15. Champlain, Brief Discours, CWB 1:3; Voyage (1612), Ibid., 2:257; Voyages (1632), Ibid., 4:156.
16. “Champlain, capitaine d’une compagnie en garnison à Quimper,” Le Blant and Baudry, eds., Nouveaux documents 1:11.
17. Champlain, Traitté de la Marine, CWB 6: xii—xiv.
18. Ibid.
19. See McDermott, Martin Frobisher, 407–23.
20. James McDermott, ed., The Third Voyage of Martin Frobisher to Baffin Lsland (London, 2001), 409–17.
21. V. Steffanson, ed., The Three Voyages of Martin Frobisher, 2 vols. (London, 1938); McDermott, ed., The Third Voyage of Martin Frobisher; Samuel Eliot Morison, The European Discovery of America: The Northern Voyages, AD 500–1600 (New York, 1971); for Champlain on “Messire Martin Forbichet” see CWB 1:227; 3:300; 6:196.
22. Nancy Lyman Roelker, ed., The Paris of Henry of Navarre, as seen by Pierre de l’Estoile; Selections from his Mémoires-Journaux (Cambridge, 1958), 287 (March 1698); extracts are from de l’Estoile, Mémoires-Journaux, ed. Brunet et al., 12 vols. (Paris, 1875–96).
23. The full text is in Roland Mousnier, The Assassination of Henri IV, tr. Joan Spencer (New York, 1973), appendix 4, 316–63.
24. For an overview, see Jean-François Labourdette, “L’importance du Traité de Vervins,” in Labourdette, Poussou, and Vignal eds., Le Traité de Vervins (Paris, 2000), 15–26.
25. Peter Kruger, “Vervins: le resultat précoce d’une vue systémique des affaires étrangères en Europe,” in Labourdette, Poussou, and Vignal eds., Le Traité de Vervins, 415–29.
26. David Buisseret, Henry IV (London, 1984), 69.
27. Samuel Eliot Morison, The European Discovery of America: The Southern Voyages, 1492–1616 (New York, 1974), 97–98; Francis G. Davenport, ed., European Treaties Bearing on the History of the United States and its Dependencies (Washington, 1914); Luis Weckmann, Las Bulas Alejandrinas de 1493 y la Teorìa Politica del Papado Medieval (Mexico City, 1949).
28. This subject is much confused in the secondary literature, and lines of amity have been understood in many different ways. For a review of the literature see Eric Thierry, “La Paix de Vervins et les ambitions françaises en Amérique,” in Labourdette, Poussou, and Vignal, eds., Le Traité de Vervins, 373–89; Olive Dickason, The Myth of the Savage; and the Beginnings of French Colonization in the Americas (Edmonton, 1984), 139.
29. Thierry, “La Paix de Vervins,” 375; quoting David Asseline, Antiquités et chroniques de la ville de Dieppe (Dieppe, 1874) 2:149.
30. L. Pauliat, La politique coloniale sous l’Ancien Régime d’après des documentes empruntés aux archives coloniales du ministre de la marine et des colonies (Paris, 1887) 177–79; Thierry, “La Paix de Vervins,” 375; Carl Bridenbaugh, No Peace Beyond the Line (New York and Oxford, 1972), 3.
31. Thierry, “La Paix de Vervins,” 375–77. I understand Claude Groulart to testify that Henri IV said in 1600 he was unable to make an agreement in the last treaty for peaceful trade in Brazil, the Indies and other places “beyond the line,” and that the Spanish were seizing French ships when found there, and therefore he would do the same to their ships. Cf. Claude Groulart, Mémoires ou voyages par lui faits en cour (Paris, 1857).
