The Ingenious Writer Of The Treatise Upon This Piece Of
Ordnance, Published In The Second Volume Of The TRANSACTIONS Of
The
Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, has endeavoured to show that it
belonged to Verazzani, - that the latter perished
Before the second voyage
of Jacques Cartier, either by scurvy or shipwreck, on his way up the river
towards Hochelaga. He also endeavors, with great stretch of fancy, to
explain and account for the pantomime enacted by the Indians in the
presence of Jacques Cartier, in order to dissuade him from proceeding to
Hochelaga so late in the season, by their recollection and allusion to the
death of Verazzani, some nine or ten years before. But if they had really
known anything respecting the fate of this navigator - and it must have
been fresh in their memory, if we recall to mind how comparatively short a
period had elapsed - is it not most likely that they would have found
means, through the two interpreters to communicate it to Cartier? Yet it
appears that the latter never so much as heard of it, either at Hochelai,
now the Richelieu, where he was on friendly terms with the chief of the
village - or at Hochelaga, where it must have been known - or when he
wintered at Ste. Croix, in the little river St. Charles - nor yet when he
passed a second winter at Carouge! The best evidence, however, that the
Indian pantomime had no reference to Verazzani, and to disprove at once
the truth of the tradition respecting his death in any part of the St.
Lawrence, is to show, which we shall do on good authority, that at the
very time when Cartier was passing the winter at Ste.
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Words from 188528 to 188815
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