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FOREWORD Mackinac State Historic Parks and Indiana University South Bend jointly began the French Michilimackinac Research Project in 1991. Since then Dr. Joseph L. Peyser, Professor Emeritus of French at the university , has located thousands of French documents pertaining to Michilimackinac and the western Great Lakes and translated hundreds of them into English. A grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities made possible the translations for this book. Generous multiyear support from the Florence Gould Foundation and our Mackinac Associates membership organization made this publication possible, and is allowing us to continue the research. The support of Chairman Dennis 0. Cawthorne and the commissioners of the Mackinac Island State Park Commission provided the resources to produce this book with Michigan State University Press. We extend sincere thanks to Professor Peyser, Dr. Keith R. Widder who served as project director for Mackinac State Historic Parks, and all who contributed to the effort. In October 1994, Professor Peyser traveled to the archives of the Seminaire de Saint-Sulpice in Paris to work with the original manuscript copy of Charles de Raymond's denombrement de tous les postes du Canada. Upon his return he translated and annotated the document, which forms the core ofthis volume. Mackinac State Historic Parks is pleased to issue On the Eve of The Conquest: The Chevalier de Raymond's Critique ifNew France in 1754. This follows publication in 1996 of the first book of the project, Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre: Officer, Gentleman, Entrepreneur, also translated and edited by Professor Peyser. With this volume Mackinac State Historic Parks continues a long tradition of making the results of historical and archaeological research available ix x On The Eve ifthe Conquest to the public. For forty years Mackinac State Historic Parks has published scholarly and popular reports, articles, and books interpreting three centuries of Straits of Mackinac history, with special attention to the historic sites we operate at Colonial Michilimackinac in Mackinaw City, Historic Mill Creek near Mackinaw City, and Fort Mackinac on Mackinac Island. The translation of Captain Raymond's assessment of New France on the eve of the French and Indian War makes a welcome addition to knowledge of the early role of the French in North American history, and of the importance of the place called Michilimackinac to national history and international commerce. Carl R. Nold Director, Mackinac State Historic Parks Mackinac Island State Park Commission ...

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