History of the Discovery of the Northwest by John Nicolet in 1634. Charlotte Butterfield
in September, a fine harbor in an island since called Orleans.
Leaving his two largest ships in the waters of the river now known as the St. Charles, Cartier, with the smallest and two open boats, ascended the St. Lawrence until a considerable Indian village was reached, situated on an island called Hochelaga. Standing upon the summit of a hill, on this island, and looking away up the river, the commander had fond imaginings of future glory awaiting his countrymen in colonizing this region. "He called the hill Mont-Réal, and time, that has transferred the name of the island, is realizing his visions;" for on that island now stands the city of Montreal. While at Hochelaga, Cartier gathered some indistinct accounts of the surrounding country, and of the river Ottawa coming down from the hills of the Northwest. Rejoining his ships, he spent the winter in a palisaded fort on the bank of the St. Charles, with his vessels moored before it. The cold was intense. Many of his men died of scurvy. Early in the spring, possession was again taken of the country in the name of the French king; and, on the sixteenth of July, 1536, the Breton mariner dropped anchor in St. Malo – he having returned in two ships; the other was abandoned, and three hundred and twelve years after was discovered imbedded in mud. France was disappointed. Hopes had been raised too high. Expectations had not been realized. Further explorations, therefore, were, for the time, postponed.
Notwithstanding the failure of Cartier's second voyage, the great valley of the St. Lawrence was not to remain very long unknown to the world, in any of its parts. It was thought unworthy a gallant nation to abandon the enterprise; and one more trial at exploration and colonization was determined upon. Again the bold mariner of St. Malo started for the St. Lawrence. This was on the twenty-third of May, 1541. He took with him five ships; but he went, unfortunately, as subordinate, in some respects, to John Francis de la Roque, Lord of Roberval, a nobleman of Picardy, whom the king of France had appointed viceroy of the country now again to be visited. The object of the enterprise was declared to be discovery, settlement, and the conversion of the Indians. Cartier was the first to sail. Again he entered the St. Lawrence.
After erecting a fort near the site of the present city of Quebec, Cartier ascended the river in two boats to explore the rapids above the island of Hochelaga. He then returned and passed the winter at his fort; and, in the spring, not having heard from the viceroy, he set sail for France. In June, 1542, in the harbor of St. John, he met the Lord of Roberval, outward bound, with three ships and two hundred men. The viceroy ordered Cartier to return to the St. Lawrence; but the mariner of St. Malo escaped in the night, and continued his voyage homeward. Roberval, although abandoned by his subordinate, once more set sail. After wintering in the St. Lawrence, he, too, abandoned the country – giving back his immense viceroyalty to the rightful owners.
In 1578, there were three hundred and fifty fishing vessels at Newfoundland belonging to the French, Spanish, Portuguese, and English; besides these were a number – twenty or more – of Biscayan whalers. The Marquis de la Roche, a Catholic nobleman of Brittany, encouraged by Henry IV., undertook the colonization of New France, in 1598. But the ill-starred attempt resulted only in his leaving forty convicts to their fate on Sable island, off the coast of Nova Scotia. Of their number, twelve only were found alive five years subsequent to La Roche's voyage. In 1599, another expedition was resolved on. This was undertaken by Pontgravé, a merchant of St. Malo, and Chauvin, a captain of the marine. In consideration of a monopoly of the fur-trade, granted them by the king of France, these men undertook to establish a colony of five hundred persons in New France. At Tadoussac, at the mouth of the Saguenay, they built a cluster of wooden huts and store-houses, where sixteen men were left to gather furs; these either died or were scattered among the Indians before the return of the spring of 1601. Chauvin made a second voyage to Tadoussac, but failed to establish a permanent settlement. During a third voyage he died, and his enterprise perished with him.
