Finally The Resolution Reterning My Courage, Att 4 Of The
Clocke Att Evening, The Next Daye I Arrived In A Place Full Of Trees Cutt,
Which Made Mee Looke To Myselfe, Fearing To Approach The Habitation, Though
My Designe Was Such.
It is a strange thing that to save this life they
abhorre what they wish, & desire which they apprehend.
Approaching nigher
and nigher untill I perceived an opening that was made by cutting of wood
where was one man cutting still wood, I went nearer and called him. [He]
incontinently leaves his work & comes to me, thinking I was Iroquoise. I
said nothing to him to the contrary. I kept him in that thought, promissing
him to treat with him all my castors att his house, if he should promise me
there should be non of my brother Iroquoise there, by reson we must be
liberall to one another. He assured me there was non then there. I tould
him that my castors were hidden and that I should goe for them to-morrow.
So satisfied [he] leads me to his cabban & setts before me what good cheare
he had, not desiring to loose time because the affaire concerned me much. I
tould him I was savage, but that I lived awhile among the ffrench, & that I
had something valuable to communicate to the governor. That he would give
me a peece of paper and Ink and pen. He wondered very much to see that,
what he never saw before don by a wildman. He charges himself with my
letter, with promise that he should tell it to nobody of my being there,
and to retourne the soonest he could possible, having but 2 litle miles to
the fort of Orange.
In the meane while of his absence shee shews me good countenance as much as
shee could, hoping of a better imaginary profit by me. Shee asked me if we
had so much libertie with the ffrench women to lye with them as they; but I
had no desire to doe anything, seeing myselfe so insnared att death's door
amongst the terrible torments, but must shew a better countenance to a
worse game. In the night we heard some wild men singing, which redoubled my
torments and apprehension, which inticed me to declare to that woman that
my nation would kill [me] because I loved the ffrench and the flemings more
than they, and that I resolved hereafter to live with the flemings. Shee
perceiving my reason hid me in a corner behind a sack or two of wheat.
Nothing was to me but feare. I was scarcely there an houre in the corner,
but the flemings came, 4 in number, whereof that french man [who] had
knowne me the first, who presently getts me out & gives me a suite that
they brought purposely to disguise me if I chanced to light upon any of the
Iroquoits. I tooke leave of my landlady & landlord, yett [it] grieved me
much that I had nothing to bestow upon them but thanks, being that they
weare very poore, but not so much [so] as I.
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