No. 112.J 655 



strances of the merchants interested in the preceding grants. In 

 the same year, Champlain returned to New France, and in ac- 

 cordance with a purpose conceived in his pieceding expedition, 

 laid the foundation of Quebec — more ambitious of the honor 

 of founding a great city, than covetous of the emoluments of 

 trade. 



Impelled by the ardor of his impetuous character and his im- 

 passioned zeal for discovery, Champlain the ensuing year em- 

 barked in an. adventure conspicuous in that unscrupulous and 

 daring age, for its reckless purpose and bold temerity. A band 

 of some sixty Hurons and Algonquins had assembled at the 

 rapids of the modern Chambly, witli their flotilla of war canoes, 

 and were preparing for a hostile expedition against a remote 

 tribe of the ^'Iroquois", 



Champlain, attended only by two Europeans, at once became 

 the ally and companion of these savages. Allured by the spirit 

 of adventure, and grasping at the glory which fascinated that 

 age, he boldly and without hesitation or remorse encountered the 

 dangers and privations of a vast and savage wilderness, never 

 before pressed by the foot of civilized man, to assail a people of 

 whose character and rights he was alike ignorant and careless. 



The programme of the route to be pursued by the expedition, 

 as indicated by the Indians, is signalized by a remarkable minute 

 ness and accuracy in their knowledge of the topography of the 

 country. Traversing the lake, which commemorates his name, 

 they informed him that in pursuit of the enemy they sought, 

 who occupied a country thickly inhabited, they " must pass by a 

 water- fall and thence enter another lake three or fuur leagues in 

 length, and having arrived at its head, there were four leagues of 

 land to be travelled to pass to a river which flows towards the 

 coast of the Almochoiquois." A precise and exceedingly accu- 

 rate delineation of the route (altliough somewhat inaccurate in the 

 -estimate of distances,) from Lake Champlain by Ticonderoga and 

 L'ake George to the Hudson. The journal of Champlain* is of 

 deep interest, not merely because it alfords the first revelation of 



• Copious compilations from the works of Champlain have already been published in tho 

 Transavtioua of 1S13, and aro therefore necessarily omitted, although peculiarly appropriate to 

 thii work. 



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