,''J a b tt Ifi O.XX Vi tt a lii^tittCihitt Jtancfg parfetnan'is IMorfea. NEW LIBRARY EDITION. Vol. IIL FRANCIS PARKMAN'S WORKS. Ncto ILttirarj EUttton. Fioneers of France In the New World I vol. The Jesuits In North America I vol. La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West . . I vol. The Old Regime in Canada I vol. Connt Frontenac and New France under Louis XtV. I vol. A Half Century of Conflict 2 vols. Montcalm and Wolfe . 2 vols. The Conspiracy of Fontiac and the Indian War after the Conquest of Canada 2 vols. The Oregon Trail I vol. *e;, bu little 3rsu,n..i C La Salle Presenting a Petition to Louis XIV, Drawn by Adrien Moreau. La SAII.E AND THE Discovery of the Great West, Fronthpiece DISCOYERY OF THE GREAT WE FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN NORTH AMERICA. Pabt Thied. BY FRANCIS PARKMAN. BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, iQin Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by Fkakcis Parkman, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusel Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879, by Francis Parkman, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. Copyright, 1897, Bt Little, Brown, and Company. Co-pyright, 1897, Bt Grace P. Coffin and Katharine S. Coolidqe. Copyright, 1907, Bt Grace P. Cojtin. Prfnttts S. J. Pabehill Si Co., Boston, V. 8. A. TO THE CLASS OF 1844, ^atbatS ColUfle, i'HIS BOOK IS CORDIALLY DKDICATEIi BY ONB OF THEIR NUMBER. PREFACE OF THE ELEVENTH EDITION. When the earlier editions of this book were published, I was aware of the existence of a col lection of documents relating to La Salle, and containiag important material to wliich I had not succeeded in gaining access. This coUection "was in possession of M. Pierre Margry, director of the Archives of the Marine and Colonies at Paris, and was the result of more than thirty years of research. With rare assiduity and zeal, M. Margry had explored not only the vast de pository with wliich he has been officially con nected from youth, and of which he is now the chief, but also the other pubhc archives of France, and many private collections in Paris and the provinces. The object of his search was to throw light on the career and achieve ments of French explorers, and, above all, of La Salle. A collection of extraordinary richness grew gradually upon his hands. In the course viii PREFACE OF THE ELEVENTH EDITION. of my own inquiries, I owed much to his friendly aid ; but his collections, as a whole, remained inaccessible, since he naturally wished to be the first to make known the results of his labors. An attempt to induce Congress to furnish him with the means of printing documents so inter esting to American history was made in 1870 and 1871, by Henry Harrisse, Esq., aided by the American minister at Paris ; but it imf ortu- nately failed. In the summer and autumn of 1872, I had numerous interviews with M. Margry, and at his desire undertook to try to induce some Ameri can bookseller to publish the collection. On re turning to the United States, I accordingly made an arrangement with Messrs. Little, Brown & Co., of Boston, by which they agreed to print the papers if a certain number of subscriptions should first be obtained. The condition proved very difficult ; and it became clear that the best hope of success lay in another appeal to Con gress. This was made in the following winter, in conjunction with Hon. E. B. Washburne; Colonel Charles Whittlesey, of Cleveland ; 0. H. Marshall, Esq., of Buffalo ; and other gentlemen interested in early American history. The at tempt succeeded. Congress made an appropria- PREFACE OF THE ELEVENTH EDITION. ix tion for the purchase of five hundred copies of the work, to be printed at Paris, under direction of M. Margry ; and the three volumes devoted to La Salle are at length before the public. Of the papers contained in them which I had not before examined, the most interesting are the letters of La Salle, found in the original by M. Margry, among the immense accumulations of the Archives of the Marine and Colonies and the Bibliothfeque Nationale. The narrative of La Salle's companion, Joutel, far more copious than the abstract printed in 1713, under the title of " Journal Historique," also deserves special mention. These, with other fresh mate rial in these three volumes, while they add new facts and throw new light on the character of La Salle, confirm nearly every statement made in the first edition of the Discovery of the Great West. The only exception of consequence re lates to the causes of La Salle's failure to find the mouth of the Mississippi in 1684, and to the conduct, on that occasion, of the naval com mander, Beaujeu. This edition is revised throughout, and in part rewritten with large additions. A map of the country traversed by the explorers is also added. The name of La Salle is placed on the titlepage, X PREFACE OF THE ELEVENTH EDITION. as seems to be demanded by his increased promi nence in the narrative of which he is the central figure. Boston, 10 December, 1878. Note. — The title of M. Margry's printed collection is "Decou- vertes et Etablissements des Franpals dans I'Ouest et dans le Sud de I'Amerique Septentrionale (1614-1754), M^moires et Documents originaiLX." I., II., III. Besides the three volumes relating to La Salle, there will be two others, relating to other explorers. In ac cordance with the agreement with Congress, an independent edition will appear in Prance, with au introduction setting forth the cir cumstances of the publication. PREFACE OF THE FIRST EDITION. The discovery of the " Great West," or the valleys of the Mississippi and the Lakes, is a portion of our history hitherto very obscure. Those magnificent regions were revealed to the world through a series of daring enterprises, of which the motives and even the incidents have been but partially and superficially known. The chief actor in them wrote much, but printed nothing ; and the published writings of his asso ciates stand wofuUy in need of interpretation from the unpublished documents which exist, but which have not heretofore been used as material for history. This volume attempts to supply the defect. Of the large amount of wholly new material employed in it, by far the greater part is drawn from the various public archives of France, and the rest from private sources. The discovery of many of these documents is due to^the indefati gable research of M. Pierre Margry, assistant xii PREFACE OF THE FIRST EDITION. director of the Archives of the Marine and Colo nies at Paris, whose labors as an investigator of the maritime and colonial history of France can be appreciated only by those who have seen their results. In the department of American colo nial history, these results have been invaluable ; for, besides several private collections made by him, he rendered important service in the collec tion of the French portion of the Brodhead doc uments, selected and arranged the two great series of colonial papers ordered by the Canadian government, and prepared with vast labor ana lytical indexes of these and of supplementary documents in the French archives, as well as a copious index of the mass of papers relating to Louisiana. It is to be hoped that the valuable publications on the maritime history of France which have appeared from his pen are an earn est of more extended contributions in future. The late President Sparks, some time after the publication of his Life of La Salle, caused a collection to be made of documents relating to that explorer, with the intention of incorporat ing them in a future edition. This intention was never carried into effect, and the documents were never used. With the liberality which always distinguished him, he placed them at my PREFACE OF THE FIRST EDITION. xiii disposal, and this privilege has been kindly con tinued by Mrs. Sparks. Abb6 FaUlon, the learned author of " La Colo- nie Fran^aise en Canada," has sent me copies of various documents found by him, including family papers of La Salle. Among others who in various ways have aided my inquiries are Dr. John Paul, of Ottawa, 111. ; Count Adolphe de Circourt, and M. Jules Marcou, of Paris ; M. A. G^rin Lajoie, Assistant Librarian of the Cana dian Parliament • M. J. M. Le Moine, of Que bec ; General Dix, Minister of the United States at the Court of France ; 0. H. Marshall, of Buf falo ; J. G. Shea, of New York ; Buckingham Smith, of St. Augustine ; and Colonel Thomas Aspinwall, of Boston. The smaller map contained in the book is a portion of the manuscript map of Franquehn, of which an account will be found in the Appendix. The next volume of the series will be devoted to the efforts of Monarchy and Feudalism under Louis XIV. to establish a permanent power on this continent, and to the stormy career of Louis de Buade, Count of Frontenac. Boston, 16 September, 1869. CONTEISTTS. Faob Intboduotion 3 CHAPTER L 1643-1669. OAVELIER DE LA SALLB. The Youth of La SaUe: his Connection with the Jesuits; he goes to Canada ; his Character ; his Schemes ; his Seigniory at La Chine ; his Expedition in Search of a Western Passage to India 7 CHAPTER n. 1669-1671. LA SALLE AND THE SULPITIANS. The French iu Western New York. — Louis Joliet. — The Sulpi- tians ou Lake Erie ; at Detroit ; at Saut Ste. Marie. — The Mystery of La Salle : he discovers the Ohio ; he descends thelUinoia; did he reach the Mississippi ? 19 CHAPTER m. 1670-1672. THE JESUITS ON THB LAKES. The Old Missions and the New. — A Change of Spirit. — Lafee Superior and the Copper-mines. — Ste. Marie. — La Pointe. — Michilimackinac. — Jesuits on Lake Michigan. — Allouez and Dablon. — The Jesuit Fur-trade 3S xvi CONTENTS. CHAPTER rv. 1667-1672. leance takes possession op the west. Pagb Talon. — Saint-Lusson. — Perrot. — The Ceremony at Saut Ste. Marie. — The Speech of AUonez. — Count Frontenac ... 48 CHAPTER V. 1672-1675. THE DISCOVERT OP THE MISSISSIPPI. JoBet sent to find the Mississippi. — ¦ Jacques Marquette. — De parture. — Green Bay. — The Wisconsin. — The Mississippi. — Indians. — Manitous. — The Arkansas. — The Illinois. — Joliet's Misfortune. — Marquette at Chicago : his Illness ; his Death S7 CHAPTER VX 1673-1678. LA SALLE AND FKONTENAC. Objects of La Salle. — Frontenac favors him. — Projects of Fron tenac. — Cataraqui. — Frontenac on Lake Ontario. — Fort Frontenac. — La SaUe and F^nelon. — Success of La SaUe: his Enemies 83 CHAPTER Vn. 1678. PAKTT 8TEIPE. La SaUe and his Reporter. — Jesuit Ascendency. — The Missions and the Fur-trade. — Female Inquisitors. — Plots against La SaUe: his Brother the Priest. — Intrigues of the Jesuits. — La SaUe poisoned : he exculpates the Jesuits. — Renewed Intrigues 106 ¦CONTENTS. xvu CHAPTER VIII. 1677, 1678. the grand enterprise. Pagb La Salle at Fort Frontenac. — La Salle at Court : his Memo rial. — Approval of the King. — Money and Means. — Henri de Tonty. — Return to Canada 120 CHAPTER IS. 1678-1679. LA SALLE AT NIAGARA. Father Louis Hennepin : his Past Life ; his Character. — Em barkation. — Niagara Falls. — Indian Jealousy. — La Motte and the Senecas. — A Disaster. — La SaUe and his Followers 131 CHAPTER X. 1679. THE LAUNCH OF THE " GRIFFIN." The Niagara Portage. — A Vessel on the Stocks. — Suffering aud Discontent. — La Salle's Winter Journey. — The Vessel launched. — Fresh Disasters 144 CHAPTER XL 1679. LA SALLE ON THE UPPER LAKES. The Voyage of the " Griffin." — Detroit. — A Storm. — St. Ignace of Michilimackinac. — Rivals and Enemies. — Lake Mich igan. — Hardships. — A Threatened Fight. — Fort Miami. — Tonty's Misfortunes. — Forebodings 151 CHAPTER XII 1679, 1680. LA SALLE ON THE ILLINOIS. The St. Joseph. — Adventure of La SaUe. — The Prairies. — Famine. — The Great Town of the Illinois. — Indians. — In- trignes. — Difficulties. — Policy of La SaUe. — Desertion. — Another Attempt to poison La SaUe 164 xviii CONTENTS. CHAPTER Xra. 1680. PORT CRi;VEOin 485 INDEX . 491 LA SALLE AND THB DISCOVERY OF THE GREAT WEST. 'b\-,-\ v^p.i'Necrl JbT MARQUETTE, HENNEPIN LA ^AXLZ, C'W.Bayiiioa.Sc. LA SALLE DISCOYEEY OF THE GREAT WEST. INTRODUCTION. The Spaniards discovered the Mississippi. De Soto was buried beneath its waters ; and it was down its muddy current that his followers fled from the Eldorado of their dreams, transformed to a wilderness of misery and death. The discovery was never used, and was well-nigh forgotten. On early Spanish maps, the Mississippi is often indistinguishable from other affluents of the Gulf. A century passed after De Soto's joumeyings in the South, before a French explorer reached a northem tributary of the great river. This was Jean Nicollet, interpreter at Three Rivers on the St. Lawrence. He had been some twenty years in Canada, had lived among the savage Algonquins of AUumette Island, and spent eight or nine years among the Nipissings, on the lake which bears their name. Here he became an Indian in all 4 INTRODUCTION. his habits, but remained, nevertheless, a zealous Catholic, and returned to civilization at last because he could not live without the sacraments. Strange stories were current among the Nipissings of a people without hair or beard, who came from the West to trade with a tribe beyond the Great Lakes. Who could doubt that these strangers were Chinese or Japanese? Such tales may well have excited Nicollet's curiosity; and when, in 1635, or possibly in 1638, he was sent as an ambassador to the tribe in question, he would not have been surprised if on arriving he had found a party of mandarins among them. Perhaps it was with a view to such a contin gency that he provided himself, as a dress of cere mony, with a robe of Chinese damask embroidered with birds and flowers. The tribe to which he was sent was that of the Winnebagoes, living near the head of the Green Bay of Lake Michigan. They had come to blows with the Hurons, allies of the French; and Nicollet was charged to negotiate a peace. When he approached the Winnebago town, he sent one of his Indian attendants to announce his coming, put on his robe of damask, and advanced to meet the expectant crowd with a pistol in each hand. The squaws and children fled, screaming that it was a manito, or spirit, armed with thunder and light ning; but the chiefs and warriors regaled him with so bountiful a hospitality that a hundred and twenty beavers were devoured at a single feast. From the Winnebagoes, he passed westward, ascended Fox INTRODUCTION. 6 River, crossed to the Wisconsin, and descended it so far that, as he reported on his retum, in three days more he would have reached the sea. The truth seems to be that he mistook the meaning of his Indian guides, and that the "great water" to which he was so near was not the sea, but the Mississippi. It has been affirmed that one Colonel Wood, of Virginia, reached a branch of the Mississippi as early as the year 1654, and that about 1670 a certain Captain Bolton penetrated to the river itself. Neither statement is sustained by sufficient evidence. It is further affirmed that, in 1678, a party from New England crossed the Mississippi, reached New Mexico, and, returning, reported their discoveries to the authorities of Boston, — a story without proof or probability. Meanwhile, French Jesuits and fur- traders pushed deeper and deeper into the wilder ness of the northern lakes. In 1641, Jogues and Raymbault preached the Faith to a concourse of Indians at the outlet of Lake Superior. Then came the havoc and desolation of the Iroquois war, and for years farther exploration was arrested. In 1658-59 Pierre Esprit Radisson, a Frenchman of St. Malo, and his brother-in-law, Mddard Chouart des Groseil- liers, penetrated the regions beyond Lake Superior, and roamed westward till, as Radisson declares, they reached what was called the Forked River, " because it has two branches, the one towards the west, the other towards the south, which, we believe, runs towards Mexico," — which seems to point to the 6 INTRODUCTION. Mississippi and its great confluent the Missouri. Two years later, the aged Jesuit Menard attempted to plant a mission on the southern shore of Lake Superior, but perished in the forest by famine or the tomahawk. Allouez succeeded him, explored a part of Lake Superior, and heard, in his turn, of the Sioux and their great river the "Messipi." More and more, the thoughts of the Jesuits — and not of the Jesuits alone — dwelt on this mysterious stream. Through what regions did it flow; and whither would it lead them, — to the South Sea or the "Sea of Virginia;" to Mexico, Japan, or China? The problem was soon to be solved, and the mystery revealed. CHAPTER I. 1643-1669. CAVELIER DE LA SALLE. The Youth or La Salle: his Connection with the Jesuits; HE GOES to Canada ; his Character ; his Schemes ; his Seign iory AT La Chine ; his Expedition in Search op a Western Passage to India. Among the burghers of Rouen was the old and rich family of the Caveliers. Though citizens and not nobles, some of their connections held high diplo matic posts and honorable employments at Court. They were destined to find a better claim to distinc tion. In 1643 was born at Rouen Robert Cavelier, better known by the designation of La Salle. ^ His father Jean and his uncle Henri were wealthy mer- 1 The following is the acte de naissance, discovered by Margry in the registres de I'etat civil, Paroisse St. Herbland, Rouen : " Le vingt- deuxifeme jour de novembre, 1643, a ^te baptist Eobert Cavelier, fils de honorable homme Jean Cavelier et de Catherine Geest ; ses par- rain et marraine honorables personnes Nicolas Geest et Marguerite Morice." La Salle's name in full was R^n^-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle. La Salle was the name of an estate near Eouen, belonging to the Caveliers. The wealthy French burghers often distinguished the various members of their families by designations borrowed from landed estates. Thus, Francois Marie Arouet, son of an ex-notary, received the name of Voltaire, which he made famous. 8 CAVELIER DE LA SALLE. [1666. chants, living more like nobles than like burghers; and the boy received an education answering to the marked traits of intellect and character which he soon began to display. He showed an inclination for the exact sciences, and especiaUy for the mathematics, in which he made great proficiency. At an early age, it is said, he became connected with the Jesuits; and, though doubt has been expressed of the state ment, it is probably true.^ La Salle was always an earnest Catholic ; and yet, judging by the qualities which his after-life evinced, he was not very liable to religious enthusiasm. It is nevertheless clear that the Society of Jesus may have had a powerful attraction for his youthful imagina tion. This great organization, so complicated yet so harmonious, a mighty machine moved from the centre by a single hand, was an image of regulated power, full of fascination for a mind like his. But if it was likely that he would be drawn into it, it was no less likely that he would soon wish to escape. To find 1 Margry, after investigations at Rouen, is satisfied of its truth {Journal General de I' Instruction Publique, xxxi. 571.) Family papers of the Caveliers, examined by the Abb^ Faillon, and copies of soma of which he has sent to me, lead to the same conclusion. We shall find several allusions hereafter to La Salle's having in his youth taught in a school, which, in his position, could only have been in connection with some religious community. The doubts alluded to have proceeded from the failure of Father Felix Martin, S. J., to find the name of La Salle on the list of novices. If he had looked for the name of Robert Cavelier, he would probably have found it. The companion of La SaUe, Hennepin, ia very explicit with regard to this connection with the Jesuits, a point on which he had no motive for falsehood. 