The Star Woman/Preface
PREFACE
THE historical portions of this novel will be found to differ considerably from generally accepted versions of the events related. The prime sources utilized are both contemporary, both French, and both untranslated; namely, the diary of Sieur Baudouin, once a soldier and later chaplain under Iberville, and the amazing "Histoire de l'Amérique Septentionale" of Bacqueville de la Potherie.
The former work, furnished me in MS. by kindness of the Newfoundland Historical Society, yielded full details regarding the Newfoundland raid. In abridged form, it was utilized by Sieur Bacqueville, whose work is astounding because of its remarkably distinct, yet wildly confused, combination of sources. A letter from the missionary Bobé, himself a student and memorialist of Canadian affairs, has informed us of Sieur Bacqueville's great exactitude. He had a share in much that he described; for the remainder, he drew by document or word of mouth on Baudouin, Perrot, the Le Moynes, Joliet and the Jesuits. The manner in which these sources can be traced through the internal evidence of his work is most interesting; the work itself cannot be translated satisfactorily, owing to its disregard of historical sequence and its jumble of unrelated documents and dictation.
In places, however, it is remarkably clear, and has been followed for the Hudson Bay events. I do not attempt to account for the extraordinary discrepancies which exist between these events as herein set forth and as related by A. C. Laut in "The Conquest of the Great Northwest." This discrepancy exists in nearly every detail and is almost incredible, since the latter work quotes Bacqueville as an authority. The same discrepancy exists between its account of Iberville's earlier exploits on the bay and that which Iberville himself presumably furnished Sieur Bacqueville. The two versions are totally different. I have followed the 1753 edition of the Histoire, which was a careful reprint of the second edition of 1722. I believe that no copies are known to exist of the first edition, of 1716. Miss Laut quotes a much later edition. Perhaps that is why her account is so astonishing—as, for example, making one of Iberville's ships, the Violent, founder in the straits, when this ship was not even with his squadron; and when we are expressly told that it was a small brigantine named the Esquimeau which went down. Nor is this the most amazing error in the volume named.
But now let me cry "peccavi!" on my own account. Iberville was not with Bienville at the Bay de Verde burning, although I put him there. I have purposely ignored the fact that Serigny was blown into the Danish river on his way to Nelson; and I have no authority for bringing poor Moon there—though where he did go I have been unable to discover, as he dropped from sight between the straits and Nelson.
By introducing the Albemarle as Deakin's ship, I have tried to resolve what was to me a sore problem—perhaps for lack of any authoritative English account of the bay action. After the capture of Nelson our friend Aide-major Charles Claude le Roy—otherwise Sieur de Bacqueville de la Potherie—loaded the looted furs and the prisoners aboard a ship of this name and promptly lost her on the shallows of the river-mouth. I find no other mention of such a ship; no Albemarle formed a part of either Fletcher's or Iberville's squadron. Since all the furs and prisoners were put aboard her, she must have been a vessel of goodly size and not a mere sloop belonging to the forts.
Despite the dictum of learned persons that the term "Canadian" is not found prior to the end of the eighteenth century, I have used it advisedly. In De Beaudoncourt's "History of Canada," based on French and American documents, occurs this note:
"Ce mot de Canada ou Canata veut dire, en langue du pais, royaume des cabanes. Il a survécu à tous les autres, il est avec celui de Montreal le seul datant de l'époque de Jacques Cartier."
The term Canadian is constantly used by Bacqueville and by Baudouin; a statement by the latter infers that it was likewise employed by the English to differentiate the born Canadians from the French proper. The entire history of North America at this period is largely written in names of Canadian families; as though the terrific struggle of the French pioneers against man and nature had aroused in the ensuing generation all the dormant blood of knightly and heroic ancestry, so that the same names etched in the icy annals of Hudson Bay are to be found burned into the cypress of Louisiana.