How Graphically Jacques Cartier Writes Of That Portion Of The
River St. Lawrence Opposite The Lower Town, Less Than A
Mile in width,
"deep and swift running," and also of the "goodly, fair and delectable bay
or creek convenient and
Fit to harbour ships," the St. Charles (St. Croix
or Holy Cross) river! and again of the spot wherein, he says, "we stayed
from the 15th of September, 1535, to the 6th May, 1536, and there our
ships remained dry." Cartier mentions the area of ground adjoining to
where he wintered "as goodly a plot of ground as possible may be seen,
and, wherewithal, very fruitful, full of goodly trees even as in France,
such as oak, elm, ash, walnut trees, white-thorns and vines that bring
forth fruit as big as any damsons, and many other sort of trees; tall hemp
as any in France, without any seed or any man's work or labor at all."
There are yet some noble specimens of elm, the survivors of a thick clump,
that once stood on the edge of the hornwork. The precise spot in the St.
Charles where Cartier moored his vessels and where his people built the
fort [286] in which they wintered may have been, for aught that could be
advanced to the contrary, where the French government in 1759 built the
hornwork or earth redoubt, so plainly visible to this day, near the Lairet
stream. It may also have been at the mouth of the St. Michel stream which
here empties itself into the St. Charles, on the Jesuits' farm.
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