ABSTRACT
That which we have said even now is a part of true love, which doth shame the Christian women. But after the children be weaned, and at all times, they love them all, observing this law that Nature hath grafted in the hearts of all creatures (except in lewd slippery women) to have care of them. And when it is question to demand of them some of their children (I speak of the Souriquois, in whose land we dwelt) for to bring them into France, they will not give them; but, if any one of them doth yield unto it, presents must be given unto him, besides large promises. We have already spoken of this at the end of the 17th chapter. So then I find that they have wrong to be called barbarous, seeing that the ancient Romans were far more barbarous than they; who oftentimes sold their children for to have means to live. Now that which causeth them to love their children more than we do in these parts is that they are the maintenance of their fathers in their old age, whether it be to help them to live or to defend them from their enemies; and Nature conserveth wholly in them her right in this respect. By reason whereof that which they wish most is to have number of children, to be thereby so much the mightier as in the first age of the world, when virginity was a thing reprovable, because of God's commandment to men and women to increase, multiply, and replenish the earth [Genesis i. 28]; but after it was filled, this love waxed marvellous cold, and children began to be a burden to fathers and mothers, whom many have had in disdain, and have very often procured their death. Now is the way open for France to have a remedy for the same. For if it please God to guide and prosper the voyages of New France, whosoever in these parts shall find himself oppressed may pass thither, and there end his days in rest, and that without feeling any poverty; or if anyone findeth himself overburdened with children, he may send half of them thither, and with a small portion they shall be rich and possess the land, which is the most assured condition of this life. For we see at this day labour and pain in all vocations, yea, in them of the best sort, which are often crossed through envy and wants: others will make a hundred cappings and crouchings for to live, and yet they do but pine away. But the ground never deceiveth us, if we earnestly cherish her. Witness the fable of him who by his last will and testament did declare to his children that he had hidden a treasure in his vineyard, and as they had well and deeply digged and turned it they found nothing, but, the year being come about, they gathered so great a quantity of grapes that they knew not where to bestow them. So through all the holy Scripture, the promises that God maketh to the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and afterwards to the people of Israel, by the mouth of Moses, is that they shall possess the land, as a certain heritage that cannot perish, and where a man hath wherewith to sustain his family, to make himself strong and to live in innocency: according to the speeches of the ancient Cato, who did say that commonly husbandmen or farmers' sons be valiant and strong, and do think on no harm [Pliny, lib. xviii., cap. 5].
