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master--whether these views were directed towards the increase of the temporal power of the crown, the extension of the Roman Catholic religion, or the promotion of the Canadian fur-trade-there can be little doubt that the means he resorted to for accomplishing his object, were not very consistent with the so much boasted humanity of the French towards the North American savages. Dr. Colden, in his History of the Five Nations, has given various instances in proof of this assertion. Among these it appears that, upon one occasion, when the governor sent an officer with a hundred men to convoy some of their Ottowa allies back to their own country, he presented them, on their departure, with two Iroquois captives, for the purpose of convincing their nation of the success of the French against the Iroquois. These prisoners, as might have been expected, were afterwards burnt alive by the Ottowas. The Iroquois, however, continued to retaliate with great fury, and the injuries inflicted upon them by the French and their Indian confederates were never allowed long to pass with impunity. The war parties of the Five Nations, under their celebrated chief Black Kettle, made constant inroads upon the Canadian settlements, to the very suburbs of Montreal, leaving their traces every where marked with devastation and bloodshed.

"The Count de Frontenac," says Colden," was

pierced to the heart, when he found that he could not revenge these terrible incursions of the Five Nations; and his anguish made him guilty of such a piece of monstrous cruelty, in burning a prisoner alive after the Indian manner, as though I have frequently mentioned to have been done by the Indians, yet I forbore giving the particulars of such barbarous acts, suspecting it might be too offensive to Christian ears, even in the history of savages. Here, however, I think it useful to give a circumstantial account of this horrid act; to shew, on one hand, what courage and resolution, virtue, the love of glory, and the love of one's country, can instil into men's minds, even where the knowledge of true religion is wanting; and, on the other hand, how far a false policy, under a corrupt religion, can debase even great minds."

He then proceeds to state, that the Count de Frontenac condemned two prisoners of the Five Nations to be burnt alive; that the Intendant's lady and the Jesuits entreated him to mitigate this sentence, but that the count declared there was a necessity of making such an example to frighten them from approaching the plantations, as the indulgence hitherto shewn had encouraged them to advance to the very gates of the French towns; and that the Indians having burnt alive so many French captives, justified this method of retaliating. "But, with submission to the politeness of the

French," adds Colden, may I not ask whether every or any horrid action of a barbarous enemy can justify a civilized nation in doing the like?"

In order to prevent this execution, Colden mentions that the Jesuits applied to the Governor, but without success. The two Indians, after hearing their sentence, refused to listen to the instructions of the priests, and began to sing their deathsong. Some person threw a knife into the prison, with which one of them despatched himself. "The other," says Colden, "was carried out by the Christian Indians of Loretto to the place of execution, to which he walked, seemingly with as much indifference as ever martyr did to the stake. While they were torturing him, he continued singing-that he was a warrior, brave, and without fear; that the most cruel death could not shake his courage; that the most cruel torment should not draw an indecent expression from him; that his comrade was a coward, a scandal to the Five Nations, who had killed himself for fear of pain; and that he had the comfort to reflect that he had made many Frenchmen suffer as he did now. He fully verified his words, for the most violent torments would not force the least complaint from him, though his executioners tried their utmost skill to do it. They first broiled his feet between two red-hot stones, then they put his fingers into red-hot pipes, and though he had his arms at liberty, he would not

pull his fingers out; they cut his joints, and, taking hold of his sinews, twisted them round small bars of iron. All this while he kept singing and recounting his own brave actions against the French. At last they flayed his scalp from his skull, and poured scalding-hot sand upon it; at which time the Intendant's lady obtained leave of the Governor to have the coup-de-grace given; and, I believe, she thereby likewise obtained a favour to every reader in delivering him from a farther continuance of this account of French cruelty."

"

The account thus given by Colden was probably taken from the more detailed narrative of the Baron de la Hontan. But it should be remarked that the French writers, and particularly some of the missionaries, endeavour to throw much discredit upon the statements of that author, The “great liberty," says Charlevoix, Charlevoix, "which La Hontan gave to his pen, contributed much to the circulation of his work, and has made it to be read with avidity by all those who have not had the means of knowing that the true is so mixed with the false, that to separate them it is necessary to be well acquainted with the history of Canada. His book

* Colden's History of the Five Nations, vol. i. part ii. chap. 7.

† Voyages du Baron de la Hontan dans l'Amérique Septentrionale, let. 23.

consequently furnishes no information to the one, and only misleads the other. The proper names throughout his work are corrupted; facts are distorted, and entire episodes inserted, which are mere fictions; such, for instance, as his voyage up the Long River-as fabulous as the Island of Barataria, of which Sancho Panza was governor. Yet in France and elsewhere his Memoirs have been regarded as the travels of a cavalier who wrote ill, but with ease; who was devoid of religion, but who, at the same time, reported with sufficient accuracy what he saw." Charlevoix, indeed, has not scrupled to avail himself of the information contained in La Hontan's work; and it is from his own" List and Account of Authors" consulted by him (prefixed to his History of New France), that the above-cited passage is taken.*

La Hontan appears to have been a person not well calculated to ingratiate himself with his superiors, whether of a civil, military, or religious order. His father died when La Hontan was very young, leaving his family affairs in great difficulty. The son went out to Canada as a private soldier at the age of sixteen, but soon received a commission, and was successively entrusted with the charge of some of the forts in the interior. He returned to France after a ten years' residence in Canada,

* Charlevoix, Hist. de la Nouvelle France, vol. i. Preface.