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.

NOVUM BELGIUM, BY FATHER ISAAC JOGUES, 1646

NEW HOLLAND, which the Dutch call in Latin Novum Belgium,--in their
own language, Nieuw Nederland, that is to say, New Low Countries--is
situated between Virginia and New England. The mouth of the river, which
some people call Nassau, or the Great North River, to distinguish it
from another which they call the South River, and which I think is
called Maurice River on some maps that I have recently seen, is at
40 deg. 30 min. The channel is deep, fit for the largest ships, which
ascend to Manhattes Island, which is seven leagues in circuit, and on
which there is a fort to serve as the commencement of a town to be built
here, and to be called New Amsterdam.

This fort, which is at the point of the island, about five or six
leagues from the [river's] mouth, is called Fort Amsterdam; it has four
regular bastions, mounted with several pieces or artillery. All these
bastions and the curtains were, in 1643, but mounds, most of which had
crumbled away, so that one entered the fort on all sides. There were no
ditches. For the garrison of the said fort, and another which they had
built still further up against the incursions of the savages, their
enemies, there were sixty soldiers. They were b