A Month After, My Brother And I Resolves To
Travell And See Countreys.
Wee find a good opportunity in our voyage.
We
proceeded three years; during that time we had the happiness to see very
faire countreys." He says of the third voyage: "Now followeth the
Auxoticiat, or Auxotacicae, voyage into the great and filthy lake of the
hurrons upper sea of the East and bay of the North." He mentions that
"about the middle of June, 1658, we began to take leave of our company and
venter our lives for the common good."
Concerning the third voyage, Radisson states above, "wee proceeded three
years." The memory of the writer had evidently been thrown into some
confusion when recording one of the historical incidents in his relation,
as he was finishing his narrative of the fourth journey. At the close of
his fourth narrative, on his return from the Lake Superior country, where
he had been over three years, instead of over two, as he mentions, he says:
"You must know that seventeen ffrenchmen made a plott with four Algonquins
to make a league with three score Hurrons for to goe and wait for the
Iroquoits in the passage." This passage was the Long Sault, on the Ottawa
river, where the above seventeen Frenchmen were commanded by a young
officer of twenty-five, Adam Dollard, Sieur des Ormeaux. The massacre of
the party took place on May 21, 1660, and is duly recorded by several
authorities; namely, Dollier de Casson [Footnote: Histoire de Montreal,
Relation de la Nouvelle France, 1660, p. 14.], M. Marie [Footnote: De
l'Incarnation, p. 261.], and Father Lalemont [Footnote: Journal, June 8,
1660.]. As Radisson has placed the incident in his manuscript, he would
make it appear as having occurred in May, 1664. He writes: "It was a
terrible spectacle to us, for wee came there eight dayes after that defeat,
which saved us without doubt." He started on this third journey about the
middle of June, 1658, and it would therefore seem he was only absent on it
two years, instead of over three, as he says. Charlevoix gives the above
incident in detail. [Footnote: Shea's edition, Vol. III. p. 33, n.]
During the third voyage Radisson and his brother-in-law went to the
Mississippi River in 1658/9. He says, "Wee mett with severall sorts of
people. Wee conversed with them, being long time in alliance with them. By
the persuasion of som of them wee went into the great river that divides
itself in two where the hurrons with some Ottanake and the wild men that
had warrs with them had retired.... The river is called the forked, because
it has two branches: the one towards the West, the other towards the South,
which we believe runs towards Mexico, by the tokens they gave." They also
made diligent inquiry concerning Hudson's Bay, and of the best means to
reach that fur-producing country, evidently with a view to future
exploration and trade.
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