Chapter V: Discovery Along the Great Lakes (5)

It will be observed that in both of the maps of 1697, extracts from which are given herewith, the Mississippi River is marked as continuing its course to the Gulf. This change is made to illustrate an interpolation in the text (pp. 249-312), borrowed from Father Membré’s Journal of La Salle’s descent of the river, as given in Le Clercq’s _Premier Établissement de la Foi_, p. 153. Sparks, in his _Life of La Salle_, was the first to point out this correspondence. Mr. J. H. Perkins, reviewing Sparks’s book in the _North American Review_ in January, 1839 (reprinted in his _Memoir and Writings_, vol. ii.), on the “Early French Travellers in the West,” referring to the partial statements of the distrust of Hennepin in Andrew Ellicott’s _Journal_, and in Stoddard’s _Sketches of Louisiana_, makes, for the first time, as he thinks, a thorough critical statement of the grounds “for thinking the _Reverend Father_ so great a liar.” Further elucidation of the supposed theft was made by Dr. Shea in his _Discovery of the Mississippi_, etc., p. 105, where, p. 83, he translated for the first time into English Membré’s Journal. The Membré narrative is much the same as a _Relation de la Découverte de l’Embouchure de la Rivière Mississippi, faite par le Sieur de la Salle, l’année passée_, 1682, preserved in the Archives Scientifiques de la Marine, and printed in Thomassy’s _Géologie pratique de la Louisiane_. Gravier, p. 180, holds it to be the work of La Salle himself (Boimare, _Text explicatif pour accompagner la première planche historique relative à la Louisiane_, Paris, 1868; cf. Gravier’s Appendix, no. viii). That there was a fraud on Hennepin’s part has been generally held ever since Sparks made his representations. Bancroft calls Hennepin’s journal “a lie.” Brodhead calls it an audacious falsehood. Parkman (_La Salle_, p. 226) deems it a fabrication, and has critically examined Hennepin’s inconsistencies. Gravier classes his narrative with Gulliver’s.

The excuse given in the _Nouvelle Découverte_ for the tardy appearance of this Journal is, that fear of the hostility of La Salle having prevented its appearance in the _Description de la Louisiane_, that explorer’s death rendered the suppression of it no longer necessary. It is, moreover, proved that passages from Le Clercq are also appropriated in describing the natives and the capture of Quebec in 1628. The reply to this was that Le Clercq stole from a copy of Hennepin’s Journal, which had been lent to Le Roux in Quebec. These revelations led Shea seriously to question in his _Mississippi_ if Hennepin had ever seen the upper parts of that river, and to suspect that Hennepin may have learned what he wrote from Du Lhut. Harrisse, p. 176, brings forward some new particulars about Hennepin’s relations with Du Lhut.

Dr. Shea’s later views, as expressed in his English translation (1880) of the _Description de la Louisiane_ (1683), is that Hennepin’s manuscript or revamped copy of his earlier book, as prepared for the printer by himself, was subjected to the manipulations of an ignorant and treacherous editor, who made these insertions to produce a more salable book, and that Hennepin was not responsible for it in the form in which it appeared. Shea’s arguments to prove this opposite of the generally received opinion are based on inherent evidence in the insertions that Hennepin could not have written them, and on the material evidences of these questionable portions of the book having been printed at a later time than the rest of it, and in different type. The only rejoinder yet made to this exculpation is by Mr. E. D. Neill, in a tract on _The Writings of Louis Hennepin_, read before the Minnesota Historical Society in November, 1880, in which the conclusion is reached that “nothing has been discovered to change the verdict of two centuries, that Louis Hennepin, Recollect Franciscan, was deficient in Christian manhood.”

The _Nouvelle Découverte_ was reset and reissued in 1698 at Amsterdam, with the same maps and a new title.

COPIES: =CB.=, =L.=

REFERENCES: Shea, no. 2; Sabin, no. 31,350; Harrisse, no. 176; Ternaux, no. 1,110; O’Callaghan, no. 1,073; Muller, 1877, no. 3,666; Sparks, _Catalogue_, no. 1,211; Rich, 1832, 12s.; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. 1,538; _Historical Magazine_, vol. ii. pp. 24,346.

There was another edition, _Voyage ou Nouvelle Découverte_, at Amsterdam in 1704, with the same maps and additional plates, to which was appended La Borde’s _Voyage_.