In 1603, a company of merchants of France was formed, and Samuel Champlain, with a small band of adventurers, dispatched, in two small vessels, to make a preliminary survey of the St. Lawrence. He reached the valley in safety, sailed past the lofty promontory on which Quebec now stands, and proceeded onward to the island of Hochelaga, where his vessels were anchored. In a skiff, with a few Indians, Champlain vainly endeavored to pass the rapids of the great river. The baffled explorer returned to his ships. From the savages, he gleaned some information of ulterior regions. The natives drew for him rude plans of the river above, and its lakes and cataracts. His curiosity was inflamed, and he resolved one day to visit the country so full of natural wonders. Now, however, he was constrained to return to France. He had accomplished the objects of his mission – the making of a brief exploration of the valley of the chief river of Canada.
It was the opinion of Champlain that on the banks of the St. Lawrence was the true site of a settlement; that here a fortified post should be erected; that thence, by following up the waters of the interior region to their sources, a western route might be traced to China, the distance being estimated by him at not more than two or three hundred leagues; and that the fur-trade of the whole country might be secured to France by the erection of a fort at some point commanding the river. These views, five years subsequent to his visit to the St. Lawrence, induced the fitting out of a second expedition, for trade, exploration, and colonization. On the thirteenth of April, 1608, Champlain again sailed – this time with men, arms, and stores for a colony. The fur-trade was intrusted to another. The mouth of the Saguenay was reached in June; and, soon after, a settlement was commenced on the brink of the St. Lawrence – the site of the present market-place of the lower town of Quebec. A rigorous winter and great suffering followed. Supplies arrived in the spring, and Champlain determined to enter upon his long-meditated explorations; – the only obstacles in the way were the savage nations he would every-where meet. He would be compelled to resort to diplomacy – to unite a friendly tribe to his interests, and, thus strengthened, to conquer, by force of arms, the hostile one.
The tribes of the Hurons, who dwelt on the lake which now bears their name, and their allies, the Algonquins, upon the Ottawa and the St. Lawrence, Champlain learned, were at war with the Iroquois, or Five Nations, whose homes were within the present State of New York. In June, 1609, he advanced, with sixty Hurons and Algonquins and two white men, up what is now known as the Richelieu river to the discovery of the first of the great lakes – the one which now bears his name. Upon its placid waters, this courageous band was stopped by a war-party of Iroquois. On shore, the contending forces met, when a few discharges of an arquebuse sent the advancing enemy in wild dismay back into the forest. The victory was complete. Promptly Champlain returned to the St. Lawrence, and his allies to their homes, not, however, until the latter had invited the former to visit their towns and aid them again in their wars. Champlain then revisited France, but the year 1610 found him once more in the St. Lawrence, with two objects in view: one, to proceed northward, to explore Hudson's bay; the other, to go westward, and examine the great lakes and the mines of copper on their shores, of the existence of which he had just been informed by the savages; for he was determined he would never cease his explorations until he had penetrated to the western sea, or that of the north, so as to open the way to China. But, after fighting a battle with the Iroquois at the mouth of the river Richelieu, he gave up, for the time, all thought of further exploration, and returned to France.
On the thirteenth of May, 1611, Champlain again arrived in the St. Lawrence. To secure the advantages of the fur-trade to his superiors was now his principal object; and, to that end, he chose the site of the present city of Montreal for a post, which he called Place Royale. Soon afterward, he returned to France; but, early in the spring of 1613, the tireless voyager again crossed the Atlantic, and sailed up the St. Lawrence; this time bound for the Ottawa to discover the North sea. After making his way up that river to the home of the Algonquins of Isle des Allumettes, he returned in disgust to the St. Lawrence, and again embarked for France.
At the site of the present city of Montreal, there had assembled, in the summer of 1615, Hurons from their distant villages upon the shores of their great lake, and Algonquins from their homes on the Ottawa – come down to a yearly trade with the French upon the St. Lawrence. Champlain, who had returned in May from France, was asked by the assembled savages to join their bands against the Iroquois. He consented; but, while absent at Quebec, making needful preparations, the savages became impatient, and departed for their homes. With them went Father Joseph le Caron, a Récollet, accompanied by twelve armed Frenchmen. It was the intention of this missionary to learn