1666.] LA SALLE AND THE JESUITS. 9 himself not at the centre of power, but at the circum ference; not the mover, but the moved; ihe passive instrument of another's will, taught to walk in pre scribed paths, to renounce his individuaUty and become a component atom of a vast whole, — would have been intolerable to him. Nature had shaped him for other uses than to teach a class of boys on the benches of a Jesuit school. Nor, on his part, was he likely to please his directors; for, self -con troUed and self-contained as he was, he was far too intractable a subject to serve their turn. A youth whose calm exterior hid an inexhaustible fund of pride; whose inflexible purposes, nursed in secret, the confessional and the " manifestation of conscience " could hardly drag to the light; whose strong person ality would not yield to the shaping hand ; and who, by a necessity of his nature, could obey no initiative but his own, — was not after the model that Loyola had commended to his followers. La Salle left the Jesuits, parting with them, it is said, on good terms, and with a reputation of excel lent acquirements and unimpeachable morals. This last is very credible. The cravings of a deep ambi tion, the hunger of an insatiable intellect, the intense longing for action and achievement, subdued in him aU other passions ; and in his faults the love of pleasure had no part. He had an elder brother in Canada, the Abbd Jean CaveUer, a priest of St. Sulpice. Apparently, it was this that shaped his destinies. His connection with the Jesuits had deprived him, 10 CAVELIER DE LA SALLE. [1666. under the French law, of the inheritance of his father, who had died not long before. An allowance was made to him of three or (as is elsewhere stated) four hundred livres a year, the capital of which was paid over to him ; and with this pittance he sailed for Canada, to seek his fortune, in the spring of 1666.^ Next, we find him at Montreal. In another volume, we have seen how an association of enthu siastic devotees had made a settlement at this place.'' Having in some measure accomplished its work, it was now dissolved; and the corporation of priests, styled the Seminary of St. Sulpice, which had taken a prominent part in the enterprise, and, indeed, had been created with a view to it, was now the proprietor and the feudal lord of Montreal. It was destined to retain its seignorial rights until the abolition of the feudal tenures of Canada in our own day, and it still holds vast possessions in the city and island. These worthy ecclesiastics, models of a discreet and sober conservatism, were holding a post with which a band of veteran soldiers or warlike frontiersmen would have been better matched. Montreal was per haps the most dangerous place in Canada. In time 1 It does not appear what vows La Salle had taken. By a recent ordinance (1666), persons entering religious orders could not take the final vows before the age of twenty-five. By the family papers above mentioned, it appears, however, that he had brought himself under the operation of the law, which debarred those who, having entered religious orders, afterwards withdrew, from claiming the inheritance of relatives who had died after their entrance. * The Jesuits in North America, chap. xv. 1666.] LA SALLE AT MONTREAL. 11 of war, which might have been called the normal condition of the colony, it was exposed by its posi tion to incessant inroads of the Iroquois, or Five Nations, of New York; and no man could venture into the forests or the fields without bearing his life in his hand. The savage confederates had just received a sharp chastisement at the hands of Courcelle, the governor; and the result was a treaty of peace which might at any moment be broken, but which was an inexpressible relief while it lasted. The priests of St. Sulpice were granting out their lands, on very easy terms, to settlers. They wished to extend a thin line of settlements along the front of their island, to form a sort of outpost, from which an alarm could be given on any descent of the Iroquois. La Salle was the man for such a purpose. Had the priests understood him, — which they evidently did not, for some of them suspected him of levity, the last foible with which he could be charged, — had they understood him, they would have seen in him a young man in whom the fire of youth glowed not the less ardently for the veil of reserve that covered it; who would shrink from no danger, but would not court it in bravado; and who would cling with an invincible tenacity of gripe to any purpose which he might espouse. There is good reason to think that he had come to Canada with purposes already con ceived, and that he was ready to avail himself of any stepping-stone which might help to realize them. Queylus, Superior of the Seminary, made him a 12 CAVELIER DE LA SALLE. [1666. generous offer; and he accepted it. This was the gratuitous grant of a large tract of land at the place now called La Chine, above the great rapids of the same name, and eight or nine miles from Montreal. On one hand, the place was greatly exposed to attack; and, on the other, it was favorably situated for the fur-trade. La Salle and his successors became its feudal proprietors, on the sole condition of deUver- ing to the Seminary, on every change of ownership, a medal of fine silver, weighing one mark.^ He entered on the improvement of his new domain with what means he could command, and began to grant out his land to such settlers as would, join him. Approaching the shore where the city of Montred now stands, one would have seen a row of small compact dwellings, extending along a narrow street, parallel to the river, and then, as now, caUed St. Paul Street. On a hill at the right stood the wind mill of the seigniors, built of stone, and pierced with loopholes to serVB, in time of need, as a place of defence. On the left, in an angle formed by the junction of a rivulet with the St. Lawrence, was a square bastioned fort of stone. Here lived the military governor, appointed by the Seminary, and commanding a few soldiers of the • regiment of Carignan. In front, on the line of the street, were the enclosure and buUdings of the Seminary, and, 1 Transport de la Seigneurie de St. Sulpice, cited by Faillon. La Salle called his new domain as above. Two or three years later, it received the name of La Chine, for a reason which will appear. 1667.] LA CHINE. 18 nearly adjoining them, those of the H6tel-Dieu, or Hospital, both provided for defence in case of an Indian attack. In the hospital enclosure was a smaU church, opening on the street, and, in the absence of any other, serving for the whole settlement.^ Landing, passing the fort, and walking southward along the shore, one would soon have left the rough clearings, and entered the primeval forest. Here, mUe after mile, he would have journeyed on in soU tude, when the hoarse roar of the rapids, foaming in fury on his left, would have reached his listening ear ; and at length, after a walk of some three hours, he would have found the rude beginnings of a settle ment. It was where the St. Lawrence widens into the broad expanse called the Lake of St. Louis. Here, La SaUe had traced out the circuit of a paU- saded vUlage, and assigned to each settler half an arpent, or about the third of an acre, within the enclosure, for which he was to render to the young seignior a yearly acknowledgment of three capons, besides six deniers — that is, half a sou — in money. To each was assigned, moreover, sixty arpents of land beyond the limits of the village, with the per petual rent of half a sou for each arpent. He also set apart a common, two hundred arpents in extent, for the use of the settlers, on condition of the pay- 1 A detailed plan of Montreal at this time is preserved in the Archives de I'Empire, and has been reproduced by Faillon. There is another, a few years later, and still more minute, of which a fac ¦imile will be found in the Library of the Canadian Parliament. 14 CAVELIER DE LA SALLE. [1668. ment by each of five sous a year. He reserved four hundred and twenty arpents for his own personal domain, and on this he began to clear the ground and erect buildings. Similar to this were the begin nings of all the Canadian seigniories formed at this troubled period. ^ That La Salle came to Canada with objects dis tinctly in view, is probable from the fact that he at once began to study the Indian languages, — and with such success that he is said, within two or three years, to have mastered the Iroquois and seven or eight other languages and dialects. ^ From the shore of his seigniory, he could gaze westward over the broad breast of the Lake of St. Louis, bounded by the dim forests of Chateauguay and Beauharnois; but his thoughts flew far beyond, across the wild and lonely world that stretched towards the sunset. Like Champlain, and all the early explorers, he dreamed of a passage to the South Sea, and a new road for commerce to the riches of China and Japan. Indians often came to his secluded settlement; and, on one occasion, he was visited by a band of the Seneca Iroquois, not long before the scourge of the colony, but now, in virtue of the treaty, wearing the sem- 1 The above particulars have been unearthed by the indefatigable Abb^ FaiUon. Some of La Salle's grants are still preserved in the ancient records of Montreal. ' Papiert de Fatnille. He is said to have made several journeys into the forests, towards the North, in the years 1667 and 1668, and to have satisfied himself that little could be hoped from explorations in that direction. 1669.] SCHEMES OF DISCOVERY. 15 blance of friendship. The visitors spent the wintei with him, and told him of a river called the Ohio, rising in their country, and flowing into the sea, but at such a distance that its mouth could only be reached after a joumey of eight or nine months. Evidentiy, the Ohio and the Mississippi are here merged into one.^ In accordance with geographical views then prevalent, he conceived that this great river must needs flow into the "Vermilion Sea;" that is, the Gulf of CaUfornia. If so, it would give him what he sought, a western passage to China; whUe, in any case, the populous Indian tribes said to inhabit its banks might be made a source of great commercial profit. La Salle's imagination took fire. His resolution was soon formed; and he descended the St. Lawrence to Quebec, to gain the countenance of the governor for his intended exploration. Few men were more skiUed than he in the art of clear and plausible state ment. Both the governor Courcelle and the intendant Talon were readUy won over to his plan ; for which, however, they seem to have given him no more sub stantial aid than that of the governor's letters patent authorizing the enterprise.^ The cost was to be his own; and he had no money, having spent it all on his seigniory. He therefore proposed that the Semi- 1 According to DoUier de Casson, who had good opportunities of knowing, the Iroquois always called the Mississippi the Ohio, while the Algonquins gave it its present name. " Patoulet a Colbert, 11 Nov., 1669. 16 CAVELIER DE LA SALLE. [1669. nary, which had given it to him, should buy it back again, with such improvements as he had made. Queylus, the Superior, being favorably disposed towards him, consented, and bought of him the greater part; while La Salle sold the remainder, including the clearings, to one Jean Milot, an iron monger, for twenty-eight hundred livres.^ With this he bought four canoes, with the necessary sup plies, and hired fourteen men. Meanwhile, the Seminary itseK was preparing a similar enterprise. The Jesuits at this time not only held an ascendency over the other ecclesiastics in Canada, but exercised an inordinate influence on the civil govemment. The Seminary priests of Montreal were jealous of these powerful rivals, and eager to emulate their zeal in the saving of souls and the con quering of new domains for the Faith. Under this impulse, they had, three years before, established a mission at Quints, on the north shore of Lake Ontario, in charge of two of their number, one of whom was the Abb^ Fdnelon, elder brother of the celebrated Archbishop of Cambray. Another of them, DoUier de Casson, had spent the winter in a hunting-camp of the Nipissings, where an Indian prisoner, captured in the Northwest, told him of popiUous tribes of that quarter living in heathenish darkness. On this, the Seminary priests resolved to essay their conversion; and an expedition, to be directed by DoUier, was fitted out to this end. * Cession de la Seigneurie; Contrat de Vente (Margry, i. 103, 104). 1669.] DEPARTURE. 17 He was not iU suited to the purpose. He had been a soldier in his youth, and had fought valiantly as an officer of cavalry under Turenne. He was a man of great courage ; of a tall, commanding person ; and of uncommon bodily strength, which he had notably proved in the campaign of Courcelle against the Iroquois, three years before.^ On going to Quebec to procure the necessary outfit, he was urged by CourceUe to modify his plans so far as to act in concert with La SaUe in exploring the mystery of the great unknown river of the West. DoUier and his brother priests consented. One of them, GaUn^e, was joined with him as a colleague, because he was skiUed in surveying, and could make a map of their route. Three canoes were procured, and seven hired men completed the party. It was determined that La Salle's expedition and that of the Seminary should be combined in one, — an arrangement ill suited to the character of the young explorer, who was unfit for any enterprise of which he was not the undisputed chief. Midsummer was near, and there was no time to lose. Yet the moment was most unpropitious, for a Seneca chief had lately been murdered by three scoundrel soldiers of the fort of Montreal ; and, while they were undergoing their trial, it became known 1 He was the author of the very curious and valuable Histoire de Montrial, preserved in the Bibliothfeque Mazarine, of which A copy is in my possession. The Historical Society of Montreal has recently resolved to print it. 2 18 CAVELIER DE LA SALLE. [1669. that three other Frenchmen had treacherously put to death several Iroquois of the Oneida tribe, in order to get possession of their furs. The whole colony trembled in expectation of a new outbreak of the war. Happily, the event proved otherwise. The authors of the last murder escaped; but the three soldiers were shot at Montreal, in presence of a con siderable number of the Iroquois, who declared themselves satisfied with the atonement; and on this same day, the sixth of July, the adventurers began their voyage. CHAPTER n. 1669-1671. LA SALLE AND THE SULPITIANS. The French in Western New York. — Louis Joliet. — The Sui/ PITIANS ON Lake Erie ; at Detroit ; at Saut Ste. Marie. — The Mtstert op La Salle : he discovers the Ohio ; he descends the illinois ; did he reach the mississippi t La Chine was the starting-point; and the com bined parties, in all twenty-four men with seven canoes, embarked on the Lake of St. Louis. With them were two other canoes, bearing the party of Senecas who had wintered at La SaUe's settlement, and who were now to act as guides. Father Galinde recounts the journey. He was no woodsman: the river, the forests, the rapids, were all new to him, and he dilates on them with the minuteness of a novice. Above all, he admired the Indian birch canoes. "If God," he says, "grants me the grace of returning to France, I shall try to carry one with me." Then he describes the bivouac: "Your lodg ing is as extraordinary as your vessels; for, after paddling or carrying the canoes all day, you find mother earth ready to receive your wearied body. If the weather is fair, you make a fire and lie down 20 LA SALLE AND THE SULPITIANS. [1669. to sleep without further trouble ; but if it rains, you must peel bark from the trees, and make a shed by laying it on a frame of sticks. As for your food, it is enough to make you bum all the cookery books that ever were written ; for in the woods of Canada one finds means to live weU without bread, wine, salt, pepper, or spice. The ordinary food is Indian com, or Turkey wheat as they call it in France, which is crushed between two stones and boiled, seasoning it with meat or fish, when you can get them. This sort of Hfe seemed so strange to us that we all felt the effects of it; and before we were a hundred leagues from Montreal, not one of us was free from some malady or other. At last, after all our misery, on the second of August, we discovered Lake Ontario, like a great sea with no land beyond it." Thirty-five days after leaving La Chine, they reached Irondequoit Bay, on the south side of the lake. Here they were met by a number of Seneca Indians, who professed friendship and invited them to their villages, fifteen or twenty miles distant. As this was on their way to the upper waters of the Ohio, and as they hoped to find guides at the viUages to conduct them, they accepted the invitation. DolUer, with most of the men, remained to guard the canoes; while La Salle, with Galin^e and eight other Frenchmen, accompanied by a troop of Indians, set out on the moming of the twelfth, and reached the principal village before evening. It stood on a 1669] THE SENECA VILLAGES. 21 hill, in the midst of a clearing nearly two leagues in compass.^ A rude stockade surrounded it; and as the visitors drew near they saw a band of old men seated on the grass, waiting to receive them. One of these veterans, so feeble with age that he could hardly stand, made them an harangue, in which he declared that the Senecas were their brothers, and invited them to enter the village. They did so, surrounded by a crowd of savages, and presently found them selves in the midst of a disorderly cluster of large but filthy abodes of bark, about a hundred and fifty in number, the most capacious of which was as signed to their use. Here they made their quarters, and were soon overwhelmed by Seneca hospitality. Children brought them pumpkins and berries from the woods; and boy messengers came to summon them to endless feasts, where they were regaled •with the flesh of dogs and with boiled maize seasoned with oil pressed from nuts and the seed of sunflowers. La Salle had flattered himself that he knew ienough Iroquois to hold communication with the Senecas; but he faUed completely in the attempt. The priests had a Dutch interpreter, who spoke Iroquois fluently, but knew so little French, and was withal so obsti nate, that he proved useless ; so that it was necessary to employ a man in the service of the Jesuit Fremin, whose mission was at this village. What the party needed was a guide to conduct them to the Ohio ; and 1 This village seems to have been that attacked by Denonville in 1687 It stood on Boughton Hill, near the present town of Victor. 