32. Buisseret, Henry IV, 138; also Auguste Poirson, Histoire du règne de Henri IV, 4 vols. (Paris, 1865) 2:283–87.
33. Robert Le Blant, “Henri IV et le Canada,” Revue de Pau et du Béarn 12 (1984–85), 43–57.
34. Yves Cazaux, Henri IV: les horizons du règne (Paris, 1986), 284–85; Le Blant, “Henri IV et le Canada,” 44.
35. Buisseret, Henry IV, 19.
36. Étienne Taillemite, “The Royal Navy in Champlain’s Time,” in Raymonde Litalien et Denis Vaugeois, eds., Champlain: The Birth of French America (Montreal, 2004), 19–23.
37. Bernard Barbiche, “Autour de la visite de Henri IV au Havre en septembre 1603,” in Annie Blondel-Loisel, Raymonde Litalien, Jean Paul Barbiche and Claude Briot, eds., De la Seine au Saint-Laurent avec Champlain (Paris, 2005), 55–66; Buisseret, Henri IV, 88, 103, 108, 157; Jean-Pierre Babelon, Henri V (Paris, 1982), 708, 866, 888.
38. Taillemite, “The Royal Navy in Champlain’s Time,” 19–23.
39. Ibid., 21–22.
40. Ibid., 19–23.
41. Bernard Barbiche, “Henri IV and the World Overseas: A Decisive Time in the History of New France,” in Litalien and Vaugeois, eds., Champlain, 24–32.
42. Richard Colebrook Harris, The Seigneurial System in Early Canada: A Geographical Study (Madison, 1968), 3; Edmond Lareau, Histoire du droit canadien (Montreal, 1888), 1:159–60.
43. Barbiche, “Henri IV and the World Overseas,” 30; Sully, Économies Royales, 2 vols. (1611–17, 1638) (Paris 1836–37), published in the second series of the Nouvelle collection des mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de France 1:516b; David Buisseret, Sully and the Growth of Centralized Government in France, 1598–1610 (London, 1968), 178.
44. Sully, Les Oeconomies royales de Sully, David Buisseret and Bernard Barbiche, eds. (Paris, 1988) 2:257.
45. Barbiche, “Henri IV and the World Overseas,” 30.
46. Champlain, CWB 3:302.
5. A SPY IN NEW SPAIN
1. Henry Percival Biggar, ed., The Works of Samuel de Champlain, 6 vols. and a portfolio of maps and drawings (CWB), (Toronto, 1922–36, reprinted 1971) 1:63.
2. CWB 1:3. Nearly everything in this Spanish period of Champlain’s life has been challenged by skeptics, debunkers, and iconoclasts in the late twentieth century. The text of this chapter centers on the history of what Champlain actually did, with historical evidence on disputed questions in the notes. A historiographical discussion of this literature appears in Appendix C below.
3. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the center of commerce and industry on that southern coast of Brittany shifted to the modern ports of Lorient and Saint-Nazaire. Blavet/ Port-Louis preserved much of its sixteenth-century scale and character as a consequence of rapid change in other towns—a pattern that also appears in Brouage, Crozon, Honfleur, and other places that were important in Champlain’s early life. When we visited these very attractive small towns, we had the sense of traveling through time.
4. The first point raised by skeptics was whether Champlain served in the Brittany campaign and could have been at Blavet. In 1950, Jean Bruchési suggested that Champlain falsified the record of his military service in Brittany. See “Champlain a-t-il menti?” Cahiers des Dix 15 (1950), 39–53. Much evidence has come to light on Champlain’s military service, including army pay records kept by treasurer Gabriel Hus, that confirm Champlain’s account in the Brief Discours. The documents are published in Robert Le Blant and René Baudry, eds., Nouveaux documents sur Champlain et son époque (1560–1622) (Ottawa, 1967), I, xxv, 18–21.
5. CWB 1:4.
6. Ibid.
7. Spanish captains were allowed to employ foreigners, “except English and rebel Dutchmen.” See L. A. Vigneras, “Le Voyage de Samuel Champlain aux Indes occidentales,” RHAF 11 (1957), 163–200.
