SOME EARLY FRENCH GUIANA TRACTS

28 American Antiquarian Society [April,

SOME EARLY FRENCH GUIANA TRACTSAN ADDITION TO THE BIBLIOGEAPHY OF EL DOBADO

BY LAWEENCE C. WEOTH

AYEAR ago a bookseller sent on approval to theJohn Carter Brown Library a tract entitled

Projet d'une compagnie pour VAmérique. The littlebook was offered in all good faith as a piece thatrelated to a hitherto unknown French scheme for thesettlement of Florida. This relationship was affirmedfurthermore in an accompanying bibliographical notewritten over the signature of a bookman learned in thematter of American origins. The Library purchasedthe book, finally, on its own estimation of it as one of agroup of writings published in connection with a mid-sevente^enth century scheme for the colonization ofGuiana. The effort to bring the owner of the tract tothe acceptance of tihis view resulted in the recognitionand the listing in series of a group of Guiana tractsthat formerly had not appeared in the bibliographies.It is the I character of this by-product that seems tojustify setting forth here what otherwise would havebeen a routine investigation.

The title and description of the pamphlet are asfollows:

(1) Projet d'une compagnie pour l'Amérique,n. p. n. d. (c. 1651)

Sm. 4to. A , pages 1-8, comprising text, with heading asabove and with head piece of type flowers and ornamentalinitial letter. Place and date of publication not given, but seenote to no. 2, in the ensuing series of titles. The following

1925.] Some Early French Guiana Tracts 29

paragraph occurs at end: "Ceux qui voudront estre plusamplement instruicts de ce dessein, s'addresseront chezMonsieur Blanche Notaire au Chastelet de Paris dans la ruedes Assises au coin de la rue S. Iacques de la Boucherie, & ilsscauront en ce lieu les personnes à qui il faudra parler. " (J. C.B.)

Here follows a synopsis of the note that came withthe book:

Location. Refers to the mainland by implication, becausethe islands inhabited by the French are mentioned in contradis-tinction to the situation of the proposed colony. The coastmust be the east coast of Florida because of the fine climate,perpetual spring, flowers and foliage; because the animals andplants mentioned belong to Florida; and because the descriptionof the route across as consuming only a month or five weeks,no rocks, no capes, wind aft, etc., indicates a landfall on theeast coast of Florida as the end of the journey.

Date. After 1632 because the ornamental initial " P , " inthis pamphlet showing signs of wear, is used in Claude Collet's"Les Voyages de Champlain," Paris, 1632. Probably aboutthe year 1642, for reasons derived from a consideration of theEuropean political situation at that time.

When the book first came to the Library for examina-tion, I was inclined to accept as strongly probable itsFlorida association. A friend who looked through it,however, suggested that its descriptions of climate andof fauna and fiora might refer to Central America or tothe north coast of South America as fittingly as toFlorida, and as this comment was uttered there wasborn an uneasiness that led me after many days toconsult the Oracle that sits at Fifth Avenue and FortySecond Street. Mr. Eames replied that he had neverseen or heard of the tract, but that it reminded himsomehow of a pamphlet in the British Museum entitled:" M é m o i r e p o u r s e r v i r de breve i n s t r u c t i o n , e t c . . . . "As this Mémoire had recently been issued in the seriesof photostat reprints that we know as the Massachu-setts Historical Society Facsimiles the next step in theinvestigation was easy. Thereafter, "one book open-ing another," I found that the Mémoire was one of aseries of six tracts that deal with the project for thecolonization of Guiana instituted by Estienne le Roux,


Seigneur de Royville, in the year 1651, and that fivetracts pertaining to this "Compagnie de Terre ferme del'Amérique ou France Equinoctiale" already had beenissued as part of Mr. Ford's valuable facsimiles. Thecolonization scheme in question was one of the bestknown French efforts for the settlement of Guiana, andI believe and hope to show that the Projet offered to uslast fall as a Florida item was printed soon after theformation of the Compagnie on August 29, 1651, andthat it has a definite place as the first number in thisseries of Guiana tracts. Because the Seigneur de Roy-ville was the principal concessionaire of the grant inquestion, it will be well to designate the followingtracts as the Royville series :

(1) Projet d'une Compagnie. (Previously described)(2) Acte d'Association passé entre les sous-signez,

& Reconnu pardeuant Rallu & Blanche Notaires, pourl'établissement des Colonies dans la Terre Ferme del'Amérique.