22 LA SALLE AND THE SULPITIANS. [1669 soon after their arrival a party of warriors appeared, with a young prisoner belonging to one of the tribes of that region. Galin^e wanted to beg or buy him from his captors; but the Senecas had other inten tions. " I saw, " writes the priest, "the most miser able spectacle I ever beheld in my life." It was the prisoner tied to a stake and tortured for six hours with diabolical ingenuity, whUe the crowd danced and yeUed with delight, and the chiefs and elders sat in a row smoking their pipes and watching the con tortions of the victim with an air of serene enjoyment. The body was at last cut up and eaten, and in the evening the whole population occupied themselves in scaring away the angry ghftst by beating with sticks against the bark sides of the lodges. La Salle and his companions began to fear for their own safety. Some of their hosts wished to kUl them in revenge for the chief murdered near Montreal; and as these and others were at times in a frenzy of drunkenness, the position of the French became critical. They suspected that means had been used to prejudice the Senecas against them. Not only could they get no guides, but they were told that if they went to the Ohio the tribes of those parts would infaUibly kUl them. Their Dutch interpreter became disheartened and unmanageable, and, after staying a month at the village, the hope of getting farther on their way seemed less than ever. Their plan, it was clear, must be changed; and an Indian from Otinawatawa, a kind of Iroquois colony at the head 1669.] LOUIS JOLIET. 23 of Lake Ontario, offered to guide them to his viUage and show them a better way to the Ohio. They left the Senecas, coasted the south shore of the lake, passed the mouth of the Niagara, where they heard the distant roar of the cataract, and on the twenty- fourth of September reached Otinawatawa, which was a few mUes north of the present town of HamUton. The inhabitants proved friendly, and La SaUe received the welcome present of a Shawanoe prisoner, who told them that the Ohio could be reached in six weeks, and that he would guide them to it. DeUghted at this good fortune, they were about to set out ; when they heard, to their astonish ment, of the arrival of two other Frenchmen at a neighboring viUage. One of the strangers was destined to hold a con spicuous place in the history of westem discovery. This was Louis Joliet, a young man of about the age of La Salle. Like him, he had studied for the priest hood; but the world and the wilderness had con quered his early inclinations, and changed him to an active and adventurous fur-trader. Talon had sent him to discover and explore the copper-mines of Lake Superior. He had failed in the attempt, and was now returning. His Indian guide, afraid of passing the Niagara portage lest he should meet enemies, had led him from Lake Erie, by way of Grand River, towards the head of Lake Ontario; and thus it was that he met La Salle and the Sulpitians. 24 LA SALLE AND THE SULPITIANS. [1669 This meeting caused a change of plan. JoUet showed the priests a map which he had made of such parts of the Upper Lakes as he had visited, and gave them a copy of it; telling them, at the same time, of the Pottawattamies and other tribes of that region in grievous need of spiritual succor. The result was a determination on their part to foUow the route which he suggested, notwithstanding the remonstrances of La Salle, who in vain reminded them that the Jesuits had preoccupied the field, and would regard them as intruders. They resolved that the Pottawattamies shoiUd no longer sit in darkness; while, as for the Mississippi, it could be reached, as they conceived, with less risk by this northern route than by that of the south. La Salle was of a different mind. His goal was the Ohio, and not the northern lakes. A few days before, while hunting, he had been attacked by a fever, sarcastically ascribed by GaUnde to his having seen three large rattlesnakes crawling up a rock. He now told his two colleagues that he was in no condi tion to go forward, and should be forced to part with them. The staple of La Salle's character, as his life wUl attest, was an invincible determination of pur pose, which set at naught all risks and all sufferings. He had cast himself with all his resources into this enterprise ; and, while his faculties remained, he was not a man to recoil from it. On the other hand, the masculine fibre of which he was made did not always withhold him from the practice of the arts of address, 1670.] SEPARATION. 25 and the use of what DoUier de Casson styles belles paroles. He respected the priesthood, with the exception, it seems, of the Jesuits ; and he was under obUgations to the Sulpitians of Montreal. Hence there can be no doubt that he used his illness as a pretext for escaping from their company without ungraciousness, and foUowing his own path in his own way. On the last day of September, the priests made an altar, supported by the paddles of the canoes laid on forked sticks. DoUier said mass; La Salle and his foUowers received the sacrament, as did also those of his late colleagues; and thus they parted, the SiUpitians and their party descending the Grand River towards Lake Erie, whUe La Salle, as they supposed, began his return to Montreal. What course he actually took we shall soon inquire; and meanwhile, for a few moments, we will foUow the priests. When they reached Lake Erie, they saw it tossing Uke an angry ocean. They had no mind to tempt the dangerous and unknown navigation, and encamped for the winter in the forest near the penin- siUa called the Long Point. Here they gathered a good store of chestnuts, hickory-nuts, plums, and grapes, and built themselves a log cabin, with a recess at the end for an altar. They passed the winter unmolested, shooting game in abundance, and saying mass three times a week. Early in spring, they planted a large cross, attached to it the arms of France, and took formal possession of the country in 28 LA SALLE AND THE SULPITIANS. [1670. the name of Louis XIV. This done, they resumed their voyage, and, after many troubles, landed one evening in a state of exhaustion on or near Point Peldf), towards the westem extremity of Lake Erie. A storm rose as they lay asleep, and swept off a great part of their baggage, which, in their fatigue, they had left at the edge of the water. Their altar-service was lost with the rest, — a misfortune which they ascribed to the jealousy and malice of the Devil. Debarred henceforth from saying mass, they resolved to return to Montreal and leave the Pottawattamies uninstructed. They presently entered the strait by which Lake Huron joins Lake Erie, and landing near where Detroit now stands, found a large stone, somewhat suggestive of the human figure, which the Indians had bedaubed with paint, and which they worshipped as a manito. In view of their late mis fortune, this device of the arch-enemy excited their utmost resentment. "After the loss of our altar- service," writes Galinde, "and the hunger we had suffered, there was not a man of us who was not filled with hatred against this false deity. I devoted one of my axes to breaking him in pieces ; and then, having fastened our canoes side by side, we carried the largest piece to the middle of the river, and threw it, with all the rest, into the water, that he might never be heard of again. God rewarded us imme diately for this good action, for we killed a deer and a bear that same day." This is the first recorded passage of white men 1670.] AT STE. MARIE DU SAUT. 27 through the Strait of Detroit; though Joliet had, no doubt, passed this way on his retum from the Upper Lakes. 1 The two missionaries took this course, with the intention of proceeding to the Saut Ste. Marie, and there joining the Ottawas, and other tribes of that region, in their yearly descent to Montreal. They issued upon Lake Huron ; followed its eastern shores till they reached the Georgian Bay, near the head of which the Jesuits had established their great mission of the Hurons, destroyed, twenty years before, by the Iroquois;^ and, ignoring or slighting the labors of the rival missionaries, held their way northward along the rocky archipelago that edged those lonely coasts. They passed the Manitoulins, and, ascending the strait by which Lake Superior discharges its waters, arrived on the twenty-fifth of May at Ste. Marie du Saut. Here they found the two Jesuits, Dablon and Marquette, in a square fort of cedar pickets, buUt by their men within the past year, and enclosing a chapel and a house. Near by, they had cleared a large tract of land, and sown it with wheat, Indian corn, peas, and other crops. The new-comers were graciously received, and invited to vespers in the chapel ; but they very soon found La Salle's prediction made good, and saw that the Jesuit fathers wanted no help from St. Sulpice. Galinde, ^ The Jesuits and fur-traders, on their way to the Upper Lakes, had followed the route of the Ottawa, or, more recently, that of Toronto and the Georgian Bay. Iroquois hostility had long closed the Niagara portage and Lake Erie against them. * The Jesuits in North America. 28 LA SALLE AND THE SULPITIANS. [1670. on his part, takes occasion to remark, that, though the Jesuits had baptized a few Indians at the Saut, not one of them was a good enough Christian to receive the Eucharist; and he intimates that the case, by their own showing, was still worse at their mission of St. Esprit. The two Sulpitians did not care to prolong their stay ; and, three days after their arrival, they left the Saut, — not, as they expected, with the Indians, but with a French guide, furnished by the Jesuits. Ascending French River to Lake Nipissing, they crossed to the waters of the Ottawa, and descended to Montreal, which they reached on the eighteenth of June. They had made no discov eries and no converts ; but Galinde, after his arrival, made the earliest map of the Upper Lakes known to exist. 1 We retum now to La Salle, only to find ourselves involved in mist and obscurity. What did he do after he left the two priests? Unfortunately, a definite answer is not possible; and the next two years of his life remain in some measure an enigma. That he was busied in active exploration, and that he made important discoveries, is certain ; but the extent and character of these discoveries remain wrapped in doubt. He is known to have kept journals a^id made maps ; and these were in existence, and in possession of his niece, Madeleine Cavelier, then in advanced 1 See Appendix. The above narrative is from Recit de ce gui s'est passe de plus remarquable dans le Voyage de MM. DoUier et Gali nee. (Bibliothfequp Nationale.) 1689-70.] LA SALLE'S DISCOVERIES. 29 age, as late aa the year 1756 ; beyond which time the most diUgent inquiry has failed to trace them. Ahh6 Faillon affirms that some of La Salle's men, refusing to foUow him, retumed to La Chine, and that the place then received its name, in derision of the young adventurer's dream of a westward passage to China. ^ As for himself, the only distinct record of his move ments is that contained in a paper, entitled " Histoire de Monsieur de la SaUe." It is an account of his explorations, and of the state of parties in Canada previous to the year 1678, — taken from the lips of La Salle himself, by a person whose name does not appear, but who declares that he had ten or twelve conversations with him at Paris, whither he had come with a petition to the Court. The writer himself had never been in America, and was ignorant of its geography ; hence blunders on his part might reason ably be expected. His statements, however, are in some measure inteUigible; and the following is the substance of them. After leavuig the priests. La SaUe went to Onondaga, where we are left to infer that he suc ceeded better in getting a guide than he had before done among the Senecas. Thence he made his way to a point six or seven leagues distant from Lake Erie, where he reached a branch of the Ohio, and, descending it, followed the river as far as the rapids at Louisville, — or, as has been maintained, beyond 1 Dollier de Casson alludes to this as " cette transmigration erflfebre qui se fit de la Chine dans ces quartiers." 30 LA SALLE AND THE SULPITIANS. [1669-70. its confluence with the Mississippi. His men now refused to go farther, and abandoned him, escaping to the English and the Dutch ; whereupon he retraced his steps alone. ^ This must have been in the winter of 1669-70, orin the following spring; unless there is an error of date in the statement of Nicolas Perrot, the famous voyageur, who says that he met him in the summer of 1670, hunting on the Ottawa with a party of Iroquois. ^ But how was La Salle employed in the following year? The same memoir has its solution to the ' The following is the passage relating to this journey in the remarkable paper above mentioned. After recounting La Salle's visit with the Sulpitians to the Seneca village, and stating that the intrigues of the Jesuit missionary prevented them from obtaining a guide, it speaks of the separation of the travellers and the journey of Galin^e and his party to the Saut Ste. Marie, where " les J^suites les conge'diferent." It then proceeds as follows : " Cependant Mr. (le la Salle continua son chemin par une rivifere qui va de I'est Si I'ouest; et passe a Onontaque' [Onondagal, puis & six ou sept lieues au-dessous du Lac Erie; et estant parvenu jusqu'au 280""= ou 83™ degrd de longitude, et jusqu'au 41™ degr^ de latitude, trouva un sault qui tombe vers I'ouest dans un pays has, marescageux, tout convert de vielles souches, dont il y en a quelques-unes qui sont encore sur pied. II fut done contraint de prendre terre, et suivant une hauteur qui le pouvoit mener loin, il trouva quelques sauvages qui luy dirent que fort loin de 1^ le mesme fleuve qui se perdolt dans cette terre basse et vaste se reunuissoit en un lit. II continua done son chemin, mais comme la fatigue estoit grande, 23 ou 24 hommes qu'il avoit menez jusques Ik le quittferent tons en une nuit, regagnferent le fleuve, et se sauvferent, les uns a. la Nouvelle Hol- lande et les autres k la Nouvelle Angleterre. II se vit done seul il 400 lieues de chez luy, ou il ne laisse pas de revenir, remontant la rivifere et vivant de chasse, d'herbes, et de ce que luy donnferent les sauvages qu'il rencontra en son chemin." 2 Perrot, Memoires, 119, 120. 1669-71.] THE RIVER ILLINOIS. 31 problem. By this it appears that the indefatigable explorer embarked on Lake Erie, ascended the Detroit to Lake Huron, coasted the unknown shores of Michigan, passed the Straits of Michilimackinac, and, leaving Green Bay behind him, entered what is described as an incomparably larger bay, but which was evidently the southern portion of Lake Michigan. Thence he crossed to a river flowing westward, — evidently the Illinois, — and followed it until it was joined by another river flowing from the northwest to the southeast. By this, the Mississippi only can be meant; and he is reported to have said that he descended it to the thirty-sixth degree of latitude; where he stopped, assured that it discharged itself not into the Gulf of California, but into the Gulf of Mexico, and resolved to follow it thither at a future day, when better provided with men and supplies.^ The first of these statements, — that relating to the 'The memoir — after stating, as above, that he entered Lake Huron, doubled the peninsula of Michigan, and passed La Baye des Puants ( Green Bay) — says : " II reconnut une baye incomparable- ment plus large ; au fond de laquelle vers I'ouest il trouva un tres- beau havre et au fond de ce havre un fleuve qui va de I'est k I'ouest. II suivit ce fleuve, et estant parvenu jusqu'environ le 280""° degre de longitude et le 39™' de latitude, il trouva un autre fleuve qui se joignant au premier coulait du nordouest au sudest, et il suivit ce fleuve jusqu'au 36™' degre de latitude." The " trfes-beau havre " may have beeu the entrance of the river Chicago, whence, by an easy portage, he might have reached the Des Plaines branch of the Illinois. We shall see that he took this course in his famous exploration of 1682. The intendant Talon announces, in his despatches of this year that he had sent La Salle southward and westward to explore. 32 LA SALLE AND THE SULPITIANS. [1671 Ohio, — confused, vague, and in great part incorrect, as it certainly is, is nevertheless well sustained as regards one essential point. La Salle himself, in a memorial addressed to Count Frontenac in 1677, affirms that he discovered the Ohio, and descended it as far as to a fall which obstructed it.^ Again, his rival, Louis Joliet, whose testimony on this point cannot be suspected, made two maps of the region of the Mississippi and the Great Lakes. The Ohio is laid down on both of them, with an inscription to the effect that it had been explored by La Salle. ^ That 1 The following are his words (he speaks of himself in the third person) : " L'ann^e 1667, et les suivantes, il fit divers voyages avec beaucoup de de'penses, dans lesquels il decouvrit le premier beau- coup de pays au sud des grands lacs, et entre autres la grande riviere d'Ohio; il la suivit jusqu'k un endroit oh elle tombe de fort haut dans de vastes marais, k la hauteur de 37 degr^s, aprfes avoir fete grossie par une autre rivifere fort large qui vient du nord ; et toutes ces eaux se dfechargent selon toutes les apparences dans le Golfe du Mexique.'' This •' autre rivifere," which, it seems, was above the fall, may have been the Miami or the Scioto. There is but one fall on the river, that of Louisville, which is not so high as to deserve to be described as "fort haut," being only a strong rapid. The latitude, as will be seen, is different in the two accounts, and incorrect in both. « One of these maps is entitled Carte de la decouverte du Sieur Joliet, 1674. Over the lines representing the Ohio are the words, "Route du sieur de la Salle pour aller dans le Mexique." The other map of Joliet bears, also written over the Ohio, the words, " Rivifere par oil descendit le sieur de la Salle au sortir du lac Erie' pour aller dans le Mexique." I have also another manuscript map, made before the voyage of Joliet and Marquette, and apparently in the year 1673, on which the Ohio is represented as far as to a point a Uttle below Louisville, and over it is written, "Rivifere Ohio, ainsy appellfee par les Iroquois i, cause de sa beautfe, par oti le sieu^ 1671.] THE MISSISSIPPI. 33 he discovered the Ohio may then be regarded as established. That he descended it to the Mississippi, he himself does not pretend ; nor is there reason to beUeve that he did so. With regard to his alleged voyage down the lUinois, the case is different. Here, he is reported to have made a statement which admits but one inter pretation, — that of the discovery by him of the Mississippi prior to its discovery by Joliet and Marquette. This statement is attributed to a man not prone to vaunt his own exploits, who never pro claimed them in print, and whose testimony, even in his own case, must therefore have weight. But it comes to us through the medium of a person strongly biassed in favor of La Salle, and against Marquette and the Jesuits. Seven years had passed since the alleged discovery, and La Salle had not before laid claim to it; although it was matter of notoriety that during five years it had been claimed by Joliet, and that his claim was generaUy admitted. The correspondence of the govemor and the intendant is silent as to La Salle's having penetrated to the Mississippi, though the attempt was made under the auspices of the latter, as his own letters declare; while both had the dis covery of the great river earnestly at heart. The govemor, Frontenac, La Salle's ardent supporter and de la Salle est descendu." The Mississippi is not represented on this map ; but — and this is very significant, as indicating the extent of La Salle's exploration of the following year — a Small part of the upper Illinois is laid down. 34 LA SALLE AND THE SULPITIANS. [1671. ally, beUeved in 1672, as his letters show, that the Mississippi flowed into the Gulf of CaUfornia; and, two years later, he announces to the minister Colbert its discovery by JoUet.