as their chief and commander, just as if one of us had remained. This they
all promised to do, and to live in peace with each other.

As to the gardens, we left them all well supplied with kitchen vegetables
of all sorts, together with fine Indian corn, wheat, rye, and barley, which
had been already planted. There were also vines which I had set out when I
spent the winter there, but these they made no attempt to preserve; for,
upon my return, I found them all in ruins, and I was greatly displeased
that they had given so little attention to the preservation of so fine and
good a plot, from which I had anticipated a favorable result.

After seeing that every thing was in good order, we set out from Quebec on
the 8th of August for Tadoussac, in order to prepare our vessel, which was
speedily done.


ENDNOTES:

364. This testimony of the Algonquin chief is interesting, and historically
important. We know of no earlier reference to the art of melting and
malleating copper in any of the reports of the navigators to our
northern coast. That the natives possessed this art is placed beyond
question by this passage, as well as by the recent discovery of copper
implements in Wisconsin, bearing the marks of mechanical fusion and
malleation. The specimens of copper in the possession of the natives
on the coast of New England, as referred to by Brereton and Archer,
can well be accounted for without supposing them to be of native
manufacture, though they may have been so. The Basques. Bretons,
English, and Portuguese had been annually on our northern coasts for
fishing and fur-trading for more than a century, and had distributed a