INTRODUCTION 21 
Whether the Abbé Martin’s request was granted, we do 
not know. He is to us merely a nominis umbra. We 
know nothing more about him than that he was “serving 
on the Labrador.” 
Order was kept on the coast by the Sieur de Courte- 
manche, who bore the official title of commandant. At 
Baie des Phélypeaux (now Bradore Bay) he had a fort 
called Fort Ponchartrain. He exercised magisterial pow- 
ers, and sent in an annual report to the president of the 
Navy Board at Paris. His chief difficulty was with the 
Eskimos, who persisted in destroying the boats and 
stages of the fishermen, and in murdering an occasional 
white man. De Courtemanche’s conciliatory policy toward 
the natives is deserving of notice, especially as it stands 
in sharp contrast with the treatment of the Indians 
by the English across the Strait in Newfoundland. There 
it was considered good sport to shoot an Indian like a 
deer. This is not the only case in which the French 
proved themselves superior to the English in their rela- 
tions with the natives. 
De Courtemanche died in 1716, and his place as com- 
mandant of the coast was taken by his step-son, Frangois 
Martel de Brouague. De Brouague held the post until 
the conquest, though in 1759 he was so old and worn out 
that the minister proposed to replace him by another. 
He too had difficulty with the Eskimos, and he seems 
not to have been so successful as his step-father in his 
measures. He was, however, a person of importance in 
New France; he married in 1732 Louise-Madeleine Mari- 
auchau-d’Esglis, sister of the eighth bishop of Quebec, 
and his daughter was that beauty of whom Garneau tells, 