4to. A'*; pages 1-8; text with heading as above, head piece oftype flowers and ornamental initial; p. 7: conclusion of Acte,signed " De la Boulaye, le Roux de Royville, de l'lsle Marivault,& F. Dolu," dated August 29, 1651; (p. 8: signed, "Rallu.""Blanche." and dated September 4, 1651.) Although thisActe was accomplished before the publication of the Projet,which says "Plusieurs personnes . . . ont faict une Compag-nie," yet I think it was not published until after the Projethad appeared in print. It contains the names of the con-cessionaires and other specific information. It would nothave been reasonable to publish these matters and later topublish the Projet and leave out of it the names of the principalsand the name of the company itself. Therefore I place theActe as second in the series headed by the Projet. (Bib. Nat.,No. 118, MHS. Facsimiles).

(3) Lettres Patentes dv Roy, en Forme de Con-cession, accordées aux sieurs de l'lsle Mariuault, deRoyúille & leurs Associez pour l'Etablissement desColonies dans la Terre Ferme de l'Amérique.

4to. A*; pages 1-7 : text with heading as above with decorativewoodcut head piece and ornamental initial; p. 7: conclusionof concession dated September 1651; p. 8: blank. (Bib. Nat.,No. 134, MHS. Facsimiles.)


(4) Articles et Statvts passez & arrestez entre lesSeigneurs associez de la Compagnie de Terre ferme del'Amérique ou France Equinoctiale, pour l'establisse-ment du Christianisme, commerce & négoce audit pays,en consequence des Lettres patentes du Roy accordéesaux sieurs de Royuille & de Lisle Mariuault & leursassociez: et de l'acte d'association passé pardeuantRallu & Blanche Notaires au Chastelet de Paris le 4.Septembre 1651.

4to. A-E*, (E , probably blank); pages 1-37: text with head-ing as above and with decorative head piece and ornamentalinitial; p. 37: dated at end. May 3, 1652; p. 38, blank. (Bib.Nat., No. 64 in MHS. Facsimiles.)

(5) Mémoire povr servir de breve instruction, tantaux Directeurs & Commissionnaires Provinciaux de lagrande Compagnie de l'Amérique, qu'à ceux qui s'yvoudront interesser, où passer dans le Païs. [RoyalArms] A Paris, chez Gvillavme de Lvyne, MarchandLibraire au Palais, sous la montée de la Cour desAydes.M. DC. LUI.

4to. A-B , C* with an inserted leaf, numbered 25 and 26,D*, E" (E" probably blank) ; pages 1-34, should be 1-36 as pp.25and 26 are repeated. Contains a general description of thecountry and of the scheme, together with blank forms ofagreement, indenture, etc. (Bib. Nat., No. 68 in MHS.Facsimiles.)

A variant issue of this tract in the British Museum ends onpage 35 instead of page 34 and has part of page 33 and all ofpage 34 reset, with additional matter relating to the opportu-nities for the religous education of youth in the colony.

(6) Lettre escrite de Cayenne; contenant ce qvis'est passé en la descente des François, & leur establisse-ment en l'Amérique. [Decorative device] A Paris;chez Gvillavme de Lvyne, Marchand Libraire, auPalais, sous la montée de la Cour des Aydes. M.DC. LUI.• Sm. 4to. A-B*, (B* probably blank); pages 1-14; p. 1: title,verso blank; pp.3-14: text with heading, decorative head pieceand ornamental initial. In this letter by one of the factionresponsible for Royville's death are related the events leading up


to that catastrophe, the landing and beginnings of the colony.(Bib. Nat., No. 88 in MHS. Facsimiles.)

