REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR I9I0 t^I 



Some years ago there was found among the departmental archives 

 of the Seine-In ferieure at Rouen the manuscript journal of Jean 

 Doublet. This was edited and published by Charles Breard in 1883 

 under the title " Journal du Corsaire Jean Doublet de Honfleur, 

 Lieutenant de Fregate sous Louis XIV." Doublet was a freebooter 

 whose stirring life has put a thrill into every page of this remark- 

 able book. He was the son of Frangois Doublet who in 1663, 

 under concession from the Company of New France, attempted to 

 settle the Magdalen islands and disastrously failed in every respect 

 save that of giving to these islands the name of his wife Madeleine. 

 When this expedition to the Magdalens took place Jean Doublet was 

 seven years old and tlie little fellow^ stowed himself away on his 

 father's ship as it left the roadstead of Honfleur, only allowing him- 

 self to be discovered when a boatswain into whose bunk he had 

 crawded threw himself down on top of the sleeping boy. The 

 vessel was then well out to sea and the angry father had to take the 

 boy along with him to the Magdalens, fortunately indeed, for it is to 

 him we owe practically all we know of this attempt to colonize those 

 islands. Returning to France at the end of the season, full of 

 promise of success in the fisheries there, the elder Doublet came 

 back to the islands in the spring to find his colony broken up, his 

 stores pillaged and the place wholly abandoned. So this attempt 

 ended in disaster. In 1665 Frangois Doublet, the father, was com- 

 missioned by the Compagnie des Indes Occidentales to go for tiiem 

 to the coasts of Gaspe to examine a lead mine about which reports 

 had come to France through the Intendant Talon. M. Breard says 

 in a note quoted from the Archives de la Marine, Canada (1665), 

 that Talon, judging that the discovery of precious or even base 

 metals was a matter of importance to the king, obtained the right to 

 send to Canada forty workmen. The company recruited these in 

 Normandy and the command of them was given to Frangois 

 Doublet. In addition to the lead, the ingenieur-fondeur believed he 

 had discovered silver on the coast of Gaspe. " The belief seems 

 well founded," wrote Talon. 



In ''Sketches of Gaspe" (1908) I quoted Nicholas Denys's 

 remarks on this Gaspe mine (1672) in which he says he had known 

 of the place for twenty years, that is as early as 1652, doubtless from 

 reports communicated by the Indians to the missionaries. Indeed as 

 early as 1663 Father Balloquet was sent to look up the place and, 

 according to the Jesuit Relations, returned not finding his mine 

 ''good." 



