Note 116 — Chapter I · (continued 2)

It has all the substantial portions of the copy given in Margry, but there are occasional abridgments and occasional additions. The story of the Margry relation is continuous and uninterrupted; but in the copy given by French items of colonial news are interspersed, and sometimes repeated with variations. It would seem as if the copyist had been unable properly to separate the manuscript from that of some other Relation of colonial affairs, and in the exercise of his discretion had made these mistakes. A comparison of the two accounts will readily disclose their differences. A single example will explain what is meant by repetitions which may have been occasioned by confusion of manuscripts. On p. 145 of vol. vi., or second series vol. i. of French’s Historical Collections of Louisiana occurs the following: On the 17th of March, 1719, “the ship of war ‘Le Comte de Toulouse’ arrived at Dauphin Island.” On p. 146 we find, “On the 19th of April the ships ‘Maréchal de Villars,’ ‘Count de Toulouse,’ and the ‘Phillip,’ under the command of M. de Sérigny, the brother of M. de Bienville, arrived at Dauphin Island.” These two paragraphs, with their contradictory statements about the “Comte de Toulouse,” do not occur in Margry. They are evidently interpolated from some outside source. Thomassy (1860) quotes Annales véritables des 22 premières années de la colonisation de la Louisiane par Pénicaut, as from the “MSS. Boismare, dans la Bibliothèque de l’État à Bâton-Rouge.”