The interest that one feels in this series of titles isquickened when investigation shows that only one ofthem is mentioned in the chief bibliography that dealswith Guiana. Ternaux-Compans (Notice historiquesur Guyane Française, Paris, 1843.) knew only of theLettre escrite. It is further remarkable that the sixitems are represented in each case by single knowncopies. Five of the titles are in the BibliothèqueNationale, a variant of one of these is in the BritishMuseum and the latest to be identified, the Projet, is atProvidence. The Massachusetts Historical SocietyFacsimile Series with its intended reproduction of theProjet will soon have completed its republication ofthe whole group of pamphlets. That these tracts havebeen added to our resources is owing to the breadth andinclusiveness of the plan of that series and to thesensitiveness of the editor's instinct for the rare andimportant in early Americana.

The typographical features of the six pamphlets, twoof them bearing the imprint of Guillaume de Luyne,are of such a character that one is not able to claim anidentical typographical origin as evidence of their unity.All of them are printed in the letter commonly used bythe better Parisian printers of the day. The use in theProjet of the ornamental " P " from Champlain's LesVoyages de la Nouvelle France, Claude Collet, Paris,1632, might point to the Collet establishment as theplace of origin of that tract ; the use of a head piece inthe Lettres patentes and in the Articles et statuts of adifferent size but of the same design as one in theChamplain might suggest the Collet shop as the sourceof these two tracts also, and the identity of the typo-graphical flowers in the Acte and in the Projet mightpoint to a common typographical derivation for thesetwo productions. I believe, however, that the identi-fication of printers by types and ornaments is a danger-ous method to employ when dealing with the produc-


tions of cities where many printers were at work withmuch the same equipment in their type cases, for atthis time individuality in these details long since haddeparted from the European shops. I came to theend of what was to me an interesting typographicalcomparison believing as I still believe that I had provednothing by the process. On the other hand it wastrue that I had found nothing in the course of my studyof these details which rendered untenable the theorythat the first four tracts of the group at least were theissue of the same press at or near the same date.

My reasons for placing the Projet in the Royvilleseries are based on the general tone and on the literarylikenesses between it and the other tracts that com-pose the group. To these reasons must be added thatindescribable mental reaction that is sometimes calleda "hunch." For the understanding of this learnedbody, I translate that term as a state of spiritualcertainty that cannot be proven or accounted for, butwhich nevertheless is recognized as playing an impor-tant part in religion, in war, in business, in love, and inhistorical research. I shall not attempt further todefine that which defies definition, but more practicallyI shall give you the reasons for my belief that the Projetwas a preliminary announcement of Royville's schemefor the colonization of the ancient El Dorado.

Briefiy the story of the Royville venture in coloniza-tion is this. The body of laws and regulations drawnup in advance for the government of the colony formedone of those beautiful, theoretically perfect constitu-tions that provide ideally for the government of anancient static community but take no account of theactual conditions of a new land and little of theeccentricities of human nature. Among other defects,it provided for so many civil and military officers thatthe unproductive caste thus established formed morethan a quarter of the whole roster of the expedition.Unfortunately the colony had in it no John Smith toforce the drones to labor in the inevitable struggle for


food and shelter. While the ships that bore thecolonists still lay in the Seine, the Abbé de l'lsleMarivaut met his death by drowning. Early in thevoyage, Roy ville aroused jealousies and such a deter-mined opposition, that the loss of the temperate andpopular Abbé, the second in command of the expedition,was soon perceived to have been particularly grievous.Royville's unpopularity brought about his assassina-tion during the voyage at the hands of some of theassociates, and after the landing, internal dissensionsand war with the natives brought on the final ruin. Aremnant of the colony, aided by the English atSurinam, found its way back to France late in 1653.So ends this story of one of several unsuccessful effortsof the French to settle and develop Guiana, not a futileeffort because its failure left hope alive, and taughtmen once more that if they would bring back thewealth of the Indies they must carry the wealth of theIndies with them, whether in actual gear or in the formof intelligence and loyalty and stable purpose.

