The Governor,
Who Had Difficulty In Believing That This Tobacco Thrown Upon The Sands Was
The Omen Of Some Grievous Enterprise, Was Nevertheless Convinced Of It By
The Discourse Of The Savage.
I begged him to come with me into the house, &
to go out from it no more, with the
Other English, for some time; assuring
them, nevertheless, that they had nothing to fear, & that all the French &
myself would perish rather than suffer that one of them should be in the
least insulted. After which I ordered my nephew to make all those savages
imbark immediately, so as to continue their journey as far as their own
country, which was done. Thus we were delivered from all kinds of
apprehension, & free to work at our business.
In the mean while I could not admire enough the constancy of my nephew & of
his men in that in which they themselves laboured to dispossess themselves
of any but good in favour of the English, their old enemies, for whom they
had just pretensions, without having any other assurances of their
satisfaction but the confidence that they had in my promises. Besides, I
could not prevent myself from showing the pleasure that I experienced in
having succeeded in my enterprise, & of seeing that in commencing to give
some proofs of my zeal for the service of the English Company I made it
profit them by an advantage very considerable; which gave them for the
future assurances of my fidelity, & obliged them to have care of my
interests in giving me that which belonged to me legitimately, & acquitting
me towards my nephew & the other French of that which I had promissed them,
& that a long & laborious work had gained for them. After that, that is to
say, during the 3 days that we rested in that house, I wished to inform
myself exactly, from my nephew, in the presence of the Englishmen, of all
that which had passed between them since that I had departed from the
country, & know in what manner he had killed two Englishmen there; upon
which my nephew began to speak in these words: -
"Some days after your departure, in the year 1683, the 27th of July, the
number of reports of cannon-shots that we heard fired on the side of the
great river made us believe that they came from some English ship that had
arrived. In fact, having sent 3 of my men to know, & endeavour to
understand their design, I learned from them on their return that it was 2
English ships, & that they had encountered 3 men of that nation a league
from these vessels, but that they had not spoken to them, having contented
themselves with saluting both. As my principal design was to discover the
English ones, & that my men had done nothing in it, I sent back 3 others of
them to inform themselves of all that passed. These 3 last, having arrived
at the point which is between the 2 Rivers of Nelson & Hayes, they met 14
or 15 savages loaded with merchandise, to whom, having demanded from whence
they were & from whence they had come, they had replied that their nation
lived along the river called Nenosavern, which was at the South of that of
Hayes, & that they came to trade with their brothers, who were established
at the bottom of the Bay; after which my men told them who they were and
where they lived, in begging them to come smoke with them some tobacco the
most esteemed in the country; to which they freely consented, in making it
appear to them that they were much chagrined in not having known sooner
that we were established near them, giving evidence that they would have
been well pleased to have made their trade with us.
"In continueing to converse upon several things touching trade, they
arrived together in our house, reserving each time that but one of them
should enter at once; which under a pretext of having forgotten something,
one had returned upon his steps, saying to his comrades that they had leave
to wait for him at the house of the French, where he arrived 2 days after,
to be the witness of the good reception that I made to his brothers, whom I
made also participants in giving to him some tobacco; but I discovered that
this savage had had quite another design than of going to seek that which
he had lost, having learned that he had been heard telling the other
savages that he had been to find the English, & that he was charged by them
of making some enterprise against us. In fact, this villain, having seen me
alone & without any defence, must set himself to execute his wicked design.
He seized me by the hand, & in telling me that I was of no value since I
loved not the English, & that I had not paid him by a present for the
possession of the country that I lived in to him who was the chief of all
the nations, & the friend of the English at the bottom of the Bay, he let
fall the robe which covered him, & standing all naked he struck me a blow
with his poniard, which I luckily parried with the hand, where I received a
light wound, which did not hinder me from seizing him by a necklace that he
had around his neck, & of throwing him to the ground; which having given me
the leisure of taking my sword & looking about, I perceived that the other
savages had also poniards in their hands, with the exception of one, who
cried out, 'Do not kill the French; for their death will be avenged, by all
the nations from above, upon all our families.'
"The movement that I had made to take my sword did not prevent me from
holding my foot upon the throat of my enemy, & knew that that posture on my
sword had frightened the other conspirators.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 105 of 115
Words from 106489 to 107492
of 117345
