It does not appear, however, that popular interest in these publications materially affected the secular literature of the period; they were largely used in Jesuit histories of New France, but by others were practically ignored. General literary interest in the Relations was only created about a half century ago, when Dr. E. B. O'Callaghan, editor of the Documentary History of New York, called attention to their great value as storehouses of contemporary information. Dr. John G. Shea, author of History of the Catholic Missions among the Indian Tribes of the United States, and Father Felix Martin, S. J., of Montreal, soon came forward, with fresh studies of the Relations. Collectors at once commenced searching for Cramoisys, which were found to be exceedingly scarce,—most of the originals having been literally worn out in the hands of their devout seventeenth-century readers; finally, the greatest collector of them all, James Lenox, of New York, outstripped his competitors and laid the foundation, in the Lenox Library, of what is to-day probably the only complete collection in America. In 1858, the Canadian government reprinted the Cramoisys, with a few additions, in three stout octavo volumes, carefully edited by Abbés Làverdière, Plante, and Ferland. These, too, are now rare, copies seldom being offered for sale.
The Quebec reprint was followed by two admirable series brought out by Shea and O'Callaghan respectively. Shea's Cramoisy Series (1857-1866), numbers twenty-five little volumes, the edition of each of which was limited to a hundred copies, now difficult to obtain; it contains for the most part entirely new matter, chiefly Relations prepared for publication by the superiors, after 1672, and miscellaneously printed; among the volumes, however, are a few reprints of particularly rare issues of the original Cramoisy press. The O'Callaghan series, seven in number (the edition limited to twenty-five copies), contains different material from Shea's, but of the same character. A further addition to the mass of material was made by Father Martin, in Relations Inédites de la Nouvelle-France, 1672-79 (2 vols., Paris, 1861); and by Father Carayon in Première Mission des Jésuites au Canada (Paris, 1864). In 1871, there was published at Quebec, under the editorship of Abbés Laverdière and Casgrain, Le Journal des Jésuites, from the original manuscript in the archives of the Seminary of Quebec (now Laval University). The memoranda contained in this volume,—a rarity, for the greater part of the edition was accidentally destroyed by fire,—were not intended for publication, being of the character of private records, covering the operations of the Jesuits in New France between 1645 and 1668. The Journal is, however, an indispensable complement of the Relations. It was reprinted by a Montreal publisher (J. M. Valois) in 1892, but even this later edition is already exhausted. Many interesting epistles are found in Lettres Édifiantes et Curieuses, écrites des Missions Étrangères, which cover the Jesuit missions in many lands, between the years 1702 and 1776; only a small portion of this publication (there are several editions, ranging from 1702-1776 to 1875-77) is devoted to the North American missions.
American historians, from Shea and Parkman down, have already made liberal use of the Relations, and here and there antiquarians and historical societies have published fragmentary translations. The great body of the Relations and their allied documents, however, has never been Englished. The text is difficult, for their French is not the French of the modern schools; hence these interesting papers have been doubly inaccessible to the majority of our historical students. The present edition, while faithfully reproducing the old French text, even in most of its errors, offers to the public for the first time, an English rendering side by side with the original.
In breadth of scope, also, this edition will, through the generous enterprise of the publishers, readily be first in the field. Not only will it embrace all of the original Cramoisy series, the Shea and O'Callaghan series, those collected by Fathers Martin and Carayon, the Journal des Jésuites, and such of the Lettres Édifiantes as touch upon the North American missions, but many other valuable documents which have not previously been reprinted; it will contain, also, considerable hitherto-unpublished material from the manuscripts in the archives of St. Mary's College, Montreal, and other depositories. These several documents will be illustrated by faithful reproductions of all the maps and other engravings appearing in the old editions, besides much new material obtained especially for this edition, a prominent feature of which will be authentic portraits of many of the early fathers, and photographic facsimiles of pages from their manuscript letters.
In the Preface to each volume will be given such Bibliographical Data concerning its contents, as seem necessary to the scholar. The appended Notes consist of historical, biographical, archæological, and miscellaneous comment, which it is hoped may tend to the elucidation of the text. An exhaustive General Index to the English text will appear in the final volume of the series.
PREFACE TO VOL. I
There is a dramatic unity in the Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, as they will be presented in this series. Commencing with a report of the first conversion of savages in New France, in 1610, by a secular priest, and soon drifting into the records of Jesuit missionary effort, they touch upon practically every important enterprise of the Jesuits, in Canada and Louisiana, from the coming of Fathers Biard and Massé, in 1611, to the death, in the closing decade of the eighteenth century, of Father Well, "the last Jesuit of Montreal."
I. The series fitly opens with Lescarbot's La Conversion des Savvages. Marc Lescarbot, a Paris lawyer, a Huguenot poet as well as historian, and in many respects a picturesque character in the early scenes of our drama, adroitly seeks in this document to convince the Catholic Queen of France that his Huguenot patrons, De Monts and Poutrincourt, are so wisely ordering affairs in their New World domain that not only will the glory of France be enhanced, but the natives be won to Christ through the medium of the Church; for it was part of the agreement entered into with the Crown, by these adventurers, that while their colonists should be permitted to have Huguenot ministers, the aborigines must be converted only by Catholic priests. To this end, Lescarbot describes with unction the sudden conversion by a secular priest, Messire Jessé Fléché, of old Chief Membertou and twenty other Micmacs, and their formal baptism on the beach at Port Royal. The object is, of course, to ward off the threatened invasion of New France by the Jesuits, by showing how thoroughly the work of proselyting is being carried forward without their aid.
II. By the same ship which, in the hands of Poutrincourt's son, Biencourt, carries to France this ingenious document, one Bertrand, a Huguenot layman, sends a message to his friend, the Sieur de la Tronchaie. In his Lettre Missive, M. Bertrand describes the conversion of Membertou and his fellow savages, and speaks with enthusiasm of the new country: as well he may, for in Volume II. we shall find Lescarbot testifying that in Paris the worthy Bertrand was "daily tormented by the gout," while at Port Royal he was "entirely free" from it.