The story of the attempted settlement of Guiana byRoyville and his associates has been well and fullyrelated in the Voyage de la France Equinoxiale byFather Antoine Biet. Full of zeal and of hope forsuccess in the conversion of the natives, this good priestshared from the beginning the misfortunes of theRoyville expedition. When, sadder and wiser, he satdown in 1664 to tell the story of the great failure, hehad for material his first-hand observation of events inthe actual settlement, and, from the sense of a signifi-cant passage in his narrative, I believe that he had athand or well placed in his memory the first four of thesix promotion tracts that have been described here.The later tracts, the Mémoire and the Lettre escrite,published in 1653 while he was attempting to find hisway home from Guiana, are not mentioned by him inthis place. I give now the gist of the paragraphs inwhich occur the allusions that have been referred to.

Passing as of uncertain value to the argument a


general reference in the Preface of Biet's Voyage toprinted "projects," we come to solid ground on pages2 and 3 of the narrative. The author mentions theArticles et statuts and the Lettres patentes of the companyin such terms as leave no doubt that he was familiarwith the first at least in its printed form. In theopening sentences of the passage moreover, there seemto be clear references to the Acte d'Association and tothe Projet: "Ils commencèrent," says the historian,"tous cinq à former leur Compagnie, & afin d'y donnerplus de poids, ils consignèrent entr 'eux la somme dehuict mille escus entre les mains d'un notable Bourgeois,qui furent mis dans un cofïre fort." I believe thatthe writer of these words had in sight or in mindthe Acte d'association, the tract that records the forma-tion of the company and describes in detail the "coffrefort" of one Blanche, a notary, which was to be usedas the depository of the funds. Father Biet's nextsentence contains matter even more significant. "Usformèrent," he writes, "un projet de leur dessein, qui aesté veu de toute la France; . . . " The word"projet" here is not capitalized, or used as a title, butsimply as a general term descriptive of the sort ofdocument that our Projet represents. It is clearhowever, that this "plan" or "scheme" could nothave been "seen" by all France unless it had been aprinted piece. It seems to be certain from this state-naent that there was issued a printed projet of the Roy-ville plans, and assuming on Biet's authority that sucha piece once had existence, I want to bring out someevidence that this "projet de leur dessein, qui a esté veude toute la France" was the Projet d'une Compagniethat we have before us.

A comparison of the Projet text with the texts of thetwo descriptive pamphlets of the Royville series bringsout so many resemblances in matter and in style be-tween them that one would suspect a common literaryorigin and a common purpose for the three tracts evenif other evidence to this end weretiot adducible. Theresult of a textual comparison that does not claim to


have exhausted the possibilities of the procedure isgiven in the following parallel columns:

Projet -ActePagel Signed by four persons.

"Plusieurs personnes . . . ontfaict une Compagnie pour ce sujet.

Page 8"qui depuis tant de siècles, par

im secret, & neantmoins juste juge-ment de Dieu, demeurent ensevelisdans les ténèbres de l'infidélité;

PagelRecognizes that the missions can-

not be established without support-ing colonies.

PagelCommerce and manufactures

recognized as essential to the sub-sistence of colonies.

Page 8Those who are interested will be

told to whom to apply for furtherinformation by calling "chez Mon-sieur Blanche Notaire au Chasteletde Paris dans la rue des Assises aucoin de la nie S. Jacques de laBoucherie, . . . "

Page 1"qui jusques à present par un

secret & neantmoins juste juge-ment de Dieu en ont esté privez:

ProjetPage 1

Description of country and cli-mate: "Toute l'année y est un per-pétuel printems, les arbres y estantcontinuellement verds & chargez defleurs & de fruits . . . "

Page 2" . . . l a Culture de la terre y

est si facue qu 'un seul homme avecses bras peut faire du pain pour uneFamille entière de vingt personnes;

Pages 5, 6 and 7Products of the country.

