Letter from Samuel de Champlain to the King of France, Louis XIII and
the Queen Regent (Mother of the King: Marie de Médicis (1573-1642),
queen consort of Henry IV of France)

Originally translated by W.F. Ganong, Smith College, Northampton,
Massachusetts, November 10, 1918.  Republished by the St. Croix
Historical Society, Calais, Maine, transcribed from the original Ganong
translation, coves only that part of Champlain’s recorded work in which
he leaves France and arrives at St.Croix Island.

TO THE KING from Samuel de Champlain

Sire,

Your Majesty is able to acquire ample knowledge of the discoveries made
in your service in New France (called Canada) from the descriptions
which certain Captains and Pilots have given of the voyages and
discoveries made there during the past eighty years; but these have
yielded nothing so much to the credit of your Kingdom, nor so useful to
your Majesty’s service and to your subjects, as the maps of the coasts,
harbors, rivers, and the situations of places, which will be given in
this little treatise, which I make bold to dedicate to your Majesty,
entitled a Journal of the Voyages and Discoveries made by me along with
the Sieur de Monts, your Lieutenant, in New France, being impelled
moreover by a due sense of the honour which I have received during the
past ten years by the commissions not only, Sire, of your Majesty, but
also of the late King, Henry the Great, of happy memory, who commanded
me to undertake the most exact investigations and discoveries in my
power. These I have carried out, with the additions represented on the
maps contained in this little book, wherein will be found particular
notice of the dangers into which one might run if they were not avoided,
which, your Majesty’s subjects, whom it may please you hereafter to
employ for the preservation of the aforesaid discoveries, will now be
able to avoid through the knowledge furnished them by the maps contained
in this treatise, which will serve in your Kingdom as a pattern to your
Majesty’s service, to the increase of your glory, to the welfare of your
subjects, and to the honour of the humble service which is owing, with
his wish for the happy increase of your days, by Sire

Your most humble, most obedient and most faithful servant and subject,
Champlain


Juliana
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