COPIES: =BA.=, =CB.=

REFERENCES: Shea, no. 3; Sabin, no. 31,352; Rich, 1830, no. 8; _Historical Magazine_, vol. ii. p. 347; Beckford, no. 676; Leclerc, no. 905, 60 francs; Stevens, vol. i. no. 1,436; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 52.

The Hague and Leyden editions of the same year (1704) had an engraved title, _Voyage curieux ... qui contient une Nouvelle Découverte_, but were evidently from the same type, and also have the La Borde appended.

COPIES: =CB.=, =L.=, _HCM._

REFERENCES: Shea, nos. 4, 5; Sabin, no. 31,353; _Historical Magazine_, vol. ii. 25.

The Amsterdam edition of 1711 was called _Voyages curieux et nouveaux de Messieurs Hennepin et de la Borde_, with oblong title, folded in, which seems to be the only difference from the 1704 editions.

COPIES: =BA.=, =CB.=, =HC.=

REFERENCES: Shea, no. 6; Sabin, no. 31,354; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 153.

In 1712 another Amsterdam edition was called _Voyage ou Nouvelle Découverte_.

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REFERENCES: Shea, no. 7; Sabin, no. 31,355; _Historical Magazine_, vol. ii. p. 347; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 168; Stevens, vol. i. no. 1,438.

Hennepin’s book also appeared in the third edition, at Amsterdam (1737), of Bernard’s _Recueil de Voyages au Nord_, vol. ix., with a map called “Le Cours du fleuve Mississipi, 1737.” Cf. Shea, no. 8; Sabin, no. 4,936; _Historical Magazine_, ii. 25. It also appeared at Amsterdam in 1720, in _Relations de la Louisiane et du Fleuve Mississippi_ (Dufossé, 1878, no. 4,577), and again in 1737 in connection with a translation of Garcilasso de la Vega (Dr. O’Callaghan in _Historical Magazine_, ii. 24). An abridgment appeared in Paris, in 1720, under the title, _Description de la Louisiane, par le Chevalier Bonrepos_, pp. 45 (Lenox in _Historical Magazine_, ii. 25).

The following translations may be noted:—

* * * * *

DUTCH.—1. _Nieuwe Ontdekkinge_, etc., Amsterdam, 1699.

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REFERENCES: Shea, no. 9; Sabin, no. 31,359; Harrisse, no. 183.

2. _Nieuwe Entdekkinge_, etc., Amsterdam, 1702. It follows the 1697 French edition, with the same maps and plates, and has Capiné’s book on the Spanish West Indies appended.

COPIES: =BA.=, =CB.=, =L.=

REFERENCES: Shea, no. 10; Sabin, no. 31,360; Lenox in _Historical Magazine_, vol. ii. p. 25; Muller, 1870, no. 912, and 1877, no. 1,397; Brinley, no. 4,493; O’Callaghan, no. 1,076; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 23.

3. _Aenmerkelyke Voyagie_, etc., Leyden, 1704.

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REFERENCES: Shea, no. 11; Sabin, no. 31,361; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. nos. 53, 54; Stevens, vol. i. no. 1,437; Muller, 1870, no. 913, and 1877, no. 1,398.

4. _Aanmerkkelyke_ _Voyagie_, etc., Rotterdam, 1704. It is usually found with Benzoni’s _West-Indise Voyagien_, and also in Van der Aa’s Collection of Voyages, 1704.

COPIES: =C.=, =CB.=, =L.=

REFERENCES: Shea, nos. 12, 13; Sabin, no. 31,362; Lenox in _Historical Magazine_, vol. ii. p. 25.

5. _Nieuwe Ontdekkinge_, etc. Amsterdam, 1722.

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REFERENCES: Shea, no. 14; Sabin, no. 31,363.

* * * * *

ENGLISH.—_Discovery of a Large, Rich, and Plentiful Country_, etc., London, 1720.

COPIES: =BA.=, =CB.=, =HC.= REFERENCES: Shea, no. 2; Sabin, nos. 20,247, 31,373; _Historical Magazine_, vol. i. p. 347; Rich, no. 12; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 267.

This is an abridgment.

* * * * *

GERMAN.—1. _Neue Entdeckung_, etc. Bremen, 1699.