Pages 2 and 3Description of voyage: Crossing

takes a month or five weeks, quietsea, no rocks, no capes to double,always a pursuing breeze, hardlymore than ten or twelve days at seawithout meeting islands where one isable to refresh himself.

PagelRecognizes that the missions can-

not be established without support-ing colonies.

Page 2Business and commerce recog-

nized as aids to evangelization.

Pages 4, 6 and 8Strong box to be kept in the house

of " M. François Blanche Notaire auChastelet de Paris seize rue desArcis, . . . "

Compagnie to meet every Thurs-day at house of "dudit Blanche,Notaire,"

"en la maison de Blanche, lundesdits Notaires soubsignez, seizerue des Arcis, Parroisse S. Jacquesde la Boucherie: . . . "

MémoirePage 7

Description of country, and cli-mate: "Toute l'année y est unperpétuel Printemps, . . . Lesarbres y sont toujours couverts defeuilles de fleurs & de frtiicts. "

" . . . l a ciîlture de la terre y estsi facile, qu'un seul homme avec sesbras peut faire du pain pour lanourriture de cinquante personnes.

Products of the country.

Page 10Description of voyage: Voyage

short, and one is able to land everyten or twelve days during the five orsix weeks of the voyage. Afterleaving Madeira there is always afavorable east breeze all the yeararound.


In these extracts and references I have comparedthe Projet with the Acte d'association, which is probablythe second of the Royville series, and with the Mémoirewhich is shown by its date of imprint to be the last orthe next to the last. Both of these tracts, like theProjet, are descriptive in character. From internalevidence there is seen to be no question whatever thatthe Acte and the Mémoire, the Lettres patentes, theArticles et statuts and the Lettre escrite pertain to thesame project, even though the location of the proposedcolony, named in the last four tracts, is not designatedin the Acte any more than it is in the Projet. I shallattempt later to account for this circumstance. Thecomparison of the Projet with the Acte and with theMémoire has shown that there are points of identityand points of resemblance to be observed in each casethat could not have been accidental. They must beaccounted for either by an identity of authorship, bythe use of one as a guide in composing the others, or bya common source yet to be found from which were takenthe identical phrases and similar descriptions commonto the three tracts.

Perhaps the most positive resemblance between theProjet and the Acte is found in the occurrence in eachof a M. Blanche as a prominent agent of the promoters.In the Projet this individual is described as MonsieurBlanche, a notary of the Châtelet of Paris, dwelling inthe Rue des Assises at the corner of the Rue S. Jacquesde la Boucherie. In the Acte we read of M. FrançoisBlanche, a notary of the Châtelet of Paris, situated inthe Rue des Ards, in the parish of S. Jacques de laBoucherie. This difference of street name might causeone to think that here were two Messieurs Blanche,but I believe that a compositor's error has clouded thisissue. According to Rochegude and Dumolin, Guidepratique à travers le vieux Paris, Paris, 1923, the ancientRue des Arcis was a continuation of the Rue S. Martin,in its turn continued by the Planche Mibray and thePont Notre Dame. It crossed the Rue S. Jacques de


la Boucherie at a point close to the Church of S.Jacques de la Boucherie; that is, the church of whichthe famous Tour S. Jacques is now the sole physi-cal reminder. Rochegude does not mention a Awed'Assises either here or elsewhere in Paris, nor have Ifound such a street name in any ancient directory ofthe city. I take it therefore that this word wasintended in the Projet for Rue d'Arcis, a substitutionthat might readily be made by a compositor addictedto the practice of spelling by ear. If this explanationof the different street addresses be accepted, one mayassume that the M. François Blanche who in the Actewas named as the custodian of the company funds wasthe same M. Blanche to whom the Projet directs theinquiring adventurer.

