From lake Huron to lake Nipissing there is the river called French
River, 25 leagues long; there are 3 portages; the said lake has 60 to
80 leagues of circumference.
Lake Assiniboel is larger than lake Superior, and an infinity of
others, lesser and greater have to be discovered, for which I approve
of M. the Marquis of Denonville's saying, often repeated:--that the
King of France, our monarch was not high lord enough to open up such a
vast country, as we are only beginning to enter on the confines of the
immensity of such a great country.
The road to enter it is by the Grand River and lake Ontario by Niagara,
which should be easy in peaceful times in establishing families at
Niagara for the portage, and building boats on Lake Erie. I did not
find that a difficult thing, and I want to do it under M. the Marquis
of Denonville, who did not care, so soon as he perceived that his war
expedition had not succeeded.
I have given you in this memorandum the names of the natives known to
us and with whom our wood rovers (coureurs de bois) have traded; my
information comes from some of the most experienced.
The surplus of the memorandum will serve to inform you that prior to M.
de Tracy, de Courcelle and Talon's arrival, nothing was regulated but
by the governor's will, although there was a Board; as they were his
appointments and that by appearances, only his creatures got in, he was
the absolute master of it and which was the cause that the Colony and
the inhabitants suffered very much at the beginning.
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