^ After La SaUe's death, his brother, his nephew, and his niece addressed a memo rial to the king, petitioning for certain grants in consideration of the discoveries of their relative, which they specify at some length ; but they do not pretend that he reached the Mississippi before his expeditions of 1679 to 1682.2 -phis silence is the more significant, as it is this very niece who had possession of the papers in which La Salle recounts the journeys of which the issues are in question.^ 1 Lettre de Frontenac au Ministre, 14 Nov., 1674. He here speaks of " la grande rivifere qu'il [Joliet] a trouvee, qui va du nord au sud, et qui est aussi large que celle du Saint-Laurent vis-k-vis de Que'- bec." Pour years later, Prontenac speaks slightingly of Joliet, but neither denies his discovery of the Mississippi, nor claims it for La Salle, in whose interest he writes. 2 Papiers de Famille ; Memoire presente au Roi. The following is an extract : " II parvient . . . jusqu'k la rivifere des Illinois. II y construisit un fort situ^ a 350 lieues au-deli du fort de Prontenac, et suivant eusuite le cours de cette rivifere, il trotiva qu'elle se jettoit dans un grand fieuve appelle par ceux du pays Mississippi, c'est a dire grande eau, environ cent lieues au-dessous du fort qu'il venoit de construire." This fort was Fort Crfevecoeur, built in 1680, near the site of Peoria. The memoir goes on to relate the descent of La Salle to the Gulf, which concluded this expedition of 1679-82. ' The following is an extract, given by Margry, from a letter of the aged Madeleine Cavelier, dated 21 Fevrier, 1756, and addressed to her nephew, M. Le Baillif, who had applied for the papers in behalf of the minister. Silhouette : " J'ay cherch^ une occasion slire pour vous anvoy^ les papiers de M. de la Salle. II y a des cartes que j'ay jointe k. ces papiers, qui doivent prouver que, en 1675, M. de Lasalle avet d^ja fet deux voyages en ces decouverte, puisqu'il 7 avet une carte, que je vous envoye, par laquelle il e«ft fait men- 1671.J LA SALLE'S DISCOVERIES. 35 Had they led him to the Mississippi, it is reasonably certain that she would have made it known in her memorial. La Salle discovered the Ohio, and in all probability the lUinois also; but that he discovered the Mississippi has not been proved, nor, in the Ught of the evidence we have, is it Ukely. tion de I'androit auquel M. de Lasalle aborda prfes le fleuve de Mis- sissipi; un autre androit qu'il nomme le fleuve Colbert; en un autre il prans possession de ce pais au nom du roy et fait planter une crois." The words of the aged and illiterate writer are obscure, but her expression " aborda prfes " seems to indicate that La Salle had not reached the Mississippi prior to 1675, but only approached it. Finally, a memorial presented to Seignelay, along with the ofiicial narrative of 1679-81, by a friend of La Salle, whose object was to place the discoverer and his achievements in the most favorable light, contains the following: "II [La Salle] a este le premier ^ former le dessein de ces descouvertes, qu'il communiqua, il y a plus de quince ans, k M. de Courcelles, gouverneur, et k M. Talon, intendant du Canada, qui I'approuvferent. II a fait ensuite plusieurs voyages de ce cost^-l^, et un entr'autres en 1669 avec MM. Dolier et Galin^e, prestres du S^minaire de St. Sulpice. II est vray que le sieur Jolliet, pour le prevenir,Jit un voyage in 1673, a la riviere Colbert ; mais ce fut uniquement pour y faire commerce.'' See Margry, ii. 285. This passage is a virtual admission that Joliet reached the Mississippi ( Colbert) before La Salle. Margry, in a series of papers in the Journal General de I'Instruction Publique for 1862, first took the position that La Salle reached the Mississippi in 1670 and 1671, and has brought forward in defence of it all the documents which his unwearied research enabled him to discover. Father Tailhan, S. J., has replied at length, in the copious notes to his edition of Nicolas Perrot, but without having seen the principal document cited by Margry, and of which extracts have been given in the notes to this chapter. CHAPTER III. 1670-1672. THE JESUITS ON THE LAKES. The Old Missions and the New. — A Change of Spirit. — Lake Superior and the Coppee-mines. — Ste. Marie. — La Pointe.— > Michilimackinac. — Jesuits on Lake Michigan. — Allouez AND Dablon. — The Jesuit Fur-trade. What were the Jesuits doing ? Since the ruin of their great mission of the Hurons, a perceptible change had taken place in them. They had put forth exertions almost superhuman, set at naught famine, disease, and death, lived with the self-abnegation of saints and died with the devotion of martyrs; and the result of all had been a disastrous failure. From no short-coming on their part, but from the force of events beyond the sphere of their influence, a very demon of havoc had crushed their incipient churches, slaughtered their converts, uprooted the populous communities on which their hopes had rested, and scattered them in bands of wretched fugitives far and wide through the wilderness. ^ They had devoted themselves in the fulness of faith to the building up * See " The Jesuits in North America." 1670-72.] REPORTS OF THE JESUITS. 37 of a Christian and Jesuit empire on the conversion of the great stationary tribes of the lakes ; and of these none remained but the Iroquois, the destroyers of the rest, — among whom, indeed, was a field which might stimulate their zeal by an abundant promise of suffer ings and martyrdoms, but which, from its geographi cal position, was too much exposed to Dutch and English influence to promise great and decisive results. Their best hopes were now in the North and the West; and thither, in great part, they had tumed their energies. We find them on Lake Huron, Lake Superior, and Lake Michigan, laboring vigorously as of old, but in a spirit not quite the same. Now, as before, two objects inspired their zeal, — the " greater glory of God," and the influence and credit of the Order of Jesus. If the one motive had somewhat lost in power, the other had gained. The epoch of the saints and martyrs was passing away ; and henceforth we find the Canadian Jesuit less and less an apostle, more and more an explorer, a man of science, and a poUtician. The yearly reports of the missions are stUl, for the edification of the pious reader, filled with intolerably tedious stories of baptisms, conver sions, and the exemplary deportment of neophytes, — for these have become a part of the formula; but they are relieved abundantly by more mundane topics. One finds observations on the winds, cur rents, and tides of the Great Lakes; speculations on a subterranean outlet of Lake Superior; accounts of 38 THE JESUITS ON THE LAKES. [1670-72. its copper-miaes, and how we, the Jesuit fathers, are laboring to explore them for the profit of the colony; surmises touching the North Sea, the South Sea, the Sea of China, which we hope ere long to discover; and reports of that great mysterious river of which the Indians tell us, — flowing southward, perhaps to the Gulf of Mexico, perhaps to the Vermilion Sea, — and the secrets whereof, with the help of the Virgin, we will soon reveal to the world. The Jesuit was as often a fanatic for his Order as for his faith; and oftener yet the two fanaticisms mingled in him inextricably. Ardently as he burned for the saving of souls, he would have none saved on the Upper Lakes except by his brethren and himself. He claimed a monopoly of conversion, with its attendant monopoly of toil, hardship, and martyr dom. Often disinterested for himself, he was inor dinately ambitious for the great corporate power in which he had merged his own personality; and here lies one cause, among many, of the seeming contra dictions which abound in the annals of the Order. Prefixed to the Belation of 1671 is that monument of Jesuit hardihood and enterprise, the map of Lake Superior, — a work of which, however, the exactness has been exaggerated, as compared with other Canadian maps of the day. While making surveys, the priests were diligently looking for copper. Father Dablon reports that they had found it in greatest abundance on Isle Minong, now Isle Royale. "A day's joumey from the head of the lake, on the 1670-72.] STE. MARIE DU SAUT. 39 south side, there is," he says, "a rock of copper weighing from six hundred to eight hundred pounds, lying on the shore where any who pass may see it; " and he further speaks of great copper boulders in the bed of the river Ontonagan.^ There were two principal missions on the Upper Lakes, which were, in a certain sense, the parents of the rest. One of these was Ste. Marie du Saut, — the same visited by Dollier and Galin^e, — at the outlet of Lake Superior. This was a noted fishing- place; for the rapids were full of white-fish, and Indians came thither in crowds. The permanent residents were an Ojibwa band, whom the French called Sauteurs, and whose bark lodges were clustered 1 He complains that the Indians were very averse to giving information on the subject, so that the Jesuits had not as yet dis covered the metal in situ, though they hoped soon to do so. The Indians told him that the copper had first been found by four hunters, who had landed on a certain island, near the north shore of the lake. Wishing to boil their food in a vessel of bark, they gathered stones on the shore, heated them red hot, and threw them in, but presently discovered them to be pure copper. Their repast over, they hastened to re-embark, being afraid of the lynxes and the hares, which, on this island, were as large as dogs, and which would have devoured their provisions, and perhaps their canoe. They took with them some of the wonderful stones; but scarcely had they left the island, when a deep voice, like thunder, sounded in their ears, " Who are these thieves who steal the toys of my children "i " It was the God of the Waters, or some other power ful manito. The four adventurers retreated in great terror ; but three of them soon died, and the fourth survived only long enough to reach his village, and tell the story. The island has no founda tion, but floats with the movement of the wind; and no Indian dares land on its shores, dreading the wrath of the manito. Dablon, Relation, 1670, 84. 40 THE JESUITS ON THE LAKES. [1670-72. at the foot of the rapids, near the fort of the Jesuits. Besides these, a host of Algonquins, of various tribes, resorted thither in the spring and summer, — living in abundance on the fishery, and dispersing in winter to wander and starve in scattered hunting-parties far and wide through the forests. The other chief mission was that of St. Esprit, at La Pointe, near the western extremity of Lake Superior. Here were the Hurons, fugitives twenty years before from the slaughter of their countrymen; and the Ottawas, who, Uke them, had sought an asylum from the rage of the Iroquois. Many other tribes — Illinois, Pottawattamies, Foxes, Menomonies, Sioux, Assiniboins, Knisteneaux, and a multitude besides — came hither yearly to trade with the French. Here was a young Jesuit, Jacques Marquette, lately arrived from the Saut Ste. Marie. His savage flock disheartened him by its backslidings ; and the best that he could report of the Hurons, after all the toU and all the blood lavished in their conversion, was, that they " still retain a little Christianity ; " while the Ottawas are " far removed from the kingdom of God, and addicted beyond all other tribes to foulness, incantations, and sacrifices to evil spirits. " ^ Marquette heard from the Illinois — yearly visitors at La Pointe — of the great river which they had crossed on their way,'^ and which, as he conjectured, flowed 1 Lettre du Phe Jacques Marquette au R. P. SupSrieur det Mis sions ; in Relation, 1670, 87. 2 The Illinois lived at this time beyond the Mississippi, thirt> 1670-72.] MARQUETTE AND ANDR^ 41 into the Gulf of California. He heard marvels of it also from the Sioux, who Uved on its banks; and a strong desire possessed him to explore the mystery of its course. A sudden calamity dashed his hopes. The Sioux — the Iroquois of the West, as the Jesuits caU them — had hitherto kept the peace with the expatriated tribes of La Pointe ; but now, from some cause not worth inquiry, they broke into open war, and so terrified the Hurons and Ottawas that they abandoned their settlements and fled. Marquette followed his panic-stricken flock, who, passing the Saut Ste. Marie, and descending to Lake Huron, stopped at length, — the Hurons at Michilimackinac, and the Ottawas at the Great Manitoulin Island. Two missions were now necessary to minister to the divided bands. That of Michilimackinac was assigned to Marquette, and that of the Manitoulin Island to Louis Andr^. The former took post at Point St. Ignace, on the north shore of the Straits of MichUimackinac, while the latter began the mission of St. Simon at the new abode of the Ottawas. When winter came, scattering his flock to their hunting-grounds, Andr^ made a missionary tour among the Nipissings and other neighboring tribes. The shores of Lake Huron had long been an utter days' joumey from La Pointe ; whither they had been driven by the Iroquois, from their former abode near Lake Michigan. Dablon (Relation, 1671, 24, 25) says that they lived seven days' journey beyond the Mississippi, in eight villages. A few years later, most of them retumed to the east side, and made their abode on the river HUnois. 42 THE JESUITS ON THE LAKES. [1670-72. solitude, swept of their denizens by the terror of the all-conquering Iroquois; but now that these tigers had felt the power of the French, and learned for a time to leave their Indian aUies in peace, the fugitive hordes were returning to their ancient abodes. Andre's experience among them was of the roughest. The staple of his diet was acorns and tripe de roche, — a species of lichen, which, being boiled, resolved itself into a black glue, nauseous, but not void of nourishment. At times, he was reduced to moss, the bark of trees, or moccasins and old moose-skins cut into strips and boiled. His hosts treated him very ill, and the worst of their fare was always his portion. When spring came to his relief, he retumed to his post of St. Simon, with impaired digestion and unabated zeal. Besides the Saut Ste. Marie and Michilimackinac, both noted fishing-places, there was another spot, no less famous for game and fish, and therefore a favorite resort of Indians. This was the head of the Green Bay of Lake Michigan.^ Here and in adjacent districts several distinct tribes had made their abode. The Menomonies were on the river which bears their name; the Pottawattamies and Winnebagoes were 1 The Baye des Puants of the early writers ; or, more correctly, La Baye des Eaux Puantes. The Winnebago Indians, living near it, were called Les Puans, apparently for no other reason than because some portion of the bay was said to have an odor like the sea. Lake Michigan, the "Lac des Illinois" of the French, was, according to a letter of Father Allouez, called " Machihiganing " by the Indians. Dablon writes the name " Mitchiganon." 1670-72.] THE GREEN BAY MISSION. 43 near the borders of the bay; the Sacs, on Fox River; the Mascoutins, Miamis, and Kickapoos, on the same river, above Lake Winnebago; and the Outagamies, or Foxes, on a tributary of it flowing from the north. Green Bay was manifestly suited for a mission ; and, as early as the autumn of 1669, Father Claude AUouez was sent thither to found one. After nearly perishing by the way, he set out to explore the destined field of his labors, and went as far as the town of the Mascoutins. Early in the autumn of 1670, having been joined by Dablon, Superior of the missions on the Upper Lakes, he made another jour ney, but not until the two fathers had held a council with the congregated tribes at St. Francois Xavier; for so they named their mission of Green Bay. Here, as they harangued their naked audience, their gravity was put to the proof; for a band of warriors, anxious to do them honor, walked incessantly up and down, aping the movements of the soldiers on guard before the governor's tent at Montreal. " We could hardly keep from laughing," writes Dablon, "though we were discoursing on very important subjects ; namely, the mysteries of our religion, and the things necessary to escaping from eternal fire."^ The fathers were delighted with the country, which Dablon calls an earthly paradise ; but he adds that the way to it is as hard as the path to heaven. He alludes especiaUy to the rapids of Fox River, which gave the two travellers great trouble. Having 1 Relation, 1671, 43. 44 THE JESUITS ON THE LAKES. [1670-72. safely passed them, they saw an Indian idol on the bank, similar to that which DolUer and GaUn^e found at Detroit, — being merely a rock, bearing some resemblance to a man, and hideously painted. With the help of their attendants, they threw it into the river. Dablon expatiates on the buffalo, which he describes apparently on the report of others, as his description is not very accurate. Crossing Winne bago Lake, the two priests followed the river leading to the town of the Mascoutins and Miamis, which they reached on the fifteenth of September. ^ These two tribes Uved together within the compass of the same enclosure of palisades, — to the number, it is said, of more than three thousand souls. The mis sionaries, who had brought a highly colored picture of the Last Judgment, called the Indians to council and displayed it before them; while Allouez, who spoke Algonquin, harangued them on hell, demons, and eternal flames. They listened with open ears, beset him night and day with questions, and invited liim and his companion to unceasing feasts. They were welcomed in every lodge, and followed every where with eyes of curiosity, wonder, and awe. Dablon overflows with praises of the Miami chief, who was honored by his subjects like a king, and * This town was on the Neenah or Fox River, above Lake Win nebago. The Mascoutins, Fire Nation, or Nation of the Prairie, are extinct or merged in other tribes. See " The Jesuits in North America." The Miamis soon removed to the banks of the river St. Joseph, near Lake Michigan. 1670-72.] THE CROSS AMONG THE FOXES. 45 whose demeanor towards his guests had no savor of the savage. Their hosts told them of the great river Mississippi, rising far in the north and flowing southward, — they knew not whither, — and of many tribes that dwelt along its banks. When at length they took their departure, they left behind them a reputation as medicine-men of transcendent power. In the winter following, Allouez visited the Foxes, whom he found in extreme ill-humor. They were incensed against the French by the ill-usage which some of their tribe had lately met when on a trading visit to Montreal; and they received the Faith with shouts of derision. The priest was horror-stricken at what he saw. Their lodges, each containing from five to ten families, seemed in his eyes Uke seraglios ; for some of the chiefs had eight wives. He armed himself with patience, and at length gained a hear ing. Nay, he succeeded so well, that when he showed them his crucifix they would throw tobacco on it as an offering ; and, on another visit which he made them soon after, he taught the whole village to make the sign of the cross. A war-party was going out against their enemies, and he bethought him of teUing them the story of the Cross and the Emperor Constantine. This so wrought upon them that they all daubed the figure of a cross on their shields of bull-hide, set out for the war, and came back victo rious, extolling the sacred symbol as a great war- medicine. 