It is possible, of course, that this M. Blanche couldhave been agent simultaneously, or at closely succeed-ing periods, for two companies—one for Florida andanother for Guiana colonization—but if this had beenthe case, I believe he would have seen to it that thepublicity writers of the rival companies did not stealeach other's fine phrases and in general so describe thetwo countries that they could not be distinguished bythe public for whom the tracts were intended any morereadily than by perplexed bibliographers three hundredyears later.

We come now to the consideration of less concreteevidence. All of the ancient colonization companiesgave the glory of God and the conversion of thesavages as important motives of their enterprises.There is so great an insistence on this motive in theProjet that one begins to accept it at face value.There would be a reason for this if the Projet be indeedpart of the Royville series, for, as Father Biet makesclear in his later history of the colony, the presence ofthe Abbé de l'lsle Marivaut as one of the promoters ofthis company gave it a missionary intention that wasanything but perfunctory. At a time when this wellloved Abbé was on the point of asking for a small con-


cession in America wherein he might establish a mis-sion and a seminary he met Royville and was easilypersuaded to merge his projected religious enterprisewith the secular plans of his new friend. Anyone whoreads the Royville pamphlets perceives a religiousfervor in all of them that generally in colonizationliterature is not felt as sincere to the same degree as inthese devoutly worded tracts. The fact that thereligious element is insistently declared in the Projetprovides another thread of connection, though aslender one, between it and the other tracts.

One finds a further indication of the Guiana associa-tion of the Projet in the statement on page 7 thatstories of the existence of mines of gold and silver mustbe true "puisque les anciens habitans François nousl'ont tous attesté conformément à la créance desSauvages . . . " I believe the only known Frenchinhabitants of Florida up to this time had been themembers of the short lived Laudonnière colony, whichnearly a century earlier had been wiped out by theSpaniards. On the other hand, since that haplessattempt at settlement there had been made by theFrench at least three efforts'at planting Guiana, and itis known with certainty that Royville had been in touchwith a returned member of Bretigny's Guiana expedi-tion of 1643. Indeed, in his Relation of the Royvillecolony, D'Aigremont tells us that its leader's inspira-tion had come from the stories of the beauty and great-ness of the country related to him by the Sieur deMaucourt, a Guiana resident of several years standing.It seems to me that it must have been Maucourt andothers of the Bretigny colony how are referred to hereas the "anciens habitans François." From the stand-point of probability alone this seems more likely to bethe case than that the reference should be to tales sur-

, viving from Laudonnière's half-forgotten Hugenotcolony of nearly a century earlier.

A curious circumstance makes diflicult in one partic-ular the judgment between Guiana and Florida as the


location of the colony proposed in the Projet. Ordi-narily the lists of natural products in two differentcolonization tracts would form a satisfactory means ofdistinguishing between widely separated countriesdescribed in each, but in the present case a naturalphenomenon deprives us of this simple means ofidentification. The Gulf Stream, sweeping the Floridacoast, compensates that section for its twenty degreesof northward position with relation to Guiana. Theconsequence is that the climate and the fauna and ñoraof the two sections are so much alike that only by ascientific classification can the distinction between theirendemic plants and animals be shown. As would beexpected we have anything but a scientific list of thesein the Projet, and for this reason the investigator isdeprived of what might have been a decisive aid in hislabor. For the first time to my knowledge the GulfStream, that benign current, has entered the arid fieldof bibliography as a complicating and disturbingelement! To mention concrete examples of the con-fusion thus created, one finds that the most distinctivetrees described by the writers on Guiana, the Brazilwood, the fustic tree and other dye woods are namedalso as indigenous plants in Bartram's survey of EastFlorida, and that the lamentin or manaté or sea-cow,an amphibian beast mentioned by all Guiana pro-moters, is found to be endemic also along the Floridariver banks. The only bit of evidence against theFlorida theory from thecomparisonof products is hardlyconclusive. The author of the Projet, in listing histrees, does not refer to certain growths that are to befound in Florida, as for example the common oak, thechestnut, the maple and the hickory. This omissionhas a significance, however, that may not be entirelyoverlooked. When the common familiar trees of thehomeland existed in a new country, the writers of pro-motion tracts were likely to mention them withemphasis. These gentry were adepts in what weexpress in our cant as "the psychology of selling," and


they were quick to assure the prospective settler ofsimilarities rather than of differences in the conditionsand products of the old and new land.

