Is there any evidence in this wrighting that suggest that the Europeans through trade shapped the lives of the native Indians? Thou sayest of us also that we are the most miserable and most unhappy of all men, livingwithout religion, without manners, without honour, without social order, and, in a word, withoutany rules, like the beasts in our woods and our forests, lacking bread, wine, and a thousand othercomforts which thou hast in superfluity in Europe. Well, my brother, if thou dost not yet know thereal feelings which our Indians have towards thy country and towards all thy nation, it is properthat I inform thee at once. I beg thee now to believe that, all miserable as we seem in thine eyes,we consider ourselves nevertheless much happier than thou in this, that we are very content withthe little that we have; and believe also once for all, I pray, that thou deceivest thyself greatly ifthou thinkest to persuade us that thy country is better than ours. For if France, as thou sayest, is alittle terrestrial paradise, art thou sensible to leave it? And why abandon wives, children, relatives,and friends? Why risk thy life and thy property every year, and why venture thyself with such risk,in any season whatsoever, to the storms and tempests of the sea in order to come to a strange andbarbarous country which thou considerest the poorest and least fortunate of the world? Besides,since we are wholly convinced of the contrary, we scarcely take the trouble to go to France,because we fear, with good reason, lest we find little satisfaction there, seeing, in our ownexperience, that those who are natives thereof leave it every year in order to enrich themselves onour shores. As to us, we find all our riches and all our conveniences among ourselves, without trouble andwithout exposing our lives to the dangers in which you find yourselves constantly through yourlong voyages. And, whilst feeling compassion for you in the sweetness of our repose, we wonderat the anxieties and cares which you give yourselves night and day in order to load your ship. Wesee also that all your people live, as a rule, only upon cod which you catch among us. It iseverlastingly nothing but codcod in the morning, cod at midday, cod at evening, and alwayscod, until things come to such a pass that if you wish some good morsels, it is at our expense; andyou are obliged to have recourse to the Indians, whom you despise so much, and to beg them togo a-hunting that you may be regaled.Now tell me this one little thing, if thou hast any sense: Which of these two is the wisest andhappiesthe who labours without ceasing and only obtains, and that with great trouble, enoughto live on, or he who rests in comfort and finds all that he needs in the pleasure of hunting andfishing? It is true, that we have not always had the use of bread and of wine which your Franceproduces; but, in fact, before the arrival of the French in these parts, did not the Gaspesians livemuch longer than now? And if we have not any longer among us any of those old men of a hundredand thirty to forty years, it is only because we are gradually adopting your manner of living, forexperience is making it very plain that those of us live longest who, despising your bread, yourwine, and your brandy, are content with their natural food of beaver, of moose, of waterfowl, andfish, in accord with the custom of our ancestors and of all the Gaspesian nation. Learn now, mybrother, once for all, because I must open to thee my heart: there is no Indian who does not considerhimself infinitely more happy and more powerful than the French.Source: William F. Ganong, trans. and ed., New Relation of Gaspesia, with the Customs and Religion of the GaspesianIndians,by Chrestien LeClerq (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1910)