8. For ship-types, see Appendix M. Bonnault argued that Champlain was never in Blavet and invented Captain Provençal out of whole cloth. See Claude de Bonnault, “Encore le Brief discours: Champlain a-t-il été à Blavet en 1598?” Bulletin des recherches historiques 60 (1954), 59–64. A major document has been found in Cadiz and published in Joe C. W. Armstrong’s Champlain (Toronto, 1987), 274–77. It is a will and covenant signed by Champlain and his uncle on June 26, 1601. It clearly establishes their relationship as Champlain described it, and confirms many parts of the Brief Discours.
9. Marcel Delafosse, “L’oncle de Champlain,” RHAF 12 (1958), 208–16; L.-A. Vigneras, “Encore le capitaine provençal,” RHAF 13 (1959–60), 544–49; Champlain, “Brief Narrative,” CWB 1:4; Narcisse-Eutrope Dionne, Champlain: fondateur de Québec et père de la Nouvelle France (Quebec, 1891, 1926), 1:14–19; Samuel Eliot Morison, Samuel de Champlain: Father of New France (New York, 1972), 18.
10. CWB 1:4. Several schol
ars have argued that Captain Provençal was not Champlain’s uncle. Both men confirmed this relationship in a Spanish affidavit dated June 26, 1601, in the Archivo Historico Provincial in Cádiz, Spain. A copy of this document is in the Public Archives of Canada, and a transcription appears in Joe C. W. Armstrong, “The Testament of Guillermo Elena,” Champlain, appendix II, 274–78. Cf. Delafosse, “L’oncle de Champlain,” 208–16; Vigneras, “Encore le capitaine provençal,” 544–49; CWB 1:4, 7–8.
11. CWB 1:7. For evidence from Spanish archives that the Saint-Julien was chartered to carry troops from Blavet to Spain, see Laura Giraudo, “Research Report: A Mission to Spain,” and François-Marc Gagnon, “Is the Brief Discours by Champlain?” in Raymonde Italien and Denis Vaugeois, eds., Champlain: The Birth of French America (Montreal, 2004), 93–97, 86–88; also Vigneras, “Voyage,” 168.
12. Gaston de Carné, Correspondance du duc de Mercoeur (Rennes, 1899), 2:162.
13. CWB 1:3&n; 2:257&n; 4:156; Governor de la Hottière’s charter gave him 40 reals per ton, which would have come to 2,000 reals altogether for the charter of the Saint-Julien. Captain Provençal was paid 400 reals to serve as master of the vessel.
14. Vigneras, “Le Voyage de Samuel Champlain.” Critics have made much of the fact that the Brief Discours garbled the name of Captain General Zubiaur, the Spanish commander of the fleet, sometimes making it Soubriago. Laura Giraudo’s study of orthography in the three early manuscripts of the Brief Discours finds that the name of the Spanish commander appeared in two of them as Subiaure and Subiaur, very close to the original Zubiaur. Broad variations in orthography were routine; S and Z were used interchangeably in Spanish and French. A Spanish court document in Cadiz reports the name Champlain as Zamplen. See Gagnon, “Is the Brief Discours by Champlain?” 86; and Laura Giraudo, “The Manuscripts of the Brief Discours,” in Litalien and Vaugeois, eds., Champlain: The Birth of French America, 67.
15. For the smuggling of illegal cargo in the Saint-Julien, and for Zubiaur’s involvement, see Giraudo, “Research Report,” 95.