When we consider the short list of manufacturedproducts mentioned in the Projet however, we areimmediately aware that the case for the attribution ofthe tract to Guiana has been strengthened. The cot-ton plant of course is indigenous to both countries,but we are not told anywhere that the Florida Indianshad built up a regular trade in cotton cloth with theFrench West Indies. On the other hand, no writer onGuiana fails to mention a certain important cottoncloth product of the native tribes. We must quotetwo of these references: Raleigh writes of the "greatstore of cotton" and of the trade in/'those beds whichthey call Hamacas or brasill beds." The Projet hasthe following paragraph: "Une quantité incroyable deCottons filez & non filez, des lits de coton qu'ilsappellent Amacs, & de la Pite qui est une espèce deChanvre bien plus blanc que le nostre, dont on fait destoiles & des cordages. Ces lits de Cotton ont grandcours dans toutes les Isles habitées par les François, &le trafic en est considerable. "

This lively trade in cotton hammocks between thepeople of the Projet country and the inhabitants of theFrench West Indies must have emanated from Guianarather than from a country where the spinning andweaving of the cotton staple seem to have been pro-cesses unattained by the aboriginal inhabitants.

The source from which these descriptions are ob-tained is a matter of some interest. The author of theMémoire affirms that his description of the Guianacountry has been taken from page 58 . . "del'Hydrographie, qui est le cinquiesme tome de l'Athlasachevé d'imprimé l'an 1650." The reference is tovolume five of Janson's great Atlas, published inAmsterdam, 1646-1650, whence, in many instancesword for word, the descriptive passages of the Mémoirehave been ext.racted. This source does not seem to


have been used by the author of the Projet. TheJanson Hydrographie, published as it was in 1650, mighthave been used by an author writing, as did the authorof the Projet, if my assumptions are correct, at sometime after August 29, 1651, but evidently this greatdescriptive volume had not yet come into his hands,for he seems to have gone to other sources for hisinformation.

It proves to be difficult, however, to point to anysingle printed work from which the descriptive passagesof the Projet could have been taken. There wasalready in existence at this time a respectable body ofGuiana literature in which the country in general isdescribed in the terms used by Raleigh in the Dis-coverie of 1596. The De Bry version of Raleigh's book,in all editions, omits some of the items in the detailedlists of the English original, so that the author of theProjet, who includes these names of products, could nothave had the popular De Bry translations before himat the time of composition. It is probable thatRaleigh's original narrative was made use of by thiswriter or that he was familiar with a version of it madeby some earlier writer on Guiana whose work I have notbeen able to identify. It is known that Raleigh's ac-count of Guiana affected the whole of the literature ofthe subject for half a century after its publication.Mocquet's narrative is sometimes quoted in theGuiana tracts of French writers, but the resemblanceof the Projet to this relation is quickly seen to be lessthan to Raleigh's Discoverie.

In the Acte no more than in the Projet is the where-abouts of the proposed colony made certain. Theauthor of the descriptive note that came to us with thepamphlet, convinced that the location was Florida,seemed to think that this reticence was induced by fearof alarming the Spaniards, and if the location had beenFlorida this explanation would be satisfactory. Whenone assumes, however, that the colony proposed in theProjet was to be established in Guiana, an equally


cogent motive for silence as to its location is immedi-ately found. If this hypothesis as to location is correct,the Projet and the Acte were published before theconcession had been granted to Royville and before theexisting charter of an earlier enterprise, the Com-pagnie du Cap de Nord, had been withdrawn by theLettres patentes of September 1651. This company,composed of merchant adventurers of Rouen, had beengiven in 1640 the same concessions in Guiana thatRoyville now sought from the King. It had failed tomake a successful settlement or to convert the heathento the Christian and catholic faith, but now on August29, 1651, the date of the Acte, in spite of its failure, itstill held the monopoly of all the territory between theOrinoco and the Amazon. Until the lettres patentesfor the new company should have been issued and thecharter of the Rouen company revoked, therefore, itwas only common caution on the part of the Royvilleassociates to refrain from encroachment on charteredrights even to the extent of mentioning in the pre-liminary tracts that Guiana was the location of theirproposed colony.

