Rapport de l’archiviste de la Province de Québec pour 1980–1931 by Pierre-Georges Roy (review)

REVIEWS OF BOOKS 327 thestoryof theland. The fact that someof them,e.g.Barkley,Meares, and Gray are mentionedonly servesto distort the more. The distortion is shown by the following figures: to Vancouver and Broughton two pages;to Sir Alexander Mackenzie'sfirst crossingof the main body of the continent,onepage;to SimonFraser,onepage;to Lewis and Clark, fourteen pages. Moncacht-ap6 and his apocryphal voyage receive nearly one page; the mysteriousJeremy Pinch also receivesa page. Thesetwo peoplehave not yet establishedtheir right to have a place in soberhistoryandshould,in thisreviewer'sopinion,havebeenomitted: their placeisat presentin journalism,not in history. In the chapter on "Fur traders--North West Company", David Thompsonvery properly occupiesa prominent place as the founder of the trade in the Columbia region;but a loosewoman like Jane Barnes could well have been left out of the picture. The short sketch of voyageursand brigadesis remarkably well done and showsthat the author can draw a picture an he would. The Astoria venture is correctly drawn along broad lines, but in its details the author has fallen into numerouserrors. For example,he putsforward the startling proposition that the "two circumstancesthat led to the failure of the enterprise" were employmentof Canadiansand Astor's unfoldinghis plans to the North West Company. Apart from its inaccuracy this puts Astor's boastedbusiness acumenon a low plane. No student of the story will agreewith our author's view of Captain Thorn; and every writer until now hastold us that David Thompsonarriyed at Astoria in a canoeas all Nor'westers from Canada did. The chapter on the Hudson'sBay Company is reasonablycomplete and accurate,giving a goodpicture of Dr. McLoughlin and hisinfluence; but that on the Oregon question is merely the American side of the discussionand not at all complete even there. There is an absenceof balance, a strong suggestionof haste, and a painful lack of care manifest in the work. The volume contains some thirty-eight illustrations,mostly photographsof historic characters;it is well printed; and has copiousnotesand an index. F. W. HOWA¾ Rapport de l'archivistede la Provincede Quebecpour 1950-1951. Par PmRRE-GEORGES ROY. Quebec' R•dempti Paradis. 1931. Pp. xiii, 508. THE Province of Quebec continues, through its archivist, M. Roy, to set an example to its neighboursin the production of archive reports. This latest volume, the eleventh report, is issuedfrom the new museum and archive building on the Plains of Abraham, a fitting home for so sumptuousa series. The volume is made up of three parts: (a) pages 1-182, letters to and from Jean Talon, the intendant of New France; (b) pages183-352,the correspondence of the bishops of Quebec,17401797 ; (c) pages353-453, a list of the "hiring contracts" made for men for the western trade between 1746 and 1752. The last two parts continue the work of the report of 1929-1930. Mgr Briand wassucceeded in 1784by Mgr D'Esgly, his coadjutor,and he, in turn, five years later by Mgr Hubert, who providesthe bulk of 328 THE CANADIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW the correspondence, edited by M. Caron. It is of great interest as illustratingthemultifariousactivitiesof the Quebec episcopate, andalso, as the editor points out, for the petitehistoireof the parishesof the province. There is an interestingletter respectingthe appointmentof Mgr D'Esgly (p. 186) in which the British governmentexpressed its readinessto "faire toujours grand cas de la recommandation du roi (de France)pourcequi pourraint•resserla courde Rome dansl'exercice de la religionen Canada", thoughit insistedon the choiceof a Canadian ecclesiastic (p. 185). M. Massicotte's catalogue ofwesternengagements, which is to be completednext year, has considerable genealogical interest ,and might profitably have beenpreceded by a note summarizing its contents,akin to that prefixedin the earlier report (Rapport,19œ91930 , pp. 191-2). The Talon correspondencehere printed includes all the known memoirsand letterswritten by Talon to the king and to Colbertduring his period of officeas intendant, with the letters from the king and Colbert to him over the sameperiod,taken from the originalsin Paris. So far as we know, all the letters have been usedbefore and somehave already been printed (in Collectionde manuscrits .... relatifsd !a NouvelleFrance,Quebec,1882, and, in translation, in volume IX of the Documentaryhistoryof the State of New York, Albany, 1850). Senator...