COPIES: =CB.=, =L.=

REFERENCES: Shea, no. 15; _Historical Magazine_, vol. i. p. 347, vol. ii. p. 25; Sabin, no. 31,367; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,572; Harrisse, no. 185; Stevens, vol. i. no. 1,435.

2. _Beschreibung der Grosser Flusse Mississipi. Dritte Auflage_, Leipzig, 1720.

COPY: =L.=

REFERENCES: Lenox in _Historical Magazine_, vol. ii. p. 25.

3. _Neue Reise Beschreibung_, etc., Nürnberg, 1739.

COPY: =CB.=

REFERENCES: Shea, no. 16; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 604.

4. _Neue Entdeckung_, etc., Bremen, 1742.

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REFERENCE: Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 708.

* * * * *

SPANISH.—_Relaçion_, etc., Brusselas, 1699.

COPIES: =HC.=, =CB.=, =L.= An abridgment by Sebastian Fernandez de Medrano.

REFERENCES: Shea, no. 1; Sabin, no. 31,374; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,573; Lenox in _Historical Magazine_, vol. ii. p. 25; Ternaux, no. 1,126.

It has the same map with the 1697 French edition, with an Italian label, “Carta geografica de un Pais,” etc., pasted over the French title.

III. NOUVEAU VOYAGE.

It has been customary to bestow upon this volume a similar distrust as upon the preceding; but Dr. Shea contends that the luckless treatment of the _Nouvelle Découverte_ by a presumptuous editor was also repeated with this. It was entitled, _Nouveau Voyage d’un Pais plus grand que l’Europe_, Utrecht, 1698. The work was made up from Le Clercq, and included the treatise on the Indians which had been omitted in the _Nouvelle Découverte_, of which this volume may be considered the supplement.

COPIES: =BA.=, =CB.=

REFERENCES: Shea, no. 1; Sabin, no. 31,351; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,537; Harrisse, no. 177; Beckford, no. 677, bought by Quaritch, who priced it at £4 4_s._; Leclerc, no. 904, 70 francs; Rich, no. 455; Ternaux. no. 1,111.

The _Nouveau Voyage_ was also included in an abridged form in the second (1720) and third (1734) editions of the _Recueil de Voyages au Nord_, published by Bernard at Amsterdam. Cf. Shea, 2 and 3.

It was also issued in the following translations:—

* * * * *

DUTCH.—Engraved title, _Reyse door nieuwe Ondekte Landen_. Printed title, _Aenmerckelycke Historische Reijs Beschryvinge_, Utrecht, 1698. The map reads, “Carte d’un Nouveau Monde entre Le Nouveau Mexique et la Mer glaciale. Gasp. Bouttals fecit.”

COPIES: =BA.=, =CB.=

REFERENCES: Shea, no. 4; Sabin, no. 31,358; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,539, with fac-simile of title; _Historical Magazine_, vol. ii. p. 347; Harrisse, no. 179; Trömel, no. 425; O’Callaghan, no. 1,075; Muller, 1877, no. 1,396.

* * * * *

ENGLISH.—In the _Archæologia Americana_, vol. i.

* * * * *

GERMAN, I.—_Neue Reise Beschreibung, übersetzt durch M. J. G. Langen_, Bremen, 1698.

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REFERENCES: Shea, no. 5.; Sabin, no. 31,365; Ternaux, no. 1,049, of doubtful date; Harrisse, no. 165; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,540.

2. _Reisen und seltsehme Begebenheiten_, etc., Bremen, 1742.

REFERENCES: Shea, no. 6; Sabin, no. 31,369.

IV. COMBINATION.

The _Nouvelle Découverte_ and the _Nouveau Voyage_ were combined in an English translation issued under the following title: _A new Discovery of a Vast Country in America, extending above four thousand miles between New France and New Mexico_, etc., London, 1698. It contains—part i., a translation of the _Nouvelle Découverte_; part ii., in smaller type and new paging, a version of the _Nouveau Voyage_; the rest of the volume in the type of part i. and continuing its paging, being an account of Marquette’s voyages. Another edition of the same year shows a slight change of title, with alterations in part i. and part ii. rewritten. Still another issue conforms in title to the earliest, but in body, with a slight correction, to the second edition. The engraved title of the first edition is given herewith. This picture is a re-engraving reversed of the one on the title of the _Nouvelle Découverte_ of 1697.