This brings me to the point of summarizing myreasons for believing the Projet to be one of the tractsin the Royville series relating to the attempted settle-ment of Guiana in 1652.

1. The inherent probability that this is the casewhich is likely to be felt by one who examines the wholeseries.

3. Biet's statement that the concessionaires of theRoyville grant had formed "un projet de leur dessein,qui a esté veu de toute la France; . . . ".

3. The extraordinary textual parallelisms of theProjet and the Acte and the Mémoire.

4. The occurrence of M. Blanche, the notary, asagent in both the Projet and the Acte.

5. The unusual degree of insistence on the religiousmotive that runs through the series, including theProjet.


6. The reference to '' les anciens habitans François"in the Projet.

7. The reference in the Projet and in earlier Guianaliterature to the manufacture by the natives of cottonhammocks and to the trade in these articles thatexisted between them and the inhabitants of the FrenchWest Indies.

Not all of these pieces of evidence are of equal weightnor added together even do they compel conviction,but I believe that they must be taken into considera-tion if the Projet is to be claimed as a Florida tract andnot as a piece of French Guiana colonization literature.

II

The French plans for the colonization of Guianaseem to have been genuine settlement and developmententerprises. After Raleigh found that the road to ElDorado led to the scaffold and the headsman's "sharpmedicine," the promoters of other expeditions toGuiana went about their business as soberly as suc-cessful colonizers everywhere must do. The earlierhistory of Guiana development, however, is a story of adifferent sort. From the year 1531, when the SpaniardMartinez came back from his wanderings with his taleof Manoa the Golden, the glittering city by the shoreof an inland sea, down to Raleigh's failure in 1617, thesearch for El Dorado provides one of those exhibitionsof persistence and of human intrepidity that relate mento the gods. Whatever may be our judgment of theirmotives, whether we label them with "greed for gold"or "lust for empire" or with some other moralistic tag,we can feel nothing but admiration for their highadventurousness and pity for their sufferings andultimate failure.

It was only incidental to their real purpose that theseexpeditions in search of El Dorado opened unknownrivers and plains to human knowledge and made evi-dent the immensity and the commercial richness of a


country that by the adventurers had been looked uponsimply as a barrier between them and the fabulousgilded city of the Incas. There is cause for ruefulmirth in the reñection that the wealth they sought laythereabouts all the time, placer gold in plenty, as wit-nessed the old legends of a river running over sands ofgold. Nearly 300 years after Raleigh's death some ofthe richest gold deposits of the earth were discovered inGuiana.

Between the French expedition to the Guiana Coastunder Ravardiere in 1604, described in the fine narra-tive of Jean Mocquet, and their successful settlementunder la Barre in 1664, there were granted threeother royal charters for the colonization of a domainthat today is the only remaining French possession onthe American mainland. The history of these un-successful efforts may be read in many contemporarypublications, but none of the stories is as well docu-mented as that which relates the mischances of theRoyville company. In addition to the promotiontracts that have been listed here there exist a Relationdu Voyage . . . fait . . . sou^ la conduite deMonsieur de Royville, by J. de Laon, sieur D'Aigre-mont, one of the military officers of the company,issued in 1654, and the formal history, already cited,entitled Voyage de la France Equinoxiale, published in1664 by Antoine Biet, superior of the priests who wentinto the country. Often one has occasion to observe,as here, how well known are the stories of frustratedenterprises, how broad the stage and how large theaudience when men walk maladroitly»

SOME EARLY FRENCH GUIANA TRACTS

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