Samuel de Champlain : father of new France / Samuel Eliot Morison.

"An Atlantic Monthly Press book."

Includes bibliographical references:(pages 269-273) and index.

I.. Canada before Champlain -- II. Early life and West Indies voyages -- III. First voyage in Canada -- IV. L'Acadie and Norumbega -- V. Port-Royal and Cruise to Cape Cod -- VI. The Order of Good Cheer -- VII. Quebec founded and Iroquois attacked -- VIII. Champlain marries and returns to Canada -- IX. First western explorations -- X. Reorganization and more western explorations -- XI. Madame Champlain comes to Quebec -- XII. The English conquest -- XIII. The hundred associates -- XIV. Last phase -- Appendix I. Champlain's itinerary -- Appendix II. Treatise on seamanship.

"Admiral Morison, a blue — water mariner himself, has the advantage of most historians of exploration because he has personally sailed, flown, or otherwise traveled over most areas that he describes .... His life of Champlain, written con amore illustrates his dictum about firsthand acquaintance with the terrain, for he has traversed most of Champlain's waterways, portages and trails, and his topical knowledge adds immensely to the value of the story. Not least useful is his exact location, with modern names, of places mentioned in Champlain's own narratives.

Although Champlain did more than any other man to save Canada for France, his own country showed slight appreciation of his efforts. In fact, France was little concerned about colonizing Canada, and few shared Champlain's belief in the value of the country except for a summer fur‐trading post. Champlain received no “personal recognition, or even compliment from Richelieu or the monarchy,” Morison observes, and adds sarcastically: “The third Republic honored (?.) Champlain by naming a second‐class cruiser after him in 1874, and a store ship in 1919.” This long neglect the author sets out to rectify in a volume that does more than merely chronicle his hem”s deeds, for he provides a succinct and shrewd appraisal of French activities in North America until the mid‐17th century. ... With courage and incredible personal hardships Champlain succeeded in gaining for France a foothold in North America that she did not lose until 1763. The establishment of a stronghold at Quebec instead of a more vulnerable base on the coast was Champlain's doing. The alliance of the French with the Algonquins and the Hurons, which enabled France to wage successful campaigns against the British for more than a century, was also the result of Champlain's forest diplomacy. Morison is at pains to discount the long — held notion that Champlain's participation in a war party against the Mohawks in July, 1609, permanently turned the Iroquois against the French. “The Five Nations' choice of friends was dictated by economic and political factors which long preceded European settlement,” he comments.

Champlain persisted in his efforts to hold Canada for France and to induce a scattering of settlers to emigrate. It was uphill going, but he never gave up. As in all American colonies, the supply of labor was never sufficient. Instead of working, French artisans who came with the fur traders preferred to loll about with Indian maidens and to guzzle wine as long as it lasted. Like the first English settlers at Jamestown, the French at Quebec and other settlements nearly starved and showed no enterprise in catching fish, game, or growing a crop. Eventually they became more provident Champlain was surprised to find the Quebec garrison in fairly good shape when he returned from an expedition with the Indians; at last they had learned to catch fish in the St. Lawrence. “Earner, we are told,” says Morison, “the only fish they had was salt cod from Newfoundland, re‐exported from France.” ... Champlain's efforts to save Canada, as told by Morison in his sinewy and idiomatic prose, is a thrilling and moving story. This explorer, who crossed the North Atlantic 23 times and ventured into the vast interior of the continent, deserved better of his own nation. “No other European colony in America is so much the lengthened shadow of one man as Canada is of the valiant, wise, and virtuous Samuel de Champlain, Xaintongeois” (of Saintonge), Morison concludes, And in admiration of his hero's skill as a seaman, Admiral Morison has included at the end of his volume Champlain's “Treatise on Seamanship and the Duty of a Good Seaman.” This is a salty and entertaining volume." -- from New York Times Book Review, July 16, 1972.

From the library of Karl and Elizabeth Niebyl.