urches of Copenhagen, in Denmark,
and of Utrecht, in Holland.

But, whatever his religious prejudices may have been, they do not intrude
themselves in any part of his career; we know him only as a pure
Christian, an upright man, and a faithful friend of humanity. Like many
other Frenchmen of birth and education in those days, the Baron de St.
Castine had been attracted by descriptions of newly discovered countries
in the western hemisphere, and fascinated by the ideal life of the
children of nature. To a mind at once susceptible and heroic, impulsive by
temperament, and disciplined to endure, such promptings have a charm that
is irresistible. As the chronicler relates, he preferred the forests of
Acadia, to the Pyrenian mountains that compassed the place of his
nativity, and taking up his abode with the savages, on the first year
behaved himself so among them as to draw from them their inexpressible
esteem. He married a woman of the nation, and repudiating their example,
did not change his wife, by which he taught his wild neighbors that God
did not love inconstancy. By this woman, his first and only wife, he had
one son and two daughters, the latter were afterwards married, "very
handsomely, to Frenchmen, and had good dowries." Of the son there is
preserved a single touching incident. In person the baron was strikingly
handsome, a fine form, a well featured face, with a noble expression of
candor, firmness and benevolence. Possessed of an ample fortune, he used
it to enlarge the comforts of the people of his adoption; these making him
a recompense in beaver skins and other rich furs, from which he drew a
still larger revenue, to be in turn again devoted to the objects of his
benevolence. It was said of him, "that he can draw from his coffers two or
three hundred thousand crowns of good dry gold; but all the use he makes
of it is to buy presents for his _fellow savages_, who, upon their return
from hunting, present him with skins to treble the value."

Is it then surprising that this man, so wise, so good, so faithful to his
_fellow savages_, should, after twenty years, rise to the most eminent
station in that unsophisticated nation? That indeed these simple Indians,
who knew no arts except those of peace and war, should have looked up to
him as their tutular god? By the treaty of Breda, the lands from the
Penobscots to Nova Scotia had been ceded to France, in exchange for the
island of St. Christopher. Upon these lands