New England and New France - 1913 Author:James Douglas Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III SOME OF THE SOURCES OF THE HISTORY OF NEW FRANCE THE material for the early history of New France, New Plymouth, and Massachusetts Bay are ampl... more »e and reliable. The earliest are autobiographical, for the three first governors of all three colonies—Samuel Champlain of New France, William Bradford of Plymouth, and John Winthrop of Massachusetts Bay—have by a happy coincidence left personal narratives of what happened under their own rule or observation. In one respect Champlain's narrative differs from those of Bradford and Winthrop. It was written for immediate publication. Before he became celebrated, he had practised writing, but his first known literary effort remained undiscovered till 1855. It was first published in translation by the Hakluyt Society in 1859. It contained an account of what he saw in the West Indies and Spanish America during the year 1599-16o0, when in the service of Spain, in charge of the Saint Julien. The manuscript is illuminated by sixty-two drawings and water colours, which, if from his hand, proves that he possessed some skill as a draftsman. It did not appear in the original language till published in the edition of Champlain's works, edited by the Abbe Laverdiere under the patronage of the Laval University in 187o. The style is less polished than that of hislater works, but his observations are as correct and his foresight as prophetic. For instance, in describing the transit of the bullion of Peru by land and water across the Isthmus to Porto Bello, he remarks that "if from Panama to that river the Isthmus was cut through, the southern sea would flow into the Atlantic and the sea voyage would be curtailed by 1500 leagues." Returning to France, probably in 1602, he became known to de Chaste, who was embarking on his colonisation...« less