COPIES: =BPL.=, =CB.=, =H.C.=

REFERENCES: Shea, nos. 1, 2, 3; Sabin, nos. 31,370, 31,371; Ternaux, nos. 1,010, 1,119; _Historical Magazine_, vol. i. p. 347; Field, _Indian Bibliography_, no. 685; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. nos. 1,535, 1,536; Rich, no. 456; Brinley, no. 4,492; Harrisse, no. 181; _Menzies Catalogue_, no. 915.

In the next year (1699) there was a reprint of the second issue of the preceding year.

COPY: =BA.=

REFERENCES: Shea, no. 4; Sabin, no. 31,372; O’Callaghan, no. 1,074; and _Historical Magazine_, vol. ii p. 74; Menzies, no. 916.

BARON LA HONTAN.

A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL NOTE BY THE EDITOR.

LA HONTAN, a young Gascon, born about 1667, had come to Canada in 1683, and from being a common soldier, had by his ability risen to an officer’s position. He became a favorite of Frontenac, and was selected by him to bear the despatch to Paris which conveyed an account of Phips’s failure before Quebec in 1690. He was not long after made deputy-governor of Placentia, where he quarrelled with his superior and fled to France; and here, fearing arrest, he was obliged to escape beyond its boundaries. After the Peace of Ryswick he sought reinstatement, but was not successful; and it is alleged that his book, which he now published, was in some measure the venting of his spleen. It appeared in 1703, at La Haye, as _Nouveaux Voyages dans l’Amérique septentrionale, qui contiennent une Relation des différens Peuples que y habitent_, in two volumes (the second entitled _Mémoires de l’Amérique septentrionale, ou la suite des Voyages_), with twenty-six maps and plates (Sabin, vol. x. nos. 38,635-38,638; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 36; Quaritch, 25 shillings; Leclerc, no. 737, 40 francs). Another edition, in somewhat larger type and better engravings, with a vignette in place of the sphere on the title, appeared the same year. Dr. Shea is inclined to think this the authorized edition, and the other a pirated one, with reversed cuts. La Hontan, being in London, superintended an edition published there the same year in English, called _New Voyages to North America_ (in Harvard College Library; cf. _Brinley Catalogue_, no. 101; Field, _Indian Bibliography_, no. 852; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 39), likewise in two volumes, but containing in addition a Dialogue between La Hontan and a Huron Indian (the Rat), which had not been included in the Hague edition, and which was the vehicle of some religious scepticism. There were thirteen plates in vol. i., and eleven in vol. ii., and La Hontan speaks of them as being much better than those of the Holland edition (Sabin, vol. x. no. 38,644). This same Dialogue was issued separately the next year (1704) at Amsterdam in French,—_Dialogue du Baron de La Hontan et d’un Sauvage dans l’Amérique_; and also, with a changed title (_Supplément aux Voyages du Baron La Hontan_), as the third volume or “suite” of the _Voyages_, and sometimes with added pages devoted to travels in Portugal and Denmark (Sabin, vol. x. nos. 38,633, 38,634, 38,637; Field, no. 853; Leclerc, nos. 738, 739; Muller, _Books on America_, 1872, no. 864). These editions are found with the dates also of 1704 and 1705. What is called a “seconde Édition, revue, corrigée, et augmentée,” with twenty-seven plates (but not from the same coppers, however, with the earlier issues), and omitting the “Carte générale,” appeared likewise at La Haye in 1705 and 1706. This is professedly “almost recast, to make the style more pure, concise, and simple, with the Dialogues rewritten.” The Denmark and Portugal voyage being omitted, it is brought within two volumes, the second of which is still called _Mémoires_, etc. (Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 68). There were later French editions in 1707, 1709, and 1715, and at Amsterdam in 1721, with the “suite,” dated 1728, three volumes in all, and sometimes all three are dated 1728; and still other editions are dated 1731 and 1741 (Sabin, vol. x. no. 38,640, who says it is quite impossible to make a clear statement of all the varieties of these several editions; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 689). The English version appeared again at London in 1735 (Menzies, no. 1,178; Brinley, no. 101; Sabin, vol. x. nos. 38,645, 38,646, who says there are various imprints; and it is also included in Pinkerton’s _Voyages_, vol. xiii.). There are also a German edition, _Des beruhmten Herrn Baron de La Hontan Neueste Reisen_, 1709 (Sabin, vol. x. no. 38,647; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 123; Stevens, _Bibl. Hist._, no. 2,505), and a Dutch, _Reizen van den Baron van La Hontan_, 1739 (Sabin, vol. x. no. 38,648; Stevens, no. 2,506).

