voix, "wishing to see these men in the garb in which Chedotel had brought them back, dressed in seal-skins, and with beards and matted hair of a horrible length -which made them look like the river gods of ancient fable-had them brought before him. His Majesty then presented each of them with fifty crowns in money, and a pardon for all old offences." Thus ended the first attempt of Henry the Great to bring the Indians of North America out of that ignorance and infidelity with which he charged them.

Nor was his second attempt more successful. About the year 1601, he granted a commission. (similar to that which La Roche had held) to Monsieur Chauvin; who, among other things, was directed to spread the Roman Catholic faith all over North America. This was rather a curious task for the new viceroy, who happened to be a Calvinist. But Chauvin extricated his conscience adroitly from the dilemma. Like the pilot Chedotel, he steered his attention exclusively to the collecting of peltry; and when he gave up his viceroyship, he does not appear to have prevailed upon a single Indian to embrace either the Catholic or Calvinistic creed.

The first religious mission of the French to NorthAmerica was in the year 1611, when two fathers * Charlevoix, Hist. de la Nouvelle France, liv. iii.

of the Jesuits were sent to the small settlement commenced not long before by Monsieur de Pourtrincourt in Acadia. In the year 1615, Champlain took out with him, in one of his numerous voyages to Canada, four priests of the Recollet order. In 1626, several fathers of the Jesuits were sent out to Quebec, who formed the first of those missions which, whatever may have been their success, were long and laboriously occupied in their endeavours to convert the heathen. It has been already noticed that the first mission of the Jesuits into the interior country was in the year 1634; and, with regard to the result of their early exertions, we cannot refer to a better authority than Charlevoix. "The Indians have been seen to attend our churches," says he, "for years together with an assiduity and solemnity which made it be supposed they entertained a sincere desire to learn and embrace the truths of Christianity but they would suddenly refrain from coming to church, saying coolly to the missionary, 'You had no one to pray with you; I took compassion upon you in your solitude, and kept you company. Others at present are willing to render you the same service, I therefore take my leave.' This fact, Charlevoix says, he learned from a missionary to whom the circumstance happened at Michillimakinac; and that he also had read, in some of their accounts, that several of the Indians

had even carried their complaisance so far as to request and receive the rites of baptism, performing for some time the Christian duties; after which they declared they had done all this only to please the priest, who was pressing them to change their religion.*

Hennepin observes, in his early account of the Iroquois, "The Indians have an extreme indifference for every thing: but they reckon it highly improper in their councils to contradict any thing that is said; and they will not dissent from you even if you make the most absurd assertions. They always answer, 'Brother, you are right-it is well.' Yet in private they only believe what they please; and shew the greatest indifference even for the great truths of the Christian religion. It is this which forms the principal obstacle to their conversion." †

These observations, coming from two missionaries so celebrated as Charlevoix and Hennepinpriests of different orders, which, according to La Hontan, were not very apt to agree-are well worthy the serious attention of those who listen in confidence to the pleasing tales of sudden conversion among untutored savages; or who imagine that any adequate notions of revealed religion can

* Charlevoix, Hist. de la Nouvelle France, liv. v.
+ Voyages de Hennepin, ch. 15.

be justly expected to take root among them, unless inculcated by a slow, gradual, and cautious progress.

Sir Alexander M'Kenzie, in noticing the early French missionaries in the interior, observes: "It is seriously to be lamented that their pious endeavours did not meet the success which they deserved; for there is hardly a trace to be found, beyond the cultivated parts, of their meritorious functions. The cause of this failure must be attributed to a want of due consideration in the mode employed by the missionaries to propagate the religion of which they were the zealous ministers. They habituated themselves to the savage life, and naturalized themselves to the savage manners; and by thus becoming dependent, as it were, on the natives, they acquired their contempt rather than their veneration."*

This account is corroborated by what the Jesuit missionaries themselves frequently reported from the interior. Père Jerome Lallemant, in writing from the country of the Hurons, in 1640, mentions how severely they felt the drudgery of travelling on foot during the rigours of winter, laden with their baggage, and the furniture for their chapels, and often losing their way in the snow: "But the

* McKenzie's Voyages, &c. Preliminary Account of the Fur Trade.

greatest misfortune," says he, "is, that amidst these hardships, no accommodation or retreat is to be found, and we are obliged to search for the hut of some savage who may be prevailed upon to receive us; and where the first salutation we meet with is a bitter reproach for the mortality which has this year taken place among them, and of which they consider us as the cause. For bed we have nothing but a piece of miserable bark of a tree laid upon the ground; for nourishment, a handful or two of corn, roasted or soaked in water, which seldom satisfies our hunger; and after all not venturing to perform even the ceremonies of our holy religion, without being considered as sorcerers." And in another part of the same report, he observes: "In short, many of them hold us in utter horror, driving us from their cabins, not suffering us to approach their sick, nor even to look upon their childrenin a word, fearing us as the greatest sorcerers upon earth."* Père Marest, upwards of half a century afterwards, does not appear to have met with a better reception. When writing from his mission in the Indian country, he remarks" Our life is spent in traversing immense forests, climbing over high mountains, navigating dangerous lakes and rivers, in pursuit of some poor savage who flies

* Relation de ce qui s'est passé dans le Pays des Hurons, 1640, ch. 3.