46 THE JESUITS ON THE LAKES. [1670-72. "Thus it is," writes Dablon, who chronicles the incident, " that our holy faith is established among these people ; and we have good hope that we shaU soon carry it to the famous river called the Mississippi, and perhaps even to the South Sea."^ Most things human have their phases of the ludicrous; and the heroism of these untiring priests is no exception to the rule. The various missionary stations were much alike. They consisted of a chapel (commonly of logs) and one or more houses, with perhaps a storehouse and a workshop; the whole fenced with palisades, and forming, in fact, a stockade fort, surrounded with clearings and cultivated fields. It is evident that the priests had need of other hands than their own and those of the few lay brothers attached to the mission. They required men inured to labor, accus tomed to the forest life, able to guide canoes and handle tools and weapons. In the earlier epoch of the missions, when enthusiasm was at its height, they were served in great measure by volunteers, who joined them through devotion or penitence, and who were known as donnSs, or "given men." Of late, the number of these had much diminished ; and they now relied chiefly on hired men, or engagSs. These were employed in building, hunting, fishing, clearing, and tilling the ground, guiding canoes, and (if faith is to be placed in reports current throughout the colony) in trading with the Indians for the profit I Ration, 1672, 42. 1670-72.] TRADING WITH INDIANS. 47 of the missions. This charge of trading — which, if the results were applied exclusively to the support of the missions, does not of necessity involve much censure — is vehemently reiterated in many quarters, including the official despatches of the govemor of Canada; while, so far as 1 can discover, the Jesuits never distinctly denied it, and on several occasions they partiaUy admitted its truth. ^ 1 This charge was made from the first establishment of the mis sions. For remarks on it, see " The Jesuits in North America " an^ "The Old Regime in Canada." CHAPTER IV. 1667-1672. PKANCB TAKES POSSESSION OF THE WEST. Talon. — Saint-Lusson. — Perrot. — The Ceremony at Saut Stb, Marie. — The Speech of Allouez. — Count Frontenac. Jean Talon, intendant of Canada, was full of projects for the good of the colony. On the one hand, he set himself to the development of its indus tries, and, on the other, to the extension of its domain. He meant to occupy the interior of the continent, control the rivers, which were its only highways, and hold it for France against every other nation. On the east, England was to be hemmed within a narrow strip of seaboard; while, on the south. Talon aimed at securing a port on the Gulf of Mexico, to keep the Spaniards in check, and dispute ¦with them the possession of the vast regions which they claimed as their own. But the interior of the continent was still an unknown world. It behooved him to explore it ; and to that end he availed himself of Jesuits, officers, fur-traders, and enterprising schemers like La Salle. His efforts at discovery seem to have been conducted with a singular economy 1670.] SAINT-LUSSON AND PERROT. 49 of the King's purse. La Salle paid all the expenses of his first expedition made under Talon's auspices ; and apparently of the second also, though the intend ant announces it in his despatches as an expedition sent out by himself.^ When, in 1670, he ordered Daumont de Saint-Lusson to search for copper mines on Lake Superior, and at the same time to take formal possession of the whole interior for the King, it was arranged that he should pay the costs of the joumey by trading with the Indians. ^ Saint-Lusson set out with a small party of men, and Nicolas Perrot as his interpreter. Among Canadian voyageurs, few names are so conspicuous as that of Perrot ; not because there were not others who matched him in achievement, but because he could write, and left behind him a tolerable account of what he had seen.^ He was at this time twenty- six years old, and had formerly been an engage of the Jesuits. He was a man of enterprise, courage, and 1 At least. La Salle was in great need of money, about the time of liis second joumey. On the sixth of August, 1671, he had received on credit, "dans son grand besoiu et n&essit^," from Branssac, fiscal attorney of the Seminary, merchandise to the amount of four hundred and fifty livres ; and on the eighteenth of Decem ber of the following year he gave his promise to pay the same sum, in money or furs, in the August following. Faillon found the papers in the ancient records of Montreal. 2 In his^despatch of 2d Nov., 1671, Talon writes to the King that " Saint-Lusson's expedition will cost nothing, as he has received beaver enough from the Indians to pay him." ' Mosurs, Coustumes, et Relligion des Sauvages de I'Amirique Sep- tentrionale. This work of Perrot, hitherto unpublished, appeared in 1864, under the editorship of Father Tailhan, S. J. A great part of it is incorporated in La Potherie. 4 50 FRANCE TAKES POSSESSION, ETC. [1670. address, —the last being especially shown in his dealings with Indians, pver whom he had great influence. He spoke Algonquin fluently, and was favorably known to many tribes of that family. Saint-Lusson wintered at the Manitoulin Islands; while Perrot, having first sent messages to the tribes of the north, inviting them to meet the deputy of the governor at the Saut Ste. Marie in the foUowing spring, proceeded to Green Bay, to urge the same invitation upon the tribes of that quarter. They knew him well, and greeted him with clamors of welcome. The Miamis, it is said, received him with a sham battle, which was designed to do him honor, but by which nerves more susceptible would have been severely shaken, i They entertained him also with a grand game of la cros&e, the Indian ball-play. Perrot gives a marvellous account of the authority and state of the Miami chief, who, he says, was attended day and night by a guard of warriors, — an assertion which would be incredible, were it not sustained by the account of the same chief given by the Jesuit Dablon. Of the tribes of the Bay, the greater part promised to send delegates to the Saut; but the Pottawattamies dissuaded the Miami poten tate from attempting so long a journey, lest the fatigue incident to it might injure his health ; and he 1 See La Potherie, ii. 125. Perrot himself does not mention it. Charlevoix erroneously places this interview at Chicago. Perrot's narrative shows that he did not go farther than the tribes of Green Bay ; and the Miamis were then, as we have seen, on the upper part of Fox River. 1671.] CEREMONY AT THE SAUT. 51 therefore deputed them to represent him and his tribesmen at the great meeting. Their principal chiefs, with those of the Sacs, Winnebagoes, and Menomonies, embarked, and paddled for the place of rendezvous, where they and Perrot arrived on the fifth of May.i Saint-Lusson was here with his men, fifteen in number, among whom was Louis Joliet ; ^ and Indians were fast thronging in from their wintering grounds, attracted, as usual, by the fishery of the rapids or moved by the messages sent by Perrot, — Crees, Monsonis, Amikouds, Nipissings, and many more. When fourteen tribes, or their representatives, had arrived, Saint-Lusson prepared to execute the com mission with which he was charged. At the foot of the rapids was the village of the Sauteurs, above the village was a hill, and hard by stood the fort of the Jesuits. On the morning of the fourteenth of June, Saint-Lusson led his followers to the top of the hill, all fully equipped and under arms. Here, too, in the vestments of their priestly office, were four Jesuits, — Claude Dablon, Superior of the Missions of the lakes, Gabriel Druilletes, Claude Allouez, and Louis Andr^.^ All around the great throng of Indians stood, or crouched, or recUned at length, with eyes and ears intent. A 1 Perrot, Memoires, 127. 2 Proces Verbal de la Prise de Possession, etc., 14 Juin, 1671. The names are attached to this instrument. ' Marquette is said to have been present ; but the official acti just cited, proves the contrary. He was still at St. Esprit. 52 FRANCE TAKES POSSESSION, ETC. [1671. large cross of wood had been made ready. Dablon, in solemn form, pronounced his blessing on it; and then it was reared and planted in the ground, while the Frenchmen, uncovered, sang the Vexilla Regis. Then a post of cedar was planted beside it, with a metal plate attached, engraven with the royal arms ; while Saint-Lusson's followers sang the Exaudiat, and one of the Jesuits uttered a prayer for the King. Saint-Lusson now advanced,- and, holding his sword in one hand, and raising with the other a sod of earth, proclaimed in a loud voice, — "In the name of the Most High, Mighty, and Redoubted Monarch, Louis, Fourteenth of that name. Most Christian King of France and of Navarre, I take possession of this place, Sainte Marie du Saut, as also of Lakes Huron and Superior, the Island of Manitoulin, and all countries, rivers, lakes, and streams contiguous and adjacent thereunto, — both those which have been discovered and those which may be discovered hereafter, in all their length and breadth, bounded on the one side by the seas of the North and of the West, and on the other by the South Sea: declaring to the nations thereof that from this time forth they are vassals of his Majesty, bound to obey his laws and follow his customs ; promising them on his part all succor and protection against the incursions and inv-asions of their enemies: declaring to all other potentates, princes, sovereigns, states, andrepubUcs, — to them and to their subjects, — that they cannot and are not to seize or settle upon any 1671.] ALLOUEZ'S HARANGUE. 53 parts of the aforesaid countries, save only under the good pleasure of His Most Christian Majesty, and of him who will govern in his behalf ; and this on pain of incurring his resentment and the efforts of his arms. Vive le Boi."^ The Frenchmen fired their guns and shouted " Vive le Roi," and the yelps of the astonished Indians mingled with the din. What now remains of the sovereignty thus pom pously proclaimed? Now and then the accents of France on the lips of some straggling boatman or vagabond half-breed, — this, and nothing more. When the uproar was over. Father Allouez ad dressed the Indians in a solemn harangue ; and these were his words : " It is a good work, my brothers, an important work, a great work, that brings us together in council to-day. Look up at the cross which rises so high above your heads. It was there that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, after making himself a man for the love of men, was nailed and died, to satisfy his Eternal Father for our sins. He is the master of our Uves ; the ruler of Heaven, Earth, and Hell. It is he of whom I am continually speaking to you, and whose name and word I have bome through all your country. But look at this post to which are fixed the arms of the great chief of France, whom we call King. He Uves across the sea. He is the chief of the greatest chiefs, and has no equal on earth. All the chiefs whom you have ever seen are but children 1 Proces 'Verbal de la Prise de Possession. 54 FRANCE TAKES POSSESSION, ETC. [1671 beside him. He is Uke a great tree, and they are but the Uttle herbs that one walks over and tramples under foot. You know Onontio,^ that famous chief at Quebec ; you know and you have seen that he is the terror of the Iroquois, and that his very name makes them tremble, since he has laid their country waste and bumed their towns with fire. Across the sea there are ten thousand Onontios like him, who are but the warriors of our great King, of whom I have told you. When he says, ' I am going to war, ' everybody obeys his orders; and each of these ten thousand chiefs raises a troop of a hundred warriors, some on sea and some on land. Some embark in great ships, such as you have seen at Quebec. Your canoes carry only four or five men, or, at the most, ten or twelve ; but our ships carry four or five hun dred, and sometimes a thousand. Others go to war by land, and in such numbers that if they stood in a double file they would reach from here to Mississa- quenk, which is more than twenty leagues off. When our King attacks his enemies, he is more terrible than the thunder: the earth trembles; the air and the sea are all on fire with the blaze of his cannon : he is seen in the midst of his warriors, covered over with the blood of his enemies, whom he kills in such numbers that he does not reckon them by the scalps, but by the streams of blood which he causes to flow. He takes so many prisoners that he holds them in no account, but lets them go where they will, to show * The Indian name of the govemor of Canada. 1671.] ALLOUEZ'S HARANGUE. 65 that he is not afraid of them. But now nobody dares make war on him. All the nations beyond the sea have submitted to him and begged humbly for peace. Men come from every quarter of the earth to listen to him and admire him. AU that is done in the world is decided by him alone. " But what shall I say of his riches ? You think yourselves rich when you have ten or twelve sacks of corn, a few hatchets, beads, kettles, and other things of that sort. He has cities of his own, more than there are of men in all this country for five hundred leagues around. In each city there are storehouses where there are hatchets enough to cut down all your forests, kettles enough to cook all your moose, and beads enough to fill all your lodges. His house is longer than from here to the top of the Saut, — that is to say, more than half a league, — and higher than your tallest trees ; and it holds more families than the largest of your towns. "^ The father added more in a similar strain; but the peroration of his harangue is not on record. Whatever impression this curious effort of Jesuit rhetoric may have produced upon the hearers, it did not prevent them from stripping the royal arms from the post to which they were nailed, as soon as Saint- Lusson and his men had left the Saut ; probably, not because they understood the import of the sjmibol, but because they feared it as a charm. Saint-Lusson 1 A close translation of Dablon's report of the speech. See Relation, 1671, 27. 56 FRANCE TAKES POSSESSION, ETC. [1672. proceeded to Lake Superior, where, however, he accomplished nothing, except, perhaps, a traffic with the Indians on his own account; and he soon after retumed to Quebec. Talon was resolved to find the Mississippi, the most interesting object of search, and seemingly the most attainable, in the wild and vague domain which he had just claimed for the King. The Indians had described it; the Jesuits were eager to discover it; and La Salle, if he had not reached it, had explored two several avenues by which it might be approached. Talon looked about him for a fit agent of the enterprise, and made choice of Louis Joliet, who had returned from Lake Superior.^ But the intendant was not to see the fulfilment of his design. His busy and useful career in Canada was dravdng to an end. A misunder standing had arisen between him and the governor, Courcelle. Both were faithful servants of the King; but the relations between the two chiefs of the colony were of a nature necessarily so critical, that a con flict of authority was scarcely to be avoided. Each thought his functions encroached upon, and both asked for recall. Another governor succeeded ; one who was to stamp his mark, broad, bold, and inefface able, on the most memorable page of French-American History, — Louis de Buade, Count of Palluau and Frontenac. 1 Lettre de Frontenac au Ministre, 2 Nov., 1672. In the Brodhead Collection, by a copyist's error, the name of the Chevalier de Grand- fontaine is substituted for that of Talon. CHAPTER V. 1672-1675. THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPL Joliet sent to find the Mississippi. — Jacques Marquette. — Departure. — Green Bay. — The Wisconsin. — The Missis sippi. — Indians. — Manitous. — The Arkansas. — The Illi nois. — Joliet's Misfortune. — Marquette at Chicago: his Illness ; his Death. If Talon had remained in the colony, Frontenac would infallibly have quarrelled with him; but he was too clear-sighted not to approve his plans for the discovery and occupation of the interior. Before saiUng for France, Talon recommended Joliet as a suitable agent for the discovery of the Mississippi, and the governor accepted his counsel. ^ Louis Joliet was the son of a wagon-maker in the service of the Company of the Hundred Associates,^ then owners of Canada. He was born at Quebec in 1645, and was educated by the Jesuits. When still very young, he resolved to be a priest. He received the tonsure and the minor orders at the age of seven- 1 Lettre de Frontenac au Ministre, 2 Nov., 1672 ; Ibid., 14 Nov., 1674. 2 See " The Jesuits in North America." 58 THE DISCOVERY OF THE mSSISSIPPI. [1673. teen. Four years after, he is mentioned with especial honor for the part he bore in the disputes in phU- osophy, at which the dignitaries of the colony were present, and in which the intendant himself took part.^ Not long after, he renounced his clerical vocation, and turned fur-trader. Talon sent him, with one P^r^, to explore the copper-mines of Lake Superior ; and it was on his return from this expedi tion that he met La SaUe and the Sulpitians near the head of Lake Ontario.^ In what we know of Joliet, there is nothing that reveals any salient or distinctive trait of character, any especial breadth of view or boldness of design. He appears to have been simply a merchant, intelli gent, well educated, courageous, hardy, and enter prising. Though he had renounced the priesthood, he retained his partiality for the Jesuits ; and it is more than probable that their influence had aided not a little to determine Talon's choice. One of their 1 "Le2 Juillet (1666) les premieres disputes de philosophic se font dans la congrijgation avec succfes. Toutes les puissances s'y trouvent; M. I'Intendant entr'autres ya argumente tr^s-bien. M. Jolliet et Pierre Francheville y ont tres-bien r^pondu de toute la logique." — Journal des Jgsuites. 2 Nothing was known of Joliet till Shea investigated his history. Ferland, in his Notes sur les Registres de Notre-Dame de Quebec; Faillon, in his Colonie Fran^aise en Canada ; and Margry, in a series of papers in the Journal Gindral de I'Instruction Publique, — have thrown much new light on his life. From journals of a, voyage made by him at a later period to the coast of Labrador, given in substance by Margry, he seems to have been a man of close and intelligent observation. His mathematical acquirements appear to have been very considerable. 1673.] MARQUETTE. 