Volume 3 — BIBLIOGRAPHICAL DATA: VOL. III

XIII

The original Latin MS. of Biard's letter to his general, dated at Amiens, May 26, 1614, is in the archives of the Gesù, at Rome. In 1858, Father Martin there copied this document, with others of like character; and in the present publication we follow his apograph, which is now preserved in the archives of St. Mary's College, Montreal. Martin's translation of the letter into French appears in Carayon's Première Mission, pp. 106-116.

See Bibliographical Data in Volume I. of the present series, for particulars of Carayon's collection. The originals of the letters in Carayon, were written in three different languages: nos. 2, 5, 9, 12, 18, 25, 27-31, were in French; nos. 13, 14, 15, 16, in Italian; and the others in Latin. Letters to the general in Rome were for the most part in Italian or Latin, but those to the provincial in Paris were in French. The Italian and Latin letters were translated for Carayon, into French, in most cases by Martin, who had copied them for that publication. In our series, we have followed the printed pages of Carayon, for the French letters; but for the Italians and Latins (except Documents III., V., and VI., in Volume I.), have reverted for our copy to Martin's own apographs, at Montreal, and our translations into English are made directly from these.

XIV

We reprint Biard's Relation of 1616 directly from the printed original in Lenox Library. The Lenox copy has no original title-page, its place being supplied by a clever facsimile in pen-and-ink, said to be by Pilinski. For the present edition, we supply a photographic facsimile of the original title-page of the copy at the Bibliothèque Nationale (formerly Bibliothèque Royale), Paris; the plate shows the old library stamp, "Biblioteque Royale." The Paris copy is the only one known to us, at this writing, which has an original title-page.

O'Callaghan issued a special reprint, "presque en facsimile," of this Relation (Albany, 1871), the edition being limited to 25 copies, at $25 a copy.

The Lenox Catalogue (p. 4), says that O'Callaghan followed the copy owned by Rufus King, of Jamaica, L. I. The whereabouts of this copy is unknown to us. The late Charles H. Kalbfleisch, of New York, at one time had a copy; but a letter to us from his son, Charles C., dated May 11, 1896, states that he does not know its present location. In the announcement of his facsimile, O'Callaghan said (see Murphy's Sale Catalogue, 1884, p. 33):

"The owner of, we believe, the only copy in this country of the original edition of this Relation, has obligingly loaned it to me. In order to enable collectors who possess some of the Jesuit Relations to place at least beside these an exact reprint of this extremely rare volume, I have undertaken a small edition, reproducing the original, page for page, line for line.

"The edition in the Collected Relations, published at Quebec, was printed from a transcript made from the only other known copy in the National Library at Paris. This transcript was to all appearances hastily and carelessly executed. The consequence is, that the Quebec edition abounds, as a minute collation proves, with grave errors of omission and alteration.

"The present reprint will be limited to twenty-five copies, and will be supplied, in sheets, to subscribers at $25 a copy."

The Lenox copy is marked on front fly leaf, "A very rare book," and it is understood that it cost 1,000 francs, notwithstanding its pen-and-ink title-page. In the "Privilege," on the last page, the syllable "pro" has been accidentally omitted. O'Callaghan's facsimile reprint supplies this omission. In both, the "privilege" is in ten lines, but the contents of the lines differ.

Harrisse says (no. 30), concerning Biard's Relation of 1616: "Some bibliographers cite, but without having seen, a relation published at Lyons in 1612, and which was the first edition of the one we have just described; but that is hardly possible, since the events described in that relation extend up to the year 1614. As for the relations, the titles of which are given in Latin, we think that they are the letters addressed by Father Biard [given in Volumes I. and II. of this series]. That of January 31, 1611 [1612], was published in the Annuæ Litteræ Societatis Jesu, printed at Lyons by Claude Cayne, but not till 1618. It is probably the same of which Jouvency gives the text in his Histoire de la Société de Jésus. Sotwell also cites [Bibliotheca Script. Soc. Jesu], a Relatio Expeditionis Anglorum in Canadam, of Father Biard, which is probably the letter which Father Biard wrote to Father Claude Aquaviva regarding the act of piracy committed upon him by Argall. It is possible that there were, at that period, publications of these letters both in Latin and French; but we have been able to find only one instance of this." Brunet's Supplément says the alleged 1612 edition of the Nouvelle France is spurious. All of the foregoing letters by Biard, cited by Harrisse, are given in Volumes I. and II. of the present series.

See other references in Brown's Genesis of the United States (Boston, 1890), vol. ii., p. 707; Leclerc, no. 2482; Sabin, vol. ii., no. 5136; Ternaux, no. 380; Lenox, p. 4; Winsor, p. 300; Brown, vol. ii., no. 178; and the Barlow (no. 251) and Murphy (no. 244) sale catalogues. Leclerc describes the Lenox copy; most of the others, the O'Callaghan facsimile reprint.

Title-page. Photographic facsimile, from original in Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

Collation of Lenox copy. Title, 1 p.; blank, reverse of title, 1 p.; dedication "Av Roy," 3 unnumbered pp.; Avant-Propos, 7 unnumbered pp.; text, pp. 1-338. Table, 34 unnumbered pp.; privilege, 1 p.

Peculiarities. Only the pages of the text are numbered; p. 191 is, from typographical error, wrongly numbered 181. The numbering of the chapters is erratic. From i. to x. they are correctly numbered, but thereafter the variations are as follows:

CHAP. CHAP.

xi., incorrectly numbered xii.

xii., " " xiii.

xiii., " " xiv.

xiv., " " xv.

xv., " " xvi.

xvi., " " xvii.

xvii., " " xviii.

xviii., " " xxi.

xix., " " xx.

xx., " " xxi.

xxi., " " xxiii.

xxii., " " xxiv.

xxiii., " " xxv.

xxiv., " " xxvi.

xxv., " " xxvii.

xxvi., " " xxviii.

xxvii., " " xxix.

xxviii., " " xxx.

xxix., " " xxxii.

xxx., " " xxxi.

xxxi., " " xxxii.

xxxii., correctly " xxxii.

xxxiii., incorrectly " xxxiv.

xxxiv., " " xxxv.

xxxv., " " xxxvi.

xxxvi., " " xxxvii.

xxxvii., " " xxxviii.

The editor of the Quebec reprint overcame the difficulty without explanation, by correcting the enumeration throughout. O'Callaghan, without comment, corrects numbering of p. 191, in his facsimile, but follows original in numbering the chapters.

Owing to the length of this document, we give only the first twenty-five chapters thereof, in the present volume; the others will appear in Volume IV.