ississippi. The same dispute has obscured his
explorations of Hudson Bay, French writers maintaining that he went
overland to the North and put his feet in the waters of the bay, the
English writers insisting that he only crossed over the watershed
toward Hudson Bay. Again, the fact remains that he did what others had
failed to do--discovered an overland route to the bay. I am sorry that
Radisson is accused in this _Memoir_ of intentionally falsifying his
relations in two respects, (1) in adding a fanciful year to the
1658-1660 voyage; (2) in saying that he had voyaged down the
Mississippi to Mexico. (1) Internal evidence plainly shows that
Radisson's first four voyages were written twenty years afterward, when
he was in London, and not while on the voyage across the Atlantic with
Cartwright, the Boston commissioner. It is the most natural thing in
the world that Radisson, who had so often been to the wilds, should
have mixed his dates. Every slip as to dates is so easily checked by
contemporaneous records--which, themselves, need to be checked--that it
seems too bad to accuse Radisson of wilfully lying in the matter. When
Radisson lied it was to avoid bloodshed, and not to exalt himself. If
he had had glorification of self in mind, he would not have set down
his own faults so unblushingly; for instance, where he deceives M.
Colbert of Paris. (2) Radisson does not try to give the impression
that he went to Mexico. The sense of the context is that he met an
Indian tribe--Illinois, Mandans, Omahas, or some other--who lived next
to another tribe who told _of_ the Spaniards. I feel almost sure that
the scholarly Mr. Benjamin Sulte is right in his letter to me when he
suggests that Radisson's manuscript has been mixed by transposition of
pages or paragraphs, rather than that Radisson himself was confused in
his account. At the same time every one of the contributors to the
Minnesota _Memoir_ deserves the thanks of all who love _true_ history.

ADDENDUM

Since the above foreword was written, the contents of this volume have
appeared serially in four New York magazines. The context of the book
was slightly abridged in these articles, so that a very vital
distinction--namely, the difference between what is given as in
dispute, and what is given as incontrovertible fact--was lost; but what
was my amusement to receive letters from all parts of the West all but
challenging me to a duel. One wants to know "how