59 number, Jacques Marquette, was chosen to accompany him. He passed up the lakes to Michilimackinac, and found his destined companion at Point St. Ignace, on the north side of the strait, where, in his palisaded mission-house and chapel, he had labored for two years past to instruct the Huron refugees from St. Esprit, and a band of Ottawas who had joined them. Marquette was born in 1637, of an old and honor able family at Laon, in the north of France, and was now thirty-five years of age. When about seventeen, he had joined the Jesuits, evidently from motives purely religious ; and in 1666 he was sent to the mis sions of Canada. At first, he was destined to the station of Tadoussac ; and to prepare himself for it, he studied the Montagnais language under Gabriel DruUletes. But his destination was changed, and he was sent to the Upper Lakes in 1668, where he had since remained. His talents as a linguist must have been great; for within a few years he leamed to speak with ease six Indian languages. The traits of his character are unmistakable. He was of the brotherhood of the early Canadian missionaries, and the true counterpart of Gamier or Jogues. He was a devout votary of the Virgin Mary, who, imaged to his mind in shapes of the most transcendent loveU- ness with which the pencil of human genius has ever informed the canvas, was to him the object of an adoration not unmingled with a sentiment of chival rous devotion. The longings of a secsitive heart, 60 THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. [1873, divorced from earth, sought solace in the skies. A subtile element of romance was blended with the fervor of his worship, and hung like an Ulumined cloud over the harsh and hard realities of his daily lot. Kindled by the smile of his celestial mistress, his gentle and noble nature knew no fear. For her he burned to dare and to suffer, discover new lands and conquer new realms to her sway. He begins the journal of his voyage thus: "The day of the Immaculate Conception of the Holy Virgin; whom I had continually invoked since I came to this country of the Ottawas to obtain from God the favor of being enabled to visit the nations on the river Mississippi, — this very day was precisely that on which M. JoUet arrived with orders from Count Frontenac, our governor, and from M. Talon, our intendant, to go with me on this discovery. I was all the more delighted at this good news, because I saw my plans about to be accomplished, and found myself in the happy necessity of exposing my life for the salvation of all these tribes, — and especially of the Illinois, who, when I was at Point St. Esprit, had begged me very earnestly to bring the word of God among them." The outfit of the travellers was very simple. They provided themselves with two birch canoes, and a supply of smoked meat and Indian corn ; embarked with five men, and began their voyage on the seven teenth of May. They had obtained all possible infor mation from the Indians, and had made, by means 1673.] DEPARTURE. 61 of it, a species of map of their intended route. " Above all, " writes Marquette, " I placed our voyage under the protection of the Holy Virgin Immaculate, promising that if she granted us the favor of dis covering the great river, I would give it the name of the Conception. " 1 Their course was westward ; and, plying their paddles, they passed the Straits of Michilimackinac, and coasted the northern shores of Lake Michigan, landing at evening to build their camp-fire at the edge of the forest, and draw up their canoes on the strand. They soon reached the river Menomonie, and ascended it to the village of the Menomonies, or WUd-rice Indians.^ When they told them the object of their voyage, they were fiUed with astonishment, and used their best ingenuity to dissuade them. The banks of the Mississippi, they said, were inhabited by ferocious tribes, who put every stranger to death, tomahawking all new-comers with out cause or provocation. They added that there was a demon in a certain part of the river, whose roar could be heard at a great distance, and who would engulf them in the abyss where he dwelt ; that its waters were full of frightful monsters, who would devour them and their canoe; and, finaUy, that the 1 The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, sanctioned in our own time by the Pope, was always a favorite tenet of the Jesuits ; and Marquette was especially devoted to it. ' The Malhoumines, Malouminek, Oumalouminek, or Nation des FoUes-Avoines, of early French writers. The /olle-avoine, wild oats or "wild rice" (Zizania aquatica), was their ordinary food, as also «f other tribes of this region. 62 THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. [1673. heat was so great that they would perish inevitably. Marquette set their counsel at naught, gave them a few words of instruction in the mysteries of the Faith, taught them a prayer, and bade them farewell. The travellers next reached the mission at the head of Green Bay; entered Fox River; with difficulty and labor dragged their canoes up the long and tumultuous rapids; crossed Lake Winnebago; and followed the quiet windings of the river beyond, where they glided through an endless growth of wild rice, and scared the innumerable birds that fed upon it. On either hand rolled the prairie, dotted with groves and trees, browsing elk and deer.^ On the seventh of June, they reached the Mascoutins and Miamis, who, since the visit of Dablon and Allouez, had been joined by the Kickapoos. Marquette, who had an eye for natural beauty, was delighted with the situa tion of the town, which he describes as standing on the crown of a hill; while, all around, the prairie stretched beyond the sight, interspersed with groves and belts of tall forest. But he was still more delighted when he saw a cross planted in the midst of the place. The Indians had decorated it with a number of dressed deer-skins, red girdles, and bows and arrows, which they had hung upon it as an offer ing to the Great Manitou of the French ; a sight by which Marquette says he was "extremely consoled." 1 Dablon, on his journey with Allouez in 1670, was delighted with the aspect of the country and the abundance of game along this river. Carver, a century later, speaks to the same effect, say ing that the birds rose up in clouds from the wild-rice marshes. 1673.] THE AVISCONSIN RIVER. 63 The travellers had no sooner reached the town than they called the chiefs and aiders to a council. Joliet told them that the governor of Canada had sent him to discover new countries, and that God had sent his companion to teach the true faith to the inhabitants ; and he prayed for guides to show them the way to the waters of the Wisconsin. The council readily consented ; and on the tenth of June the Frenchmen embarked again, with two Indians to conduct them. All the town came down to the shore to see their departure. Here were the Miamis, with long locks of hair dangling over each ear, after a fashion which Marquette thought very becoming ; and here, too, the Mascoutins and the Kickapoos, whom he describes as mere boors in comparison with their Miami towns men. All stared alike at the seven adventurers, marvelUng that men could be found to risk an enterprise so hazardous. The river twisted among lakes and marshes choked with wild rice ; and, but for their guides, they could scarcely have foUowed the perplexed and narrow channel. It brought them at last to the portage, where, after carrying their canoes a mile and a half over the prairie and through the marsh, they launched them on the Wisconsin, bade farewell to the waters that flowed to the St. Lawrence, and committed themselves to the current that was to bear them they knew not whither, — perhaps to the Gulf of Mexico, perhaps to the South Sea or the Gulf of California. They glided calmly down the tranquil stream, by 64 THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPL [1673. islands choked with trees and matted with entan gling grape-vines ; by forests, groves, and prairies, the parks and pleasure-grounds of a prodigal Nature ; by thickets and marshes and broad bare sand-bars ; under the shadovring trees, between whose tops looked down from afar the bold brow of some woody bluff. At night, the bivouac, — the canoes inverted on the bank, the flickering fire, the meal of bison-flesh or venison, the evening pipes, and slumber beneath the stars ; and when in the morning they embarked again, the mist hung on the river like a bridal veil, then melted before the sun, till the glassy water and the languid woods basked breathless in the sultry glare. ^ On the seventeenth of June they saw on their right the broad meadows, bounded in the distance by rugged hills, where now stand the town and fort of Prairie du Chien. Before them a wide and rapid current coursed athwart their way, by the foot of lofty heights wrapped thick in forests. They had found what they sought, and "with a joy," writes Mar quette, "which I cannot express," they steered forth their canoes on the eddies of the Mississippi. Turning southward, they paddled down the stream, through a solitude unrelieved by the faintest trace of man. A large fish, apparently one of the huge cat fish of the Mississippi, blundered against Marquette's canoe, with a force which seems to have startled him ; and once, as they drew in their net, they caught 1 The above traits of the scenery of the Wisconsin are taken from personal observation of the river during midsummer. 1678.] THE MISSISSIPPI. 65 a "spade-fish," whose eccentric appearance greatly astonished them. At length the buffalo began to appear, grazing in herds on the great prairies which then bordered the river; and Marquette describes the fierce and stupid look of the old bulls, as they stared at the intruders through the tangled mane which nearly blinded them. They advanced vdth extreme caution, landed at night, and made a fire to cook their evening meal; then extinguished it, embarked again, paddled some way farther, and anchored in the stream, keeping a man on the watch till moming. They had journeyed more than a fortnight without meeting a human being, when, on the twenty-fifth, they discovered footprints of men in the mud of the westem bank, and a well-trodden path that led to the adjacent prairie. Joliet and Marquette resolved to follow it; and leaving the canoes in charge of their men, they set out on their hazardous adventure. The day was fair, and they walked two leagues in silence, follow ing the path through the forest and across the sunny prairie, tiU they discovered an Indian village on the banks of a river, and two others on a hill haU a league distant.^ Now, with beating hearts, they invoked the aid of Heaven, and, again advancing, came so near, without being seen, that they could ^ The Indian villages, under the names of Peouaria {Peoria) and Moingouena, are represented in Marquette's map upon a river cor responding in position with the Des Moines ; though the distance from the Wisconsin, as given by him, would indicate a river farther north. 66 THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPL [1673. hear the voices of the Indians among the wigwams. Then they stood forth in full view, and shouted to attract attention. There was great commotion in the viUage. The inmates swarmed out of their huts, and four of their chief men presently came forward to meet the strangers, advancing very deliberately, and holding up toward the sun two calumets, or peace- pipes, decorated with feathers. They stopped abruptly before the two Frenchmen, and stood gaz ing at them without speaking a word. Marquette was much reUeved on seeing that they wore French cloth, whence he judged that they must be friends and allies. He broke the silence, and asked them who they were; whereupon they answered that they were Illinois, and offered the pipe; which having been duly smoked, they aU went together to the village. Here the chief received the traveUers after a singular fashion, meant to do them honor. He stood stark naked at the door of a large wigwam, holding up both hands as if to shield his eyes. "Frenchmen, how bright the sun shines when you come to visit us! All our village awaits you; and you shall enter our wigwams in peace." So saying, he led them into his own, which was crowded to suffocation with savages, staring at their guests in silence. Having smoked with the chiefs and old men, they were invited to visit the great chief of all the Illinois, at one of the villages they had seen in the distance; and thither they proceeded, followed by a throng of warriors, squaws, and children. On 1673.] THE ILLINOIS INDIANS. 67 arriving, they were forced to smoke again, and listen to a speech of welcome from the great chief, who delivered it standing between two old men, naked like hunself. His lodge was crowded with the digni taries of the tribe, whom Marquette addressed in Algonquin, announcing himself as a messenger sent by the God who had made them, and whom it behooves them to recognize and obey. He added a few words touching the power and glory of Count Frontenac, and concluded by asking information conceming the Mississippi, and the tribes along its banks, whom he was on his way to visit. The chief repUed with a speech of compUment; assuring his guests that their presence added flavor to his tobacco, made the river more calm, the sky more serene, and the earth more beautiful. In conclusion, he gave them a young slave and a calumet,, begging them at the same time to abandon their purpose of de scending the Mississippi. A feast of four courses now foUowed. First, a wooden bowl fuU of a porridge of Indian meal boiled with grease was set before the guests ; and the master of ceremonies fed them in turn, like infants, with a large spoon. Then appeared a platter of fish; and the same functionary, carefully removing the bones with his fingers, and blowing on the morsels to cool them, placed them in the mouths of the two French men. A large dog, killed and cooked for the occa sion, was next placed before them; but, failing to tempt their fastidious appetites, was supplanted by a 68 THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPL [1673. dish of fat buffalo-meat, which concluded the enter tainment. The crowd having dispersed, buffalo-robes were spread on the ground, and Marquette and JoUet spent the night on the scene of the late festiv ity. In the morning, the chief, with some six hundred of his tribesmen, escorted them to their canoes, and bade them, after their stolid fashion, a friendly farewell. Again they were on their way, slowly drifting down the great river. They passed the mouth of the Illinois, and glided beneath that line of rocks on the eastern side, cut into fantastic forms by the elements, and marked as " The Ruined Castles " on some of the early French maps. Presently they beheld a sight which reminded them that the Devil was still lord paramount of this wilderness. On the flat face of a high rock were painted, in red, black, and green, a pair of monsters, each " as large as a calf, with horns like a deer, red eyes, a beard like a tiger, and a frightful expression of countenance. The face is something like that of a man, the body covered with scales; and the tail so long that it passes entirely round the body, over the head and between the legs, ending like that of a fish." Such is the account which the worthy Jesuit gives of these manitous, or Indian gods.^ He confesses that at first they fright- 1 The rock where these figures were painted is immediately above the city of Alton. The tradition of their existence remains, though they are entirely effaced by time. In 1867, when I passed the place, a part of the rock had been quarried away, and, instead of Mar quette's monsters, it bore a huge advertisement of "Plantation 1673.] A REAL DANGER. 69 ened him ; and his imagination and that of his credu lous companions was so wrought upon by these unhallowed efforts of Indian art, that they continued for a long time to talk of them as they plied their paddles. They were thus engaged, when they were suddenly aroused by a real danger. A torrent of yellow mud rushed furiously athwart the calm blue current of the Mississippi, boiling and surging, and sweeping in its course logs, branches, and uprooted trees. They had reached the mouth of the Missouri, where that savage river, descending from its mad career through a vast unknown of barbarism, poured its turbid floods into the bosom of its gentler sister. Their light canoes whirled on the miry vortex like dry leaves on an angry brook. "I never," writes Marquette, "saw anything more terrific;" but they escaped with their fright, and held their way down the turbulent and swollen current of the now united rivers.^ They passed the lonely forest that covered Bitters." Some years ago, certain persons, with more zeal than knowledge, proposed to restore the figures, after conceptions of their own ; but the idea was abandoned. Marquette made a drawing of the two monsters, but it is lost. I have, however, a fac-simile of a map made a few years later, by order of the Intendant Duchesneau, which is decorated with the portrait of one of them, answering to Marquette's description, and probably copied from his drawing. St. Cosme, who saw them in 1699, says that they were even then almost effaced. Douay and Joutel also speak of them, — the former, bitterly hostile to his Jesuit contemporaries, charging Marquette with exaggeration in his account of them. Joutel could see nothing terrifying in their appearance ; but he says that his Indians made sacrifices to them as they passed. 1 The Missouri is called " Pekitanou'i " by Marquette. It also 70 THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPL [1673, the site of the destined city of St. Louis, and, a few days later, saw on their left the mouth of the stream to which the Iroquois had given the well- merited name of Ohio, or the "Beautiful River. "^ Soon they began to see the marshy shores buried in a dense growth of the cane, with its taU straight stems and feathery light-green foliage. The sun glowed through the hazy air with a languid stiffing heat, and by day and night mosquitoes in myriads left them no peace. They floated slowly down the current, crouched in the shade of the sails which they had spread as awnings, when suddenly they saw Indians on the east bank. The surprise was mutual, and each party was as much frightened as the other. Marquette hastened to display the calu met which the Illinois had given him by way of passport; and the Indians, recognizing the pacific symbol, replied with an invitation to land. Evi dently, they were in communication with Europeans, for they were armed with guns, knives, and hatchets, wore garments of cloth, and carried their gunpowder in small bottles of thick glass. They feasted the Frenchmen with buffalo-meat, bear's oil, and white plums; and gave them a variety of doubtful in- bears, on early French maps, the names of " Riviere des Osages," and "Rivifere des Emissourites," or " Oumessourits." On Mar quette's map, a tribe of this name is placed near its banks, just above the Osages. Judging by the course of the Mississippi that it discharged into the Gulf of Mexico, he conceived the hope of one day reaching the South Sea by way of the Missouri. 1 CaUed, on Marquette's map, " Ouabouskiaou." On some of the earliest maps, it is called " Ouabache " (Wabash). 1673.] THE LOWER MISSISSIPPL 71 formation, including the agreeable but delusive assur ance that they woiild reach the mouth of the river in ten days. It was, in fact, more than a thousand mUes distant. They resumed their course, and again floated down the interminable monotony of river, marsh, and forest. Day after day passed on in solitude, and they had paddled some three hundred miles since their meeting with the Indians, when, as they neared the mouth of the Arkansas, they saw a cluster of wigwams on the west bank. Their inmates were all astir, yeUing the war-whoop, snatching their weapons, and running to the shore to meet the strangers, who, on their part, called for succor to the Virgin. In truth, they had need of her aid; for several large wooden canoes, fflled with savages, were putting out from the shore, above and below them, to cut off their retreat, while a swarm of headlong young war riors waded into the water to attack them. The current proved too strong ; and, faUing to reach the canoes of the Frenchmen, one of them threw his war- club, which flew over the heads of the startled travel lers. Meanwhile, Marquette had not ceased to hold up his calumet, to which the excited crowd gave no heed, but strung their bows and notched their arrows for immediate action; when at length the elders of the village arrived, saw the peace-pipe, restrained the ardor of the youth, and urged the Frenchmen to come ashore. Marquette and his companions com pUed, trembling, and found a better reception than T2 THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPL [1673 they had reason to expect. One of the Indians spoke a little Illinois, and served as interpreter; a friendly conference was foUowed by a feast of saga- mite and fish; and the travellers, not without sore misgivings, spent the night in the lodges of their entertainers.