The
Hornwork Or Circular Meadow, As The Peasantry Call It, Is In A Line With
The General Hospital, Mount Pleasant, St. Bridget's Asylum And The
Corporation Lots Recently Acquired By The Quebec Seminary For A Botanical
Garden And Seminary, Adjoining Abraham's Plains.
Jacques Cartier's fort,
we know to a certainty, must have been on the north bank of the river,
[287] from the fact that the natives coming from Stadacona to visit their
French guests had to cross the river, and did so frequently.
It does seem
strange that Champlain does not appear to have known the exact locality
where, seventy years previously, Stadacona had stood; the cause may lie in
the exterminating wars carried on between the several savage tribes,
leaving, occasionally, no vestige of once powerful nations and villages.
Have we not seen in our day a once warlike and princely race - the Hurons -
dwindle down, through successive decay, to what now remains of them?
A drawing exists, copied from an engraving executed at Paris, the subject
of which, furnished by G. B. Faribault, Esquire, retraced the departure of
the St. Malo mariner for France on the 6th of May, 1536. To the right may
be seen, Jacques Cartier's fort, [288] built with stockades, mounted with
artillery, and subsequently made stronger still, we are told, with ditches
and solid timber, with drawbridge, and fifty men to watch night and day.
Next comes the Grande Hermine, his largest vessel, of about one
hundred and twenty tons, in which Donacona, the interpreter, and two other
Indians of note, treacherously seized, are to be conveyed to France, to be
presented to the French monarch, Francis I. Close by, the reader will
observe l'Emerillon, of about forty tons in size, the third of his
ships; and higher up, the hull of a stranded and dismantled vessel, the
Petite Hermine, of about sixty tons, intended to represent the one
whose timbers were dug up at the mouth of the St. Michel in 1843, and
created such excitement amongst the antiquaries of that day.
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