The Indian Youths Were For Instantly Stripping The Prisoners, In
Order To Compel The Governor Of The Colony To Repair The Injury Suffered
By The Loss Of The Peltry.
One of them, more thoughtful than the rest,
suggested to refer the matter to the missionary father, informing him
At
the same time that in cases of robbery it was the Indian custom to lay
hold of the first individual they met belonging to the family or nation of
the suspected robber, strip him of his property, and retain it until the
family or nation repaired the wrong. The father succeeded, by appealing to
them as Christians, to release the prisoners. Fortunately, the real thief,
who was not a Frenchman, became alarmed, and had the beaver skin restored.
Old writers of that day occasionally let us into quaint glimpses of a
churchman's tribulations in those primitive times. The historian Faillon
tells some strange things about Bishop Laval and Governor D'Argenson:
their squabble about holy bread. (Histoire de la Colonie Francaise en
Canada, vol. ii., p. 467.) At page 470, is an account of a country
girl, ordered to be brought to town by Bishop Laval and shut up in the
Hotel-Dieu, she being considered under a spell, cast on her by a miller
whom she had rejected when he popped the question: the diabolical suitor
was jailed as a punishment. Champlain relates how a pugnacious parson was
dealt with by a pugnacious clergyman of a different persuasion respecting
some knotty controversial points.
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