[Illustration:  An Old-time Buffalo Hunt on the Plains among the Sioux.]

What were Radisson’s thoughts?  Did he realize the importance of his discovery?  Could he have the vaguest premonition that he had opened a door of escape from stifled older lands to a higher type of manhood and freedom than the most sanguine dreamer had ever hoped?[10] After an act has come to fruition, it is easy to read into the actor’s mind fuller purpose than he could have intended.  Columbus could not have realized to what the discovery of America would lead.  Did Radisson realize what the discovery of the Great Northwest meant?

Here is what he says, in that curious medley of idioms which so often results when a speaker knows many languages but is master of none:—­

“The country was so pleasant, so beautiful, and so fruitful, that it grieved me to see that the world could not discover such inticing countries to live in.  This, I say, because the Europeans fight for a rock in the sea against one another, or for a steril land . . . where the people by changement of air engender sickness and die. . . .  Contrariwise, these kingdoms are so delicious and under so temperate a climate, plentiful of all things, and the earth brings forth its fruit twice a year, that the people live long and lusty and wise in their way.  What a conquest would this be, at little or no cost?  What pleasure should people have . . . instead of misery and poverty!  Why should not men reap of the love of God here?  Surely, more is to be gained converting souls here than in differences of creed, when wrongs are committed under pretence of religion! . . .  It is true, I confess, . . . that access here is difficult . . . but nothing is to be gained without labor and pains.” [11]

[Illustration:  Father Marquette, from an old painting discovered in Montreal by Mr. McNab.  The date on the picture is 1669.]

Here Radisson foreshadows all the best gains that the West has accomplished for the human race.  What are they?  Mainly room,—­room to live and room for opportunity; equal chances for all classes, high and low; plenty for all classes, high and low; the conquests not of war but of peace.  The question arises,—­when Radisson discovered the Great Northwest ten years before Marquette and Jolliet, twenty years before La Salle, a hundred years before De la Verendrye, why has his name been slurred over and left in oblivion?[12] The reasons are plain.  Radisson was a Christian, but he was not a slave to any creed.  Such liberality did not commend itself to the annalists of an age that was still rioting in a very carnival of religious persecution.  Radisson always invoked the blessing of Heaven on his enterprises and rendered thanks for his victories; but he was indifferent as to whether he was acting as lay helper with the Jesuits, or allied to the Huguenots of London and Boston.  His discoveries were too important to be ignored by the missionaries.