Voyages of Samuel De Champlain — Volume 01Champlain, Samuel de
History
Voyages of Samuel De Champlain — Volume 01
Champlain, Samuel de
America -- Discovery and exploration -- French; Indians of North America -- Canada; New France -- Discovery and exploration
Before leaving Chatham, some anxiety was felt in regard to their safety in
leaving the harbor, as the little barque had scarcely been able to weather
the rough seas of Monomoy on their inward voyage. A boat had been sent out
in search of a safer and a better roadway, which, creeping along by the
shore sixteen or eighteen miles, returned, announcing three fathoms of
water, and neither bars nor reefs. On the 16th of October they gave their
canvas to the breeze, and sailed out of Stage Harbor, which they had named
_Port Fortuné_, [55] an appellation probably suggested by their narrow
escape in entering and by the bloody tragedy to which we have just
referred. Having gone eighteen or twenty miles, they sighted the island of
Martha's Vineyard lying low in the distance before them, which they called
_La Soupçonneuse_, the suspicious one, as they had several times been in
doubt whether it were not a part of the mainland. A contrary wind forced
them to return to their anchorage in Stage Harbor. On the 20th they set out
again, and continued their course in a southwesterly direction until they
reached the entrance of Vineyard Sound. The rapid current of tide water
flowing from Buzzard's Bay into the sound through the rocky channel between
Nonamesset and Wood's Holl, they took to be a river coming from the
mainland, and named it _Rivière de Champlain_.
This point, in front of Wood's Holl, is the southern limit of the French
explorations on the coast of New England, reached by them on the 20th of
October, 1606.
Encountering a strong wind, approaching a gale, they were again forced to
return to Stage Harbor, where they lingered two or three days, awaiting
favoring winds for their return to the colony at the bay of Annapolis.
We regret to add that, while they were thus detained, under the very shadow
of the cross they had recently erected, the emblem of a faith that teaches
love and forgiveness, they decoyed, under the guise of friendship, several
of the poor savages into their power, and inhumanly butchered them in cold
blood. This deed was perpetrated on the base principle of _lex talionis_,
and yet they did not know, much less were they able to prove, that their
victims were guilty or took any part in the late affray. No form of trial
was observed, no witnesses testified, and no judge adjudicated. It was a
simple murder, for which we are sure any Christian's cheek would mantle
with shame who should offer for it any defence or apology.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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