Narrative of a Captivity Among the Mohawk Indians:And a Description of New Netherland in 1642-3 (1856)

Description

The narrative of his captivity forms part of a manuscript volume, entitled ” Memoires touchant la mort et les vertus des peres Isaac Jogues, Anne de Noue, Antoine Daniel, Jean de Brebeuf, Gabriel Lalemant, Charles Garnier, Noel Chabanel et Rene Goupil,” consisting of authentic papers relating to their life and death, being copied from originals, and each sworn to by Fathers Paul Ragueneau and Joseph Poncet; as to Father Jogues, it includes Father Buteux’s ” Narre de la prise du p. Isaac Jogues, Jogues own narrative, his account of the captivity and death of Goupil, and letters of Fathers Buteus and De Quen relative to his death. It was found, accompanied by the Description of New Netherland, and the account of Goupil’s death, in the handwriting of Father Jogues himself, both in letter form, with the folds and incisions for sealing in use at the time, and both more easily read than the court-hand of the volume. They were found in the Hospital of the Augustin nuns, or Hotel Dieu, at Quebec, where they had been deposited shortly before 1800 by Father Cazot, the last of the old race of the Jesuits of the French colony, who seeing his body then about to expire by the enactments of the English conquerors, which prevented their receiving new members, wished to save for Catholicity at least a few of the most valuable of the papers in the archives. The volume in question, and some others, were selected by him, and faithfully preserved by the ladies to whom lie entrusted them, as a sacred deposit, and were by them restored to the Jesuits soon after their return to Canada a few years since.