the natural history of the places with which he was familiar, and of the manners and life of the Indians. It has a different titlepage from the first volume.
Abundant details as to the quarrels of D’Aulnay and La Tour are in Winthrop’s History of New England; and many of the original documents, most of them in contemporaneous translations, are in the seventh volume of the third series of the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. From the first of these sources Hutchinson, in his History of Massachusetts Bay, drew largely, as did Williamson in his History of Maine, both of whom devoted considerable space to Acadian affairs. For some of the later transactions Hutchinson is an original authority of unimpeachable weight.[425] The Massachusetts writers are also naturally the sources of most of our information regarding the expedition of 1654, though Denys and Charlevoix touch upon it, and the modern historians of Nova Scotia treat it in an episodical way. The articles of capitulation of Port Royal are in Massachusetts Archives; Documents Collected in France, ii. 107.
Among the later French writers the pre-eminence belongs to the Jesuit Father, Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix, who had access to contemporaneous materials, of which he made careful use; and his statements have great weight, though he wrote many years after the events he describes. His Histoire de la Nouvelle France follows the course of the French throughout the continent, and scattered through it are many notices of the course of events in Acadia, but its more particular characterization belongs to another chapter.
The papers drawn up by the French and English commissioners to determine the intent of the treaty of Utrecht have a controversial purpose, and on each side are colored and distorted to make out a case. In them are many statements of facts which need only to be disentangled from the arguments by which they are obscured to have a high value. No one, indeed, can have a thorough and accurate knowledge of Acadian history who does not make constant reference to these memorials and to the justificatory pieces cited on the one side or the other. They stand, when properly sifted and weighed, among the most important sources for tracing the history of the province.[426]
The episode of Sir William Alexander and his futile schemes of colonization is treated exhaustively by Mr. Slafter in a monograph on Sir William Alexander and American Colonization, which reproduces all the original charters and other documents bearing on his inquiry, and apparently leaves nothing for any future gleaner in that field.[427] But, like many other persons who have conducted similar investigations, it must be conceded that Mr. Slafter attaches more importance to Sir William Alexander’s somewhat visionary plans than they really merit. They were ill adapted to promote the great object of western colonization, and they left no permanent trace behind them.
Whipple’s brief account of Nova Scotia in his Geographical View of the District of Maine should not be overlooked; but it was written at a time when historical students were less exacting than they now are, and its details are meagre and unsatisfactory.[428]
Haliburton’s History of Nova Scotia is a work of conscientious and faithful labor, but in its preparation the author was under serious disadvantages from his inability to consult many of the books on which such a history must be based; and as he was not able to correct the proofs, his volumes are disfigured by the grossest typographical blunders. No one without some previous familiarity with the subject can safely read it; but such a reader will find in it much of value.[429]
SIR WILLIAM ALEXANDER.