16. CWB 1:3–4. Supporting evidence in Spanish archives was found by Giraudo, “Research Report,” 93–95.
17. Critics have made much of inconsistencies in chronology between Champlain’s Discours and Spanish records. Champlain remembered the date of departure from Blavet as “the beginning of the month of August.” He estimated the arrival at Cape Finisterre as ten days later, the arrival at Vigo Bay as one day thereafter, the departure from Vigo six days later; doubling Cape St. Vincent three days later; arrival at Cadiz soon after that; stay in Cadiz one month. Spanish records gave the date of August 23, 1598, for the departure from Blavet, August 28 for arrival in Vigo Bay, September 7 for departure from Vigo, September 14 for arrival at Cadiz, and the stay in Cadiz from September 14 to October 12, 1598. Champlain erred in his memory of the date of departure, but thereafter the accounts are consistent, and they are clearly describing the same voyage. The initial error can be explained by the fact that Champlain was writing from memory long after the event, without a journal or a logbook. Cf. CWB 1:5–7; Vigneras, “Voyage,” 168; Giraudo, “Research Report,” 86; Gagnon, “Is the Brief Discours by Champlain?” 86.
18. Zubiaur, Report, Oct. 7, 1598, qtd. in Vigneras, “Voyage,” 168.
19. CWB 1:5.
20. Vigneras, “Voyage,” 168–69.
21. John Cummins, Francis Drake, The Lives of a Hero (New York, 1995, 1997), 164–78; Julian S. Corbett, Drake and the Tudor Navy, 2 vols. (London, 1892); Kenneth Andrews, Drake’s Voyages, a Reassessment … (London, 1964).
22. CWB 1:7 and plate. Vigneras observes of Champlain’s plans of Spanish cities that “the two plans are accurate [exactes] and appear to be the work of someone who had actually been there.” See Vigneras, “Voyage,” 170.
23. Vigneras, “Voyage,” 169, found in Spanish records confirmation that Saint-Julien remained at Cadiz from September 14 to October 12, and moved to Sanlucar, just as Champlain wrote.
24. On the accuracy of Champlain’s plan see Vigneras, “Voyage,” 170.
25. A full account that confirms Champlain’s references to these events is Richard T. Spence, The Privateering Earl: George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland, 1558–1605, 141–75.
26. Zubiar’s appointments are confirmed in Spanish archives. See Giraudo, “Research Report,” 95.
27. Ibid., 95–97. See also Vigneras, “Voyage,” 163.
28. For the patache d’avis, see CWB 1:8.
29. CWB 1:9; Giraudo, “Research Report,” 95.
30. Giraudo, “Research Report,” 95.
31. The eight beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount: Blessed are the poor in spirit, the meek, the pure, the merciful, the peacemakers; blessed are they that mourn, and seek righteousness, and blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.
32. For bizarria see Pablo E. Pérez-Mallaína, Los hombres del océano. Vida cotidiana de los tripulantes de las flotas de Indias, Siglo XVI (Seville, 1992); translated by Carla Rahn Phillips as Spain’s Men of the Sea: Daily Life on the Indies Fleets in the Sixteenth-Century (Baltimore, 1998), 1,152.
33. CWB 1:10.
34. Ibid.
35. For the six clandestine passengers see Vigneras, “Voyage,” 174; and Gagnon, “Is the Brief Discours by Champlain?” 87.
36. Gagnon, “Is the Brief Discours by Champlain?” 87; Vigneras discovered a list of officers aboard the San Julian. Champlain was not among them. Don Francisco Coloma also wrote that nobody aboard the San Julian had powers of attorney from the owners. Laura Giraudo writes, “The hypothesis advanced by Vigneras to the effect that Champlain undertook the voyage clandestinely or in a subordinate role appears more and more likely.” She found more evidence of clandestine passengers aboard the Saint-Julien. “Research Report,” 95.
The key to Champlain’s status may be found in the language of his own description. Champlain wrote, “mon oncle … me commist la charge dudict vaisseau pour esgard à ice-luy.” CWB 1:10. The operative words are charge and esgard. Charge, in early modern French usage, did not mean “in charge,” but a more general and less formal sense of concern. See Le Grand Robert, s.v., charge, ii, 3–5. Esgard came from the verb esgarder, to be attentive or to look after something, or to watch over it, or to be concerned about it. It did not necessarily imply power or authority. Esgard is rarely used in French today, and does not appear in Le Grand Robert, but it was common in early modern French, as in the preface to Pascal’s Pensées, “l’indifférence à l’esgard de toutes choses;” or Montaigne’s essay on cannibals, “esgard aux règles de la raison.”
