At some time before his death in 1800, Father Jean Joseph
Casot, the last of the old race of Jesuits in Canada, seeing
his order about to expire under the restrictions then imposed
by the British government, and determined that all the materials
for its history should not perish by reason of his death, made
a selection from among its papers, and placed the portion thus
preserved in the custody of the Augustinian nuns of the Hotel
Dieu of Quebec. There they remained safe till in 1843 they
were restored to the Society, then revived and under the charge
of Father Martin, as superior of the Jesuits in Canada. Among
these papers was the following, in which Father Jogues, at the
time of his last sojourn in New France, described New Netherland
as he had seen it three years before.
Father Martin presented a transcript of the document, accompanied
with an English translation, to the regents of the University of
the State of New York. The translation was then published, in
1851, in volume IV. of O'Callaghan's _Documentary History of
the State of New York_ (pp. 21-24 of the octavo edition, pp.
15-17 of the edition in quarto). The French original was
printed for the first time in 1852 in an appendix to Father
Martin's translation of Bressani's _Breve Relatione_. In 1857,
Dr. John Gilmary Shea printed in the _Collections of the New
York Historical Society_, second series, III. 215-219, a
translation which, after revision by the present editor, is
printed in the following pages. Dr. Shea made separate
publication of the French text in his Cramoisy series in
1862, and in the same year published another edition of original
and translation. Both likewise appear in Thwaites's _Jesuit
Relations_, XXVIII. 105-115. Dr. Thwaites also gives a
facsimile of the first page of the original manuscript which
Father Jogues wrote at Three Rivers, with hands crippled by
the cruel usage of the Mohawks.