Of enemies, Sieur Radisson had a-plenty, for which, methinks, he had
that lying tongue of his to thank. Old France and New France, Old
England and New England, would have paid a price for his head; but
Pierre Radisson's head held afar too much cunning for any hang-dog of
an assassin to try "fall-back, fall-edge" on him. In spite of all the
malice with which his enemies fouled him living and dead, Sieur
Radisson was never the common buccaneer which your cheap pamphleteers
have painted him; though, i' faith, buccaneers stood high enough in my
day, when Prince Rupert himself turned robber and pirate of the high
seas. Pierre Radisson held his title of nobility from the king; so did
all those young noblemen who went with him to the north, as may be seen
from M. Colbert's papers in the records _de la marine_. Nor was the
disembarking of furs at Isle Percee an attempt to steal M. de la
Chesnaye's cargo, as slanderers would have us believe, but a way of
escape from those vampires sucking the life-blood of New France--the
farmers of the revenue. Indeed, His Most Christian Majesty himself
commanded those robber rulers of Quebec to desist from meddling with
the northern adventurers. And if some gentleman who has never been
farther from city cobblestones than to ride afield with the hounds or
take waters at foreign baths, should protest that no maid was ever in
so desolate a case as Mistress Hortense, I answer there are to-day many
in the same region keeping themselves pure as pond-lilies in a brackish
pool, at the forts of their fathers and husbands in the fur-trading
country.
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