1658-1660 voyage; (2) in saying that he had voyaged down the
Mississippi to Mexico. (1) Internal evidence plainly shows that
Radisson's first four voyages were written twenty years afterward, when
he was in London, and not while on the voyage across the Atlantic with
Cartwright, the Boston commissioner. It is the most natural thing in
the world that Radisson, who had so often been to the wilds, should
have mixed his dates. Every slip as to dates is so easily checked by
contemporaneous records--which, themselves, need to be checked--that it
seems too bad to accuse Radisson of wilfully lying in the matter. When
Radisson lied it was to avoid bloodshed, and not to exalt himself. If
he had had glorification of self in mind, he would not have set down
his own faults so unblushingly; for instance, where he deceives M.
Colbert of Paris. (2) Radisson does not try to give the impression
that he went to Mexico. The sense of the context is that he met an
Indian tribe--Illinois, Mandans, Omahas, or some other--who lived next
to another tribe who told _of_ the Spaniards. I feel almost sure that
the scholarly Mr. Benjamin Sulte is right in his letter to me when he
suggests that Radisson's manuscript has been mixed by transposition of
pages or paragraphs, rather than that Radisson himself was confused in
his account. At the same time every one of the contributors to the
Minnesota _Memoir_ deserves the thanks of all who love _true_ history.




ADDENDUM

Since the above foreword was written, the contents of this volume have
appeared serially in four New York magazines. The context of the book
was slightly abridged in these articles, so that a very vital