^ Early in the moming, they embarked again, and proceeded to a village of the Arkansas tribe, about eight leagues below. Notice of their coming was sent before them by their late hosts; and as they drew near they were met by a canoe, in the prow of which stood a naked personage, holding a calumet, singing, and making gestures of friendship. On reaching the village, which was on the east side,^ opposite the mouth of the river Arkansas, they were conducted to a sort of scaffold, before the lodge of the war-chief. The space beneath had been prepared for their reception, the ground being neatly covered with rush mats. On these they were seated; the warriors sat around them in a semi-circle; then the elders of the tribe ; and then the promiscuous crowd of villagers, standing, and staring over the heads of the more dignified members of the assembly. All the men were naked; but, to compensate for the lack of clothing, they wore strings of beads in their noses and ears. The women were clothed in shabby skins, and wore their hair clumped in a mass behind each » This village, called " Mitchigamea," is represented on several contemporary maps. 2 A few years later, the Arkansas were all on the west side. 1673.] THE ARKANSAS. 73 ear. By good luck, there was a young Indian in the vUlage, who had an exceUent knowledge of Illinois ; and through him Marquette endeavored to explain the mysteries of Christianity, and to gain information concerning the river below. To this end he gave his auditors the presents indispensable on such occasions, but received very little in retum. They told him that the Mississippi was infested by hostile Indians, armed with guns procured from white men ; and that they, the Arkansas, stood in such fear of them that they dared not hunt the buffalo, but were forced to live on Indian com, of which they raised three crops ft year. During the speeches on either side, food was brought in without ceasing, — sometimes a platter of sagamite or mush ; sometimes of corn boiled whole 5 sometimes a roasted dog. The villagers had large earthen pots and platters, made by themselves with tolerable skUl, as well as hatchets, knives, and beads, gained by traffic with the Illinois and other tribes in contact with the French or Spaniards. All day there was feasting without respite, after the merciless practice of Indian hospitaUty; but at night some of their entertainers proposed to kiU and plunder them, — a scheme which was defeated by the vigilance of the chief, who visited their quarters, and danced the calumet dance to reassure his guests. The travellers now held counsel as to what course they should take. They had gone far enough, aa they thought, to establish one important point, — 74 THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. [1673. that the Mississippi discharged its waters, not into the Atlantic or sea of Virginia, nor into the Gulf of California or Vermilion Sea, but into the Gulf of Mexico. They thought themselves nearer to its mouth than they actually were, the distance ' being stiU about seven hundred mUes; and they feared that if they went farther they might be killed by Indians or captured by Spaniards, whereby the results of their discovery would be lost. Therefore they resolved to return to Canada, and report what they had seen. They left the Arkansas village, and began their homeward voyage on the seventeenth of July. It was no easy task to urge their way upward, in the heat of midsummer, against the current of the dark and gloomy stream, toiling all day under the parch ing sun, and sleeping at night in the exhalations of the unwholesome shore, or in the narrow confines of their birchen vessels, anchored on the river. Mar quette was attacked with dysentery. Languid and well-nigh spent, he invoked his celestial mistress, as day after day, and week after week, they won their slow way northward. At length, they reached the Illinois, and, entering its mouth, followed its course, charmed, as they went, with its placid waters, its shady forests, and its rich plains, grazed by the bison and the deer. They stopped at a spot soon to be made famous in the annals of western discovery. This was a village of the Illinois, then called "Kaskaskia;" a name afterwards transferred to 1673.] RETURN TO CANADA. 76 another locality.^ A chief, with a band of young war riors, offered to guide them to the Lake of the Illinois ; that is to say, Lake Michigan. Thither they repaired ; and, coasting its shores, reached Green Bay at the end of September, after an absence of about four months, during which they had paddled their canoes some what more than two thousand five hundred miles.^ Marquette remained to recruit his exhausted strength; but Joliet descended to Quebec, to bear the report of his discovery to Count Frontenac. Fortune had wonderfully favored him on his long and perilous journey; but now she abandoned him on the very threshold of home. At the foot of the rapids of La Chine, and immediately above Montreal, ^ Marquette says that it consisted at this time of seventy-four lodges. These, like the Huron and Iroquois lodges, contained each several fires and several families. This village was about seven miles below the site of the present town of Ottawa. 2 The journal of Marquette, first published in an imperfect form by Thevenot, in 1681, has been reprinted by Mr. Lenox, under the direction of Mr. Shea, from the manuscript preserved in the arch ives of the Canadian Jesuits. It will also be found in Shea's Dis covery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley, and the Relations Inedites of Martin. The true map of Marquette apcompanies all these publications. The map published by Thevenot and repro duced by Bancroft is not Marquette's. The original of this, of which I have a fac-simile, bears the title Carte de la Nouvelle Decouverte que les Peres Jesuites ont faite en I'annee 1672, et con- tinuie par le Pere Jacques Marquette, etc. The retum route of the expedition is incorrectly laid down on it. A manuscript map of the Jesuit Raffeix, preserved in the Bibliothfeque Imperiale, is more accurate in this particular. I have also another contemporary manu script map, indicating the various Jesuit stations in the West at this time, and representing the Mississippi, as discovered by Map quette. For these and other maps, see Appendix. 76 THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPL [1674. his canoe was overset, two of his men and an Indian boy were drowned, all his papers were lost, and he himself narrowly escaped. ' In a letter to Frontenac, he speaks of the accident as follows : " I had escaped every peril from the Indians ; I had passed forty-two rapids; and was on the point of disembarking, full of joy at the success of so long and difficult an enter prise, when my canoe capsized, after all the danger seemed over. I lost two men and my box of papers, within sight of the first French settlements, which I had left almost two years before. Nothing remains to me but my life, and the ardent desire to employ it on any service which you may please to direct." * * Lettre de Frontenac au Ministre, Quebec, 14 Nov., 1674. " This letter is appended to Joliet's smaller map of his discov eries. See Appendix. Compare Details sur le Voyage de Louis Joliet and Relation de la Descouverte de plusieurs Pays situez au midi de la Nouvelle France, faite en 1673 (Margry, i. 259). These are oral accounts given by Joliet after the loss of his papers. Also, Lettre de Joliet, Oct. 10, 1674 (Harrisse). On the seventh of October, 1675, Joliet married Claire Bissot, daughter of a wealthy Canadian mer chant, engaged in trade with the northern Indians. This drew Joliet's attention to Hudson's Bay; and he made a journey thither in 1679, by way of the Saguenay. He found three English forts on the bay, occupied by about sixty men, who had also an armed vessel of twelve guns and several small trading-craft. The English held out great inducements to Joliet to join them ; but he declined, and retumed to Quebec, where he reported that unless these formidable rivals were dispossessed, the trade of Canada would be ruined. In consequence of this report, some of the principal merchants of the colony formed a company to compete with the English in the trade of Hudson's Bay. In the year of this joumey, Joliet received a grant of the islands of Mignan ; and in the following year, 1680, he received another grant, of the great island of Anticosti in the lower St. Lawrence. In 1681 he was established here, with his wife and six servants. He was engaged in fisheries; and, being a skilful 1674.] MARQUETTE'S MISSION. 77 Marquette spent the winter and the following summer at the mission of Green Bay, stiU suffering from his malady. In the autumn, however, it abated; and he was permitted by his Superior to attempt the execution of a plan to which he was devotedly attached, — the founding, at the principal town of the Illinois, of a mission to be called the " Immaculate Conception," a name which he had already given to the river Mississippi. He set out on this errand on the twenty-fifth of October, accompanied by two men, named Pierre and Jacques, one of whom had been with him on his great journey of discovery. A band of Pottawattamies and another band of lUinois also joined him. The united parties — ten canoes in all — followed the east shore of Green Bay as far as the inlet then called "Sturgeon Cove," from the head of which they crossed by a difficult portage through the forest to the shore of Lake Michigan. November had come. The bright hues of the autumn foliage were changed to rusty brown. The shore was deso late, and the lake was stormy. They were more navigator and surveyor, he made about this time a chart of the St. Lawrence. In 1690, Sir William Phips, on his way with an English fleet to attack Quebec, made a descent on Joliet's establishment, bumt his buildings, and took prisoners his wife and his mother-in- law. In 1694 Joliet explored the coasts of Labrador, under the auspices of a company formed for the whale and seal fishery. On his return, Frontenac made him royal pilot for the St. Lawrence ; and at about the same time he received the appointment of hydrog- rapher at Quebec. He died, apparently poor, in 1699 or 1700, and was buried on one of the islands of Mignan. The discovery of the ftbove facts is due in great part to the researches of Margry. 78 THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPL [1674. than a month in coasting its western border, when at length they reached the river Chicago, entered it, and ascended about two leagues. Marquette's disease had lately returned, and hemorrhage now ensued. He told his two companions that this journey would be his last. In the condition in which he was, it was impossible to go farther. The two men buUt a log hut by the river, and here they prepared to spend the winter; while Marquette, feeble as he was, began the spiritual exercises of Saint Ignatius, and con fessed his two companions twice a week. Meadow, marsh, and forest were sheeted with snow, but game was abundant. Pierre and Jacques kUled buffalo and deer, and shot wild turkeys close to their hut. There was an encampment of Illinois within two days' journey; and other Indians, passing by this well-known thoroughfare, occasionally visited them, treating the exiles kindly, and sometimes bringing them game and Indian com. Eighteen leagues distant was the camp of two adventurous French traders, — one of them, a noted coureur de bois, nicknamed La Taupine ; ^ and the other, a self- styled surgeon. They also visited Marquette, and befriended him to the best of their power. Urged by a burning desire to lay, before he died, the foundation of his new mission of the Immaculate Conception, Marquette begged his two followers to 1 Pierre Moreau, alias 'La Taupine, was afterwards bitterly com plained of by the Intendant Duchesneau, for acting as the gov ernor's agent in illicit trade with the Indians. 1675.] THE MISSION AT KASKASKIA. 79 join him in a novena, or nine days' devotion to the Virgin. In consequence of this, as he beUeved, his disease relented; he began to regain strength, and in March was able to resume the joumey. On the thirtieth of the month, they left their hut, which had been inundated by a sudden rise of the river, and carried their canoe through mud and water over the portage which led to the Des Plaines. Marquette knew the way, for he had passed by this route on his retum from the Mississippi. Amid the rains of opening spring, they floated down the swoUen cur rent of the Des Plaines, by naked woods and spongy, saturated prairies, tUl they reached its junction with the main stream of the HUnois, wliich they descended to their destination, the Indian town wliich Marquette caUs "Kaskaskia." Here, as we are told, he was received "Uke an angel from Heaven." He passed from wigwam to wigwam, telUng the Ustening crowds of God and the Virgin, Paradise and Hell, angels and demons; and, when he thought their minds prepared, he summoned them aU to a grand councU. It took place near the tovm, on the great meadow which Ues between the river and the modern viUage of Utica. Here five hundred chiefs and old men were seated in a ring ; behind stood fifteen hundred youths and warriors, and behind these again aU the women and chUdren of the viUage. Marquette, standing in the midst, displayed four large pictures of the Virgin; harangued the assembly on the myste ries of the Faith, and exhorted them to adopt it. 80 THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. [1675. The temper of his auditory met his utmost wishes. They begged him to stay among them and continue his instructions ; but his life was fast ebbing away, and it behooved him to depart. A few days after Easter he left the village, escorted by a crowd of Indians, who foUowed him as far as Lake Michigan. Here he embarked with his two companions. Their destination was Michilimackinac, and their course lay along the eastern borders of the lake. As, in the freshness of advancing spring, Pierre and Jacques urged their canoe along that lonely and savage shore, the priest lay with dimmed sight and prostrated strength, communing with the Virgin and the angels. On the nineteenth of May, he felt that his hour was near; and, as they passed the mouth of a smaU river, he requested his com panions to land. They complied, built a shed of bark on a rising ground near the bank, and carried thither the dying Jesuit. With perfect cheerfulness and composure, he gave directions for his burial, asked their forgiveness for the trouble he had caused them, administered to them the sacrament of peni tence, and thanked God that he was permitted to die in the wilderness, a missionary of the Faith and a member of the Jesuit brotherhood. At night, seeing that they were fatigued, he told them to take rest, saying that he would call them when he felt his time approaching. Two or three hours after, they heard a feeble voice, and, hastening to his side, found him at the point of death. He expired calmly, murmur- 1676-77.] BURIAL OF MARQUETTE. 81 ing the names of Jesus and Mary, with his eyes fixed on the crucifix which one of his followers held before him. They dug a grave beside ttie hut, and here they buried him according to the directions which he had given them ; then, re-embarking, they made their way to MichiUmackinao, to bear the tidings to the priests at the mission of St. Ignace.^ In the vrinter of 1676, a party of Kiskakon Otrawas were hunting on Lake Michigan; and when, in the foUowing spring, they prepared to retum home, they bethought them, in accordance with an Indian cus tom, of taking with them tiie bones of Marquette, who had been their instructor at the mission of St. Esprit. They repaired to the spot, found the grave, opened it, washed and dried the bones and placed them carefully in a box of birch-bark. Then, in a procession of thirty canoes, they bore it, singing their funeral songs, to St. Ignace of Michilimackinac. As they approached, priests, Indians, and traders all thf onged to the shore. The relics of Marquette were received vrith solemn ceremony, and buried beneath the floor of the Uttie chapel of the mission.