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Page 58
After gaining the victory, our men amused themselves by taking a great
quantity of Indian corn and some meal from their enemies, also their
armor, which they had left behind that they might run better. After
feasting sumptuously, dancing and singing, we returned three hours
after, with the prisoners. The spot where this attack took place is in
latitude 43 degrees and some minutes, and the lake was called Lake
Champlain.
After going some eight leagues, toward evening they took one of the
prisoners, to whom they made a harangue, enumerating the cruelties
which he and his men had already practised toward them without any
mercy, and that, in like manner, he ought to make up his mind to
receive as much. They commanded him to sing, if he had courage, which
he did; but it was a very sad song.[5]
[1] From the "Voyages of Samuel de Champlain," as published by the
Prince Society of Boston in 1878, the translation being by Charles
Pomeroy Otis.
Samuel de Champlain, who has been called "The Father of New
France," was born in Brouage, France, in 1567, and died in Quebec
in 1635. Parkman accepts this title as just, and adds that in
Champlain were embodied the religious zeal of New France and her
romantic spirit of adventure. Champlain's first explorations in
America were made in 1603-07. Quebec was founded by him in 1608,
and Lake Champlain discovered in 1609.
[2] Now called the Richelieu River.
[3] Lake Champlain.
[4] The Adirondacks or the Green Mountains might have been here
referred to.
[5] Parkman, in his "Pioneers of France in the New World," adds to
this narrative the following: "At night the victors led out one of
the prisoners, told him that he was to die by fire, and ordered
him to sing his death-song, if he dared. Then they began the
torture, and presently scalped their victim alive, when Champlain,
sickening at the sight, begged leave to shoot him. They refused,
and he turned away in anger and disgust; on which they called him
back and told him to do as he pleased. He turned again and a shot
from his arquebuse put the wretch out of misery. The scene filled
him with horror; but, a few months later, on the Place de la
Grave, at Paris, he might have witnessed tortures equally
revolting and equally vindictive, inflicted on the regicide
Ravaillac by the sentence of grave and learned judges. [Ravaillac
was the assassin of Henry IV.]
"The allies made a prompt retreat from the scene of their triumph.
Three or four days brought them to the mouth of the Richelieu.
Here they separated; the Hurons and Algonquins made for the
Ottawa, their homeward route, each with a share of prisoners for
future torments. At parting they invited Champlain to visit their
towns, and aid them again in their wars, an invitation which the
paladin of the woods failed not to accept.
"The companions now remaining to him were the Montagnais. In their
camp on the Richelieu, one of them dreamed that a war party of
Iroquois was close upon them; on which, in a torrent of rain, they
left their huts, paddled in dismay to the islands above the Lake
of St. Peter, and hid themselves all night in the rushes. In the
morning they took heart, emerged from their hiding-places,
descended to Quebec, and went thence to Tadousac, whither
Champlain accompanied them. Here the squaws, stark naked, swam out
to the canoes to receive the heads of the dead Iroquois, and,
hanging them from their necks, danced in triumph along the shore.
One of the heads and a pair of arms were then bestowed on
Champiain,--touching memorials of gratitude, which, however, he
was by no means to keep for himself, but to present to the King.
"Thus did New France rush into collision with the redoubted
warriors of the Five Nations. Here was the beginning, and in some
measure doubtless the cause, of a long suite of murderous
conflicts, bearing havoc and flame to generations yet unborn.
Champlain had invaded the tiger's den; and now, in smothered fury,
the patient savage would lie biding his day of blood."
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