put out all lights. Within an hour came a rescue
party from Orange, who conducted him safely to the fort. For three
days Radisson hid in Orange, while the Mohawks wandered through the
fort, calling him by name.

Gifts of money from the Jesuit, Poncet, and from a Dutch merchant,
enabled Radisson to take ship from Orange to New York, and from New
York to Europe.

[Illustration: Fort Amsterdam, from an ancient engraving executed in
Holland. This view of Fort Amsterdam on the Manhattan is copied from
an ancient engraving executed in Holland. The fort was erected in 1623
but finished upon the above model by Governor Van Twiller in 1635.]

Pere Poncet had been captured by the Mohawks the preceding summer, but
had escaped to Orange.[12] Embarking on a small sloop, Radisson sailed
down the Hudson to New York, which then consisted of some five hundred
houses, with stores, barracks, a stone church, and a dilapidated fort.
Central Park was a forest; goats and cows pastured on what is now Wall
Street; and to east and west was a howling wilderness of marsh and
woods. After a stay of three weeks, Radisson embarked for Amsterdam,
which he reached in January, 1654.

[1] Benjamin Sulte in _Chronique Trifluvienne_.

[2] It was in August of this same year, 1652, that the governor of
Three Rivers was slain by the Iroquois. Parkman gives this date, 1653,
Garneau, 1651, L'Abbe Tanguay, 1651; Dollier de Casson, 1651, Belmont,
1653. Sulte gives the name of the governor Duplessis-Kerbodot, not
Bochart, as given in Parkman.

[3] Dr. Bryce has unearthed the fact that in a petition to the House of
Commons, 1698, Radisson sets down his age as sixty-two. This gives the
year of his birth as 1636. On the other hand, Sulte has record of a
Pierre Radisson registered at Quebec in 1681, aged fifty-one, which
would make him slightly older, if it is the same Radisson. Mr. Sulte's
explanation is as follows: Sebastien Hayet of St. Malo married Madeline
Henault. Their daughter Marguerite married Chouart, known as
Groseillers. Madeline Henault then married Pierre Esprit Radisson of
Paris, whose children were Pierre, our hero, and two daughters.

[4] A despatch from M. Talon in 1666 shows there were 461 families in
Three Rivers. State papers from the Minister to M. Frontenac in 1674
show there were only 6705 French in all the colony. Averaging five a
family, there must have been 2000 people at Three Rivers. Fear of the
Iroquois must ha