The Tradition As To His Shipwreck, And To The Loss Of One Of His
Vessels, Most Probably Arose From The Well Known Circumstance Of His
Having Returned To France With Two Ships, Instead Of Three, With Which He
Left St. Malo.
Having lost so many men by scurvy during his first winter
in Canada, he was under the necessity of abandoning one of them, which lay
in the harbour of Ste.
Croix. The people of Champlain having possessed
themselves of the old iron to be found on the vessel, it of course soon
fell to pieces, and in process of time arose the tradition that Jacques
Cartier had been shipwrecked. The removal of the scene of his supposed
disaster from the St. Charles to the River Jacques Cartier. was an error
of Charlevoix.
Before we conclude this notice of Verazzani: it may be mentioned, that in
the Strozzi Library at Florence, is preserved a manuscript, in which he is
said to have given with great minuteness, a description of all the
countries which he had visited during his voyage, and from which, says
Tiraboschi, we derive the intelligence, that he had formed the design, in
common with the other navigators of that era, of attempting a passage
through those seas to the East Indies. It is much to be desired, that some
Italian Scholar would favor the world with the publication of this
manuscript of Verazzani."
[See pages 71-72.]
THE FRENCH WHO REMAINED IN QUEBEC AFTER ITS CAPITULATION TO THE BRITISH
IN 1629.
(From the Canadian Antiquarian)
In Canadian annals there is no period veiled deeper in Cimmerian darkness,
than the short era of the occupation of Quebec by the English under Louis
Kirke, extending from the 14th July 1629, to 13th July, 1632. The absence
of diaries, of regular histories, no doubt makes it difficult to
reconstruct, in minute details, the nascent city of 1629. Deep researches,
however, in the English and French archives have recently brought to the
surface many curious incidents. To the Abbe Faillon, who, in addition to
the usual sources of information had access to the archives of the
Propaganda at Rome, the cause of history is deeply indebted, though one
must occasionally regret his partiality towards Montreal which so often
obscures his judgment. Another useful source to draw from for our
historians, will be found in a very recent work on the conquest of Canada
in 1629 by a descendant of Louis Kirke, an Oxford graduate, it is
published in England.
Those who fancy reading the present to the past, will be pleased to meet
in those two last writers a quaint account of the theological feud
agitating the Rock in 1629. Religious controversies were then, as now, the
order of the day. But bluff Commander Kirke had a happy way of getting rid
of bad theology. His Excellency, whose ancestors hailed from France, was a
Huguenot, a staunch believer in John Calvin. Of his trusty garrison of 90
men a goodly portion were calvinists, the rest, however, with the chaplain
of the forces, were disciples of Luther.
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