Marc Lescarbot - Nova Francia: A Description of Acadia, 1606

THE BROADWAY TRAVELLERS

THE BROADWAY TRAVELLERS

In 26 Volumes

NOVA FRANCIA

A Description of Acadia

1606

MARC LESCARBOT

First published in 1928

Reprinted in 2005 by
Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park
Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

270 Madison Avenue
NewYork, NY 10016

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

The publishers have made every effort to contact authors/copyright holders of the works reprinted in The Broadway Travellers. This has not been possible in every case, however, and we would welcome correspondence from those individuals/companies we have been unable to trace.

These reprints are taken from original copies of each book. In many cases the condition of these originals is not perfect. The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of these reprints, but wishes to point out that certain characteristics of the original copies will, of necessity, be apparent in reprints thereof.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library

Nova Francia
ISBN 978-0-415-34468-5

The Broadway Travellers

[Front

]

Reproduced from the 1st Edition of Lescarbot's History of New France.

First published in this series in 1928

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
BILLING AND SONS, LTD., GUILDFORD AND ESTHER

MOST EXCELLENT PRINCE,

My author (knowing that there are some works so naturally great of themselves that they challenge the gracious protection of Princes) hath offered this his history to the Royal patronage of the most Christian King, two Queens, and the Dauphin, to the end it might stir them the more to prosecute the populating of the lands herein described, to bring the Naturals thereof (savage and miserable people) to civility and right knowledge of God, and so to the salvation of their souls. Assuming the like presumption, I have hoped (notwithstanding the defects which necessarily attend a stranger, who can never attain the natural idiom of this eloquent language) that it might not be an injury to your Highness, but an addition of honour, and safety of this work, if I should dare to inscribe your Princely name on the forehead thereof, Which boldness, the noble undertaking of the English nation hath nourished, who have so lately begun (by the permission, and under the protection, of his excellent Majesty, your most Royal Father) to plant Christianity in Virginia, being one continent, and next adjoining land to these. For who may better support and manage magnanimous actions, such as be the peopling of lands, planting of colonies, erecting of civil governments, and propagating of the Gospel of Christ (which are Royal and Princely foundations) than those whom the King of Kings hath established as Atlases of kingdoms and Christian commonweals? God hath necessitated in his prophecy Kings and Queens to be nursing fathers and nursing mothers of his Church, so that he hath not only committed the government of a ripe and strong body, able to subsist, but hath imposed the care of the tenderness and infancy thereof upon them. Alexander, being yet young, would have run in the Olympian games if kings had run there: now Kings do run; now Princes do work in the Lord's harvest to spread that name which must gather the elect from the utmost ends of the world, if not in their persons yet with their authority and means. I know your Highness would not be inferior, but rather excel in so noble an action: such an emulation is pleasing to God; your birth leadeth unto it; Christian charity inviteth you to be chief worker in the saving of millions of souls. The necessity of your country of Great Britain (over-populous) doth require it. And lastly your poor Virginians do seem to implore your Princely aid, to help them to shake off the yoke of the devil, who hath hitherto made them live worse than beasts, that henceforth they may be brought into the fold of Christ, and (in time) to live under your Christian government. So then, having thus run, you shall obtain an everlasting crown of glory, being as well planter as defender of the Faith.

Your Highness' humblest servant,

P. ERONDELLE.

GENTLE READER: The whole volume of the navigations of the French nation into the West Indies (comprised in three books) was brought to me to be translated, by Mr Richard Hakluyt, a man who for his worthy and profitable labours is well known to most men of worth not only of this kingdom but also of foreign parts; and by him this part was selected and chosen from the whole work, for the particular use of this nation, to the end thatcomparing the goodness of the lands of the northerly parts herein mentioned with that of Virginia, which (though in one and the selfsame continent and both lands adjoining) must be far better, by reason it stands more southerly, nearer to the sungreater encouragement may be given to prosecute that generous and godly action, in planting and peopling that country, to the better propagation of the Gospel of Christ, the salvation of innumerable souls, and general benefit of this land, too much pestered with over-many people. Which translation (as I have said) is but a part of a greater volume. If therefore you find that some references of things mentioned in the former part of the said volume are not to be found in this translation, do not think it strange, inasmuch as they could not well be brought in except the whole volume should be translated, which of purpose was left undone, as well to avoid your farther charges as because it was thought needless to translate more than concerneth that which adjoineth to Virginia. What good the English nation may reap of this work, by the only description that is found therein of nations, islands, harbours, bays, coasts, rivers, rocks, shoals, sands, banks, and other dangers, which the sailors into those parts may now the more easily find and avoid, by the knowledge that this translation giveth them of it, let the navigators judge thereof, who (for want of such knowledge) have found themselves in evident peril of death, and many altogether cast away. If a man that showeth forth effectually the zealous care he hath to the welfare and common good of his country deserveth praises of the same, I refer to the judgment of them that abhor the vice of ingratitude (hateful above all to God and good men) whether the said Mr Hakluyt (as well for the first procuring of this translation as for many works of his set out by him for the good and everlasting fame of the English nation) deserveth not to reap thanks. As for this my labour, if it be censured favourably, and my good affection (in undertaking the translating of this work for the benefit of this land) taken in good part, it will encourage me to endeavour myself to do better hereafter.