Note 470 — Chapter V

This may be the Péré, or Perray, whose name is given on Franquelin’s map of 1688 to the Moose River of Hudson’s Bay. Bellin says that it was named after a Frenchman who discovered it. In 1677 the Sieur Péré was with La Salle at Fort Frontenac. Frontenac, in November, 1679, writes to the King that Governor Andros of New York “has retained there, and even well treated, a man named Péré, and others who have been alienated from Sieur de la Salle, with the design to employ and send them among the Outawas, to open a trade with them.” The Intendant, Duchesneau, writes more fully to Seignelay, “that the man named Péré, having resolved to range the woods, went to Orange to confer with the English, and to carry his beavers there, in order to obtain some wampum beads to return and trade with the Outawacs; that he was arrested by the Governor of that place, and sent to Major Andros, Governor-General, whose residence is at Manatte; that his plan was to propose to bring to him all the coureurs de bois with their peltries.” After this he seems to have been “a close prisoner at London for eighteen months” (N. Y. Col. Doc., iii. 479). Governor Dongan, on Sept. 8, 1687, sends Mons. La Parre to Canada “with an answer to the French Governor’s angry letter.” Nicholas Perrot in the old documents is sometimes called Peré, and this has led to confusion.