This is the western part of the _Carte Générale de Canada_, which appeared in the _Nouveaux Voyages_, La Haye, 1709, vol. ii., and was re-engraved in his _Mémoires_, Amsterdam, 1741, vol. iii.]

A middle section from his “Carte Générale de Canada,” in his _Nouveaux Voyages_, La Haye, 1709, vol. ii.; re-engraved in the Amsterdam, 1741, edition of the _Mémoires_, vol. iii.]

A fac-simile of the frontispiece to La Hontan’s _New Voyages_, London, 1703. It was less carefully drawn in the re-engraving of smaller size for the _Mémoires de l’Amérique_, vol. ii., Amsterdam; and still another plate of the same map will be found in the 1709 and 1715 La Haye editions.]

The book is thought to have been edited by Nicolas Gueudeville; or at least his hand is usually recognized in the customary third volume of some of the editions. Faribault (p. 76) says that a bookseller in Amsterdam knew that the Dialogue was added by Gueudeville, in whose _Atlas_, Amsterdam, 1719, as well as in Corneille’s _Geographical Dictionary_, the accounts given of La Hontan’s Rivière Longue are incorporated.

Fac-simile of the map in the _Nouveaux Voyages_, La Haye, 1709, i. 136. He reports that the river was called by some the Dead River, because of its sluggish current.]

As early as 1715-1716 there was a general discrediting of the story of La Hontan, as will be seen by letters addressed by Bobé to De l’Isle, the French geographer, and printed in the _Historical Magazine_, iii. 231, 232; but the English geographer, Herman Moll, in his maps between 1710 and 1720, was under La Hontan’s influence. Another English cartographer, John Senex (1710), accepted the La Hontan story with considerable hesitation, and later rejected it. Daniel Coxe, in his _Carolana_ (1727), quite unreservedly accepted it; and the Long River appears as Moingona in Popple’s _Atlas_, in 1733.

The German geographer, Homann, of Nuremberg, was in some degree influenced; and the French cartographer De l’Isle sometimes accepted these alleged discoveries, and again discarded them; but the careful work of Bellin, in Charlevoix’s _Nouvelle France_, did much to relegate La Hontan to oblivion. Charlevoix himself says: “The great liberty which La Hontan gives his pen has contributed greatly to make his book read by people not informed to separate truth from falsehood. It fails to teach the well-informed, and confuses others. The episode of the voyage up the Long River is as fabulous as the Barataria of Sancho Panza.” (Cf. Shea’s ed., i. 86, with Shea’s note, iii. 286.) The Long River some years later, however, figured in the map which illustrates Samuel Engel’s _Extraits raisonnés des Voyages faits dans les parties septentrionales_, published at Lausanne, and again in 1765, and again in 1779, and of which there is also a German translation. At a later date Carver accepted the accounts of this western river as genuine, and identified it with the St. Peter’s,—a belief which Long again, in his _Expedition to St. Peter’s River_, wholly rejected. (Cf. also J. H. Perkins in the_ North American Review_ (1839), vol. xlviii. no. 98, where it is thought possible; and the paper by H. Scadding in the _Canadian Journal_, 2d series, vol. xiii. pp. 240, 396.) Parkman expresses the present view of scholars when he says (_La Salle_, p. 458) that La Hontan’s account of the Long River is a sheer fabrication; but he did not, like Hennepin, add slander and plagiarism to mendacity. Again, in his _Frontenac_ (p. 105), he calls La Hontan “a man in advance of his time, for he had the caustic, sceptical, and mocking spirit which a century later marked the approach of the great Revolution. He usually told the truth when he had no motive to do otherwise, and yet was capable at times of prodigious mendacity,” for his account of what “he saw in the colony is commonly in accord with the best contemporary evidence.” There are some exceptions to this view. Gravier speaks of La Hontan as “de bonne foi et de jugement sain”!