resided, if I could have found leisure for it. Literally true it is,
that I have no spare time here, unless just in the evening, and that not
always. This was my case too in Louisbourg; and I do not doubt but you
will be surprised at learning, that I enjoy as little rest here as
there.

Had you done me, Sir, the honor of passing with me but three days only,
you would soon have seen what sort of a nation it is that I have to deal
with. I am obliged to hold frequent and long parleys with them, and, at
every occasion, to heap upon them the most fair and flattering promises.
I must incessantly excite them to the practice of acts of religion, and
labor to render them tractable, sociable, and loyal to the king (of
France). But especially, I apply myself to make them live in good
understanding with the French.

With all this, I affect a grave and serious air, that awes and imposes
upon them. I even take care of observing measure and cadence in the
delivery of my words, and to make choice of those expressions the
properest to strike their attention, and to hinder what I say from
falling to the ground. If I cannot boast that my harangues have all the
fruit and success that I could wish, they are not however wholly without
effect. As nothing inchants those people more than a style of metaphors
and allegories, in which even their common conversation abounds, I adapt
myself to their taste, and never please them better than when I give
what I say this turn, speaking to them in their own language. I borrow
the most lively images from those objects of nature, with which they are
so well acquainted; and am rather more regular than even themselves, in
the arrangement of my phrases. I affect, above all, to rhime as they do,
especially at each member of a period. This contributes to give them so
great an idea of me, that they imagine this gift of speaking is rather