37. Champlain’s Brief Discours and Spanish records are similar on the departure for the West Indies, but with a difference of dates. Gagnon writes, “the one month gap between the date given by Champlain and the date shown in official documents has yet to be explained” (Gagnon, “Is the Brief Discours by Champlain?” 87).
Champlain wrote that his ship “hoisted sail” for America at the beginning of January, 1599. This may have been the date when the ships began to shift their moorings at Sanlucar, and dropped down the river to join a fleet that was forming inside the bar. According to Spanish records San Julian cleared the bar at the mouth of the Guadalquivir River on February 3, 1599, with river pilot Adrián García aboard. We know this from his very large fee of ten Venetian ducats, which suggests that he may have been aboard the ship for some time, perhaps guiding her downstream from an upriver mooring.
Critics have made much of this discrepancy, but both statements could have been correct. The ships of the fleet had moored in the Guadalquivir River, as much as fifty miles upstream. In the Second World War, convoys smaller than the Spanish treasure fleets took weeks to form up in Halifax harbor. Delays might also have developed as river pilots watched the winds and tides over the treacherous Sanlucar bar. Compare CWB 1:10; Vigneras, “Voyage,” 174; Gagnon, “Is the Brief Discours by Champlain?” 87.
38. Pérez-Mallaína, Spain’s Men of the Sea, 8–15.
39. CWB 1:10. Champlain’s account and Spanish records were similar on the Atlantic passage, with exactly the same routes from Sanlucar through the Canary Islands to a landfall at La Deseade Island in the West Indies. But again we find a difference of dates. Champlain reckoned that the crossing took 66 days; Spanish records made it forty-five days. The disparity could be explained by the difference in departure dates between Champlain’s date of hoisting sail in the river and the Spanish date when the Saint Julian crossed the bar. See CWB 1:10–11; Vigneras, “Voyage,” 175; Pérez-Mallaína, Spain’s Men of the Sea, 10–11.
40. CWB 1:10–11; Pérez-Mallaína, Spain’s Men of the Sea, 10.
41. CWB 1:11; Pérez-Mallaína, Spain’s Men of the Sea, 10–11; Gagnon, “Is the Brief Discours by Champlain?” 87.
42. CWB 1:11. Again we have a disparity of time between Champlain’s Brief Discours and Spanish records. Champlain reckoned the passage at two months and six days from the San Julian’s mooring in the Gaudalquivir River. Spanish sources set the arrival at La Deseada Island at March 18, which would yield a passage of one month and fifteen days. San Julian might have left her upstream mooring in January, and waited at the river’s mouth for the fleet to form. If so, then Champlain’s estimate of his landfall in the West Indies had the same date in mid-March as did the reports in the Spanish archives. Here again Champlain gives the date of first sailing. The Spanish sources give the date of crossing the bar.
43. For troubles aboard the San Julian, see Vigneras, “Voyage,” 188; Giraudo, “Research Report,” 95.
44. Vigneras and Giraudo found evidence that Coloma paired large vessels with small pataches, and that specifically on this voyage San Julian was paired with the Sandoval. Vigneras also found evidence in Spanish archives that Coloma sailed directly to Puerto Rico and San Julian had lagged behind. All of this evidence comes together if we conclude that San Julian made repairs in Guadeloupe, that she and Sandoval sailed together toward San Juan; when they were near the Virgin Islands the commanders found that San Julian could make San Juan on her own, and Sandoval was then detached to Margarita Island. Spanish records confirm that the patache Sandoval was sent on the annual errand to Margarita Island and that she rejoined the fleet in San Juan. All this is consistent with Champlain’s account. Compare CWB 1:12–13, and works cited above by Vigneras, Giraudo, and Gagnon.
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