[99] He tells of a rattlesnake twenty-two feet long, in vol. i. p. 109; and of frogs weighing thirty-two pounds, in vol. ii. p. 268.
[100] [It was published at Paris in 1768, and an English translation, Travels through that part of North America formerly called Louisiana (by J. R. Forster), was printed in London, in 2 vols., in 1771, and a Dutch version at Amsterdam in 1769. The original French was reprinted at Amsterdam in 1769 and 1777.—Ed.]
[101] Vergennes, p. 157. “In considering the savages who were drawn into an alliance with us by our presents, and who received us into their houses, would it have been difficult to attach them to us if we had acted toward them with the candor and rectitude to which they were entitled? We gave them the example of perfidy, and we are doubly culpable for the crimes they committed and the virtues they did not acquire.”
[102] [See Vol. IV. pp. 199, 316. The book forms no. 8 of Munsell’s Historical Series. See accounts of Le Sueur and other explorers of the Upper Mississippi in Neill’s Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota. There are extracts from Le Sueur’s Journal in La Harpe’s Journal historique and in French’s Historical Collections of Louisiana, part iii.; and in the new series (p. 35 of vol. vi.) of the same Collections is a translation of Penicaut’s Annals of Louisiana from 1698 to 1722. The translation was made from a manuscript in the National Library at Paris. Kaskaskia in Illinois is looked upon as the earliest European settlement in the Mississippi Valley; it was founded by Jacques Gravier in 1700. Cf. Magazine of American History, March, 1881. There had been an Indian town on the spot previously, and Father Marquette made it his farthest point in 1675.—Ed.]
[103] [On these books see Vol. IV. pp. 294, 316, where Dr. Shea gives reasons for supposing the earliest publication of the Lettres to have been in 1702. Cf. Sabin’s American Bibliopolist (1871), p. 3; H. H. Bancroft’s Mexico, ii. 191; and the Nouvelles des missions, extraites des lettres édifiantes et curieuses: Missions de l’Amérique, 1702-1743 (Paris, 1827).—Ed.]
[104] [It was first printed in London in 1775, and afterward appeared in 1782 at Breslau, in a German translation. Cf. Field, Indian Bibliography, no. 11. The Mémoire de M. de Richebourg sur la première guerre des Natchez is given in French’s Collections, vol. iii. A paper on the massacre of St. André is in the Magazine of American History (April, 1884), p. 355. Dr. Shea printed in 1859, from a manuscript in the possession of Mr. J. Carson Brevoort (as no. 9 of his series, one hundred copies), a Journal de la guerre du Micissippi contre les Chicachas, en 1739 et finie en 1740, le 1er d’avril. Par un officier de l’armée de M. de Nouaille. Cf. Field, Indian Bibliography, no. 807.—Ed.]
[105] [The original was published at Paris in 1829; in 1830 it was printed in English at Philadelphia as The History of Louisiana, particularly of the Cession of that Colony to the United States of America. It is said to be translated by the publicist, William Beach Lawrence.—Ed.]
[106] [It was reprinted in 1726, again in 1727, and with a lengthened title in 1741 (Carter-Brown, vol. iii. nos. 315, 372, 376, 679; Sabin, vol. v. nos. 17, 276, etc.). The edition of 1741 made part of A Collection of Voyages and Travels, edited by Coxe, which contained: “1. The dangerous voyage of Capt. Thomas James in his intended discovery of a northwest passage into the South sea (in 1631-1632). 2. An authentick and particular account of the taking of Carthagena by the French in 1697 by Sieur Pointis. 3. A description of the English province of Carolana; by the Spaniards call’d Florida, and by the French La Louisiane. By Daniel Coxe.” Coxe’s narrative of explorations is also included in French’s Historical Collections of Louisiana, vol. ii. Coxe’s map, which is repeated in the various editions, is called: “Map of Carolana and the River Meschacebe.” A section of it is given on the next page.—Ed.]
[107] Coxe’s Carolana, p. 118. The writer of an article in the North American Review, January, 1839, entitled “Early French Travellers,” says: “An examination of contemporary writers and the town records has failed to lend a single fact in support of the Doctor’s tale.” Cf. H. H. Bancroft, Northwest Coast, i. 122, 123. [The French as traders and missionaries easily gained a familiarity with the Valley of the Mississippi, before agricultural settlers like the English had passed the Alleghanies. There had, however, been some individual enterprises on the part of the English. Coxe claims that under the grant to Sir Robert Heath, in 1630, of the region across the continent between 31° and 36°, Colonel Wood and a Mr. Needham explored the Mississippi Valley between 1654 and 1664, and that during the later years of that century other explorers had thridded the country.—Ed.].
[108] [See Vol. II. p. 462.—Ed.]