^ 1 The contemporary Relation tells us that a miracle took place at the burial of Marquette. One of the two Frenchmen, overcome with grief and colic, bethought him of applying a little earth from the grave to the seat of pain. This at once restored him to health and cheerfulness. " For Marquette's death, see the contemporary Relation, pub lished by Shea, Lenox, and Martin, with the accompanying Lettra et Journal. The river where he died is a small stream in the west of Michigan, some distance south of the promontory caUed the " Sleeping Bear." It long bore his name, which is now bome by a 6 82 THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPL [1677. larger neighboring stream. Charlevoix's account of JIarquette's death is derived from tradition, and is not supported by the con temporary narrative. In 1877, human bones, with fragments of birch-bark, were found buried on the supposed site of the Jesuit chapel at Point St. Ignace. In 1847, the missionary of the Algonquins at the Lake of Two Mountains, above Montreal, wrote down a tradition of the death of Marquette, from the lips of an old Indian woman, boin in 1777, at Michilimackinac. Her ancestress had been baptized by the sub ject of the story. The tradition has a resemblance to that related as fact by Charlevoix. The old squaw said that the Jesuit was returning, very ill, to Michilimackinac, when a storm forced him and his two men to land near a little river. Here he told them that he should die, and directed them to ring a bell over his grave and plant a cross. They all remained four days at the spot ; and, though without food, the men felt no hunger. On the night of the fourth day he died, and the men buried him as he had directed. On wak ing in the morning, they saw a sack of Indian corn, a quantity of bacon, and some biscuit, miraculously sent to them, in accordance with the promise of Marquette, who had told them that they should have food enough for their journey to Michilimackinac. At the same instant, the stream began to rise, and in a few moments encir cled the grave of the Jesuit, which formed, thenceforth, an islet in the waters. The tradition adds, that an Indian battle afterwards took place on the banks of this stream, between Christians and infidels ; and that the former gained the victory, in consequence of invoking the name of Marquette. This story bears the attestation of the priest of the Two Mountains that it is a literal translation of the tradition, as recounted by the old woman. It has been asserted that the Illinois country was visited by two priests, some time before the visit of Marquette. This assertion was first made by M. Noiseux, late Grand Vicar of Quebec, who gives no authority for it. Not the slightest indication of any such visit appears in any contemporary document or map, thus far dis covered. The contemporary writers, down to the time of Marquette and La Salle, all speak of the Illinois as an unknown country. The entire groundlessness of Noiseux's assertion is shown by Shea, in a paper in the " Weekly Herald," of New York, April 21, 1855. CHAPTER VI. 1673-1678. LA SALLE AND FRONTENAC. Objects or La Salle. — Frontenac favors him. — Projects o» Frontenac — Cataraqui. — Frontenac on Lake Ontario. — Fort Frontenac — La Salle and FfeNELON. — Success op La Salle : his Enemies. We turn from the humble Marquette, thanking God with his last breath that he died for his Order and his Faith ; and by our side stands the masculine form of Cavelier de la Salle. Prodigious was the contrast between the two discoverers : the one, with clasped hands and upturned eyes, seems a figure evoked from some dim legend of mediaeval saintship ; the other, with feet firm planted on the hard earth, breathes the self-relying energies of modem practical enterprise. Nevertheless, La Salle's enemies called him a visionary. His projects perplexed and startled them. At first, they ridiculed him; and then, as step by step he advanced towards his purpose, they denounced and maligned him. What was this pur pose ? It was not of sudden growth, but developed as years went on. La Salle at La Chine dreamed of a westem passage to China, and nursed vague 84 LA SALLE AND PRONTENAC. [1673-78. schemes of westem discovery. Then, when his earlier joumeyings revealed to him the valley of the Ohio and the fertile plains of Illinois, his imagination took wing over the boundless prairies and forests drained by the great river of the West. His ambi tion had found its field. He would leave barren and frozen Canada behind, and lead France and civiliza tion into the valley of the Mississippi. Neither the English nor the Jesuits should conquer that rich domain : the one must rest content with the country east of the AUeghanies, and the other with the forests, savages, and beaver-skins of the northern lakes. It was for him to call into Ught the latent riches of the great West. But the way to his land > of promise was rough and long: it lay through Canada, filled with hostile traders and hostile priests, and barred by ice for half the year. The difficulty was soon solved. La Salle became convinced that the Mississippi flowed, not into the Pacific or the Gulf of California, but into the Gulf of Mexico. By a fortified post at its mouth, he could guard it against both English and Spaniards, and secure for the trade of the interior an access and an outlet under his own control, and open at every season. Of this trade, the hides of the buffalo would at first form the staple, and along with furs would reward the enterprise tiU other resources should be developed. Such were the vast projects that unfolded them selves in the mind of La Salle. Canada must needs be, at the outset, his base of action, and without the i673.] PROJECTS OF FRONTENAC. 85 support of its authorities he could do nothing. This support he found. From the moment when Count Frontenac assumed the government of the colony, he seems to have looked with favor on the young discoverer. There were points of likeness between the two men. Both were ardent, bold, and enterpris ing. The irascible and fiery pride of the noble found its match in the reserved and seemingly cold pride of the ambitious burgher. Each could comprehend the other; and they had, moreover, strong prejudices and dislikes in common. An understanding, not to say an alUance, soon grew up between them. Frontenac had come to Canada a ruined man. He was ostentatious, lavish, and in no way disposed to let slip an opportunity of mending his fortune. He presently thought that he had found a plan by which he coidd serve both the colony and himself. His predecessor, Courcelle, had urged upon the King the expediency of buUding a fort on Lake Ontario, in order to hold the Iroquois in check and intercept the trade which the tribes of the Upper Lakes had begun to carry on with the Dutch and English of New York. Thus a stream of wealth would be turned into Canada, which would otherwise enrich her ene mies. Here, to all appearance, was a great public good, and from the miUtary point of view it was so in fact; but it was clear that the trade thus secured might be made to profit, not the colony at large, but those alone who had control of the fort, which would then become the instrument of a monopoly. This 86 LA SALLE AND FRONTENAC. [1673. the governor understood; and, vrithout doubt, he meant that the projected estabUshment should pay him tribute. How far he and La SaUe were acting in concurrence at this time, it is not easy to say; but Frontenac often took counsel of the explorer, who, on his part, saw in the design a possible first step towards the accomplishment of his own far-reaching schemes. Such of the Canadian merchants as were not in the governor's confidence looked on his plan vrith extreme distrust. Frontenac, therefore, thought it expedient "to make use," as he expresses it, "of address." He gave out merely that he intended to make a tour through the upper parts of the colony vrith an armed force, in order to inspire the Indians with respect, and secure a solid peace. He had neither troops, money, munitions, nor means of transportation; yet there was no time to lose, for, should he delay the execution of his plan, it might be countermanded by the King. His only resource, therefore, was in a prompt and hardy exertion of the royal authority; and he issued an order requiring the inhabitants of Quebec, Montreal, Three Rivers, and other settle ments to furnish him, at their own cost, as soon as the spring sowing should be over, vrith a certain number of armed men, besides the requisite canoes. At the same time, he invited the officers settled in the country to join the expedition, — an invitation which, anxious as they were to gain his good graces, few of them cared to decline. Regardless of mur murs and discontent, he pushed his preparation 1673.] EXPEDITION OF FRONTENAC. 87 vigorously, and on the third of June left Quebec with his guard, his staff, a part of the garrison of the Castle of St. Louis, and a number of volunteers. He had already sent to La Salle, who was then at Montreal, directing him to repair to Onondaga, the political centre of the Iroquois, and invite their sachems to meet the govemor in council at the Bay of Quints on the north of Lake Ontario. La Salle had set out on his mission, but first sent Frontenac a map, which convinced him that the best site for his proposed fort was the mouth of the Cataraqui, where Kingston now stands. Another messenger was ac cordingly despatched, to change the rendezvous to this point. Meanwhile, the governor proceeded at his leisure towards Montreal, stopping by the way to visit the officers settled along the bank, who, eager to pay their homage to the newly risen sun, received him with a hospitaUty which under the roof of a log hut was sometimes graced by the polished courtesies of the salon and the boudoir. Reaching Montreal, which he had never before seen, he gazed, we may suppose, with some interest at the long row of humble dwellings which lined the bank, the massive buildings of the Seminary, and the spire of the church predominant over all. It was a rude scene, but the greeting that awaited him savored nothing of the rough simplicity of the wilderness. Perrot, the local governor, was on the shore with his soldiers and the inhabitants, drawn up under arms and firing 88 LA SALLE AND FRONTENAC. [16Ti a salute to welcome the representative of the King. Frontenac was compelled to listen to a long harangue from the judge of the place, followed by another from the syndic. Then there was a solemn procession to the church, where he was forced to undergo a third effort of oratory from one of the priests. Te Deum followed, in thanks for his arrival ; and then he took refuge in the fort. Here he remained thirteen days, busied with his preparations, organizing the militia, soothing their mutual jealousies, and settling knotty questions of rank and precedence. During this time, every means, as he declares, was used to prevent him from proceeding; and among other devices a rumor was set on foot that a Dutch fleet, having just cap tured Boston, was on its way to attack Quebec.^ Having sent men, canoes, and baggage, by land, to La Salle's old settlement of La Chine, Frontenac himself followed on the twenty-eighth of June. Including Indians from the missions, he now had with him about four hundred men and a hundred and twenty canoes, besides two large flat-boats, which he caused to be painted in red and blue, with strange devices, intended to dazzle the Iroquois by a display of unwonted splendor. Now their hard task began. Shouldering canoes through the forest, dragging the flat-boats along the shore, working like beavers, — 1 Lettre de Frontenac A Colbert, 13 Nov., 1673. This rumor, it appears, originated with the Jesuit Dablon. Journal du Voyage du Comte de Frontenac au lac Ontario. The Jesuits were greatly opposed to the establishment of forts and trading-posts in the upper coniitry, for reasons that will appear hereafter. 1673.] FRONTENAC'S JOURNEY. 89 sometimes in water to the knees, sometimes to the armpits, their feet cut by the sharp stones, and they themselves weU-nigh swept down by the furious current, — they fought their way upward against the chain of mighty rapids that break the navigation of the St. Lawrence. The Indians were of the greatest service. Frontenac, like La Salle, showed from the first a special faculty of managing them; for his keen, incisive spirit was exactly to their liking, and they worked for him as they would have worked for no man else. As they approached the Long Saut, rain fell in torrents; and the govemor, without his cloak, and drenched to the skin, directed in person the amphibious toil of his followers. Once, it is said, he lay awake all night, in his anxiety lest the biscuit should be wet, which would have ruined the expedition. No such mischance took place, and at length the last rapid was passed, and smooth water awaited them to their journey's end. Soon they reached the Thousand Islands, and their Ught flotiUa glided in long fiile among those watery labyrinths, by rocky islets, where some lonely pine towered like a mast against the sky; by sun-scorched crags, where the brown Uchens crisped in the parching glare ; by deep deUs, shady and cool, rich in rank fems, and spongy, dark-green mosses ; by stiU coves, where the water-UUes lay like snow-flakes on their broad, flat leaves, — tUl at length they neared their goal, and the glistening bosom of Lake Ontario opened on theii sight. 90 LA SALLE AND FRONTENAC. [1673. Frontenac, to impose respect on the Iroquois, now set his canoes in order of battle. Four divisions formed the first Une, then came the two flat-boats; he himself, with his guards, his staff, and the gentle men volunteers, foUowed, vrith the canoes of Three Rivers on his right, and those of the Indians on his left, while two remaining divisions formed a rear line. Thus, with measured paddles, they advanced over the still lake, till they saw a canoe approaching to meet them. It bore several Iroquois chiefs, who told them that the dignitaries of their nation awaited them at Cataraqui, and offered to guide them to the spot. They entered the wide mouth of the river, and passed along the shore, now covered by the quiet little city of Kingston, till they reached the point at present occupied by the barracks, at the westem end of Cataraqui bridge. Here they stranded their canoes and disembarked. Baggage was landed, fires lighted, tents pitched, and guards set. Close at hand, under the lee of the forest, were the camping sheds of the Iroquois, who had come to the rendez vous in considerable numbers. At daybreak of the next moming, the thirteenth of July, the drums beat, and the whole party were drawn up under arms. A double line of men extended from the front of Frontenac 's tent to the Indian camp ; and, through the lane thus formed, the savage deputies, sixty in number, advanced to the place of council. They could not hide their admiration at the martial array of the French, many of whom were old 1673.] FRONTENAC AT CATARAQUI. 91 soldiers of the regiment of Carignan ; and when they reached the tent they ejaculated their astonishment at the uniforms of the governor's guard who sur rounded it. Here the ground had been carpeted with the sails of the flat-boats, on which the deputies squatted themselves in a ring and smoked their pipes for a time with their usual air of deliberate gravity; while Frontenac, who sat surrounded by his officers, had fuU leisure to contemplate the formidable adver saries whose mettle was hereafter to put his ovm to so severe a test. A chief named Garakonti^, a noted friend of the French, at length opened the council, in behalf of all the five Iroquois nations, with expressions of great respect and deference towards "Onontio;" that is to say, the governor of Canada. Whereupon Frontenac, whose native arrogance where Indians were concerned always took a form which imposed respect without exciting anger, replied in the foUowing strain : — "Children! Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayu gas, and Senecas. I am glad to see you here, where I have had a fire Ughted for you to smoke by, and for me to talk to you. You have done well, my children, to obey the command of your Father. Take courage: you will hear his word, which is full of peace and tenderness. For do not think that I have come for war. My mind is full of peace, and she walks by my side. Courage, then, children, and take rest." With that, he gave them six fathoms of tobacco, 92 LA SALLE AND FRONTENAC. [1673. reiterated his assurances of friendsliip, promised that he would be a kind father so long as they should be obedient children, regretted that he was forced to speak through an interpreter, and ended with a gift of guns to the men, and prunes and raisins to their wives and children. Here closed this preliminary meeting, the great council being postponed to another day. During the meeting, Raudin, Frontenac's engineer, was tracing out the Unes of a fort, after a predeter mined plan; and the whole party, under the direc tion of their officers, now set themselves to construct it. Some cut down trees, some dug the trenches, some hewed the palisades ; and with such order and alacrity was the work urged on, that the Indians were lost in astonishment. Meanwhile, Frontenac spared no pains to make friends of the chiefs, some of whom he had constantly at his table. He fondled the Iroquois children, and gave them bread and sweetmeats, and in the evening feasted the squaws to make them dance. The Indians were deUghted vrith these attentions, and conceived a high opinion of the new Onontio. On the seventeenth, when the construction of the fort was well advanced, Frontenac called the chiefs to a grand council, which was held vrith all possible state and ceremony. His deaUng with the Indians on this and other occasions was truly admirable. Unacquainted as he was with them, he seems to have had an instinctive perception of the treatment they required. His predecessors had never ventured to i673.] FRONTENAC AND THE INDIANS. 93 address the Iroquois as " Children, " but had always styled them "Brothers;" and yet the assumption of paternal authority on the part of Frontenac was not only taken in good part, but was received with appar ent gratitude. The martial nature of the man, his clear, decisive speech, and his frank and downright manner, backed as they were by a display of force wliich in their eyes was formidable, struck them vrith admiration, and gave tenfold effect to his words of kindness. They thanked him for that which from another they would not have endured. Frontenac began by again expressing his satisfac tion that they had obeyed the commands of their Father, and come to Cataraqui to hear what he had to say. Then he exhorted them to embrace Chris tianity; and on this theme he dwelt at length, in words excellently adapted to produce the desired effect, — words which it would be most superfluous to tax as insincere, though doubtless they lost noth ing in emphasis because in this instance conscience and poUcy aimed alike. Then, changing his tone, he pointed to his officers, his guard, the long files of the militia, and the two flat-boats, mounted vrith cannon, which lay in the river near by. "If," he said, " your Father can come so far, with so great a force, through such dangerous rapids, merely to make you a visit of pleasure and friendship, what would he do, if you should awaken his anger, and make it necessary for him to pimish his disobedient chUdren? He is the arbiter of peace and war- 94 LA SALLE AND FRONTENAC. [167S. Beware how you offend him ! " And he wamed them not to molest the Indian allies of the French, telling them, sharply, that he would chastise them for the least infraction of the peace. From threats he passed to blandishments, and urged them to confide in his paternal kindness, say ing that, in proof of his affection, he was buUding a storehouse at Cataraqui, where they could be suppUed with all the goods they needed, without the necessity of a long and dangerous joumey. He wamed them against listening to bad men, who might seek to delude them by misrepresentations and falsehoods; and he urged them to give heed to none but " men of character, Uke the Sieur de la SaUe." He expressed a hope that they would suffer their children to learn French from the missionaries, in order that they and his nephews — meaning the French colonists — might become one people ; and he concluded by requesting chem to give him a number of their children to be educated in the French manner, at Quebec. This speech, every clause of wliich was reinforced by abundant presents, was extremely well received ; though one speaker reminded him that he had for gotten one important point, inasmuch as he had not told them at what prices they could obtain goods at Cataraqui. Frontenac evaded a precise answer, but promised them that the goods should be as cheap as possible, in view of the great difficulty of transpor tation. As to the request concerning their children, they said that they could not accede to it till they 1673.] TREATY WITH THE INDIANS- 95 had talked the matter over in their villages ; but it is a striking proof of the influence which Frontenac had gained over them, that, in the foUowing year, they actually sent several of their children to Quebec to be educated, — the girls among the Ursulines, and the boys in the household of the govemor. Tliree days after the council, the Iroquois set out on their retum ; and as the paUsades of the fort were now finished, and the barracks nearly so, Frontenac began to send his party homeward by detachments. He himself was detained for a time by the arrival of another band of Iroquois, from the villages on the north side of Lake Ontario. He repeated to them the speech he had made to the others ; and, this final meeting over, he embarked with his guard, leaving a sufficient number to hold the fort, which was to be provisioned for a year by means of a convoy then on its way up the river. Passing the rapids safely, he reached Montreal on the first of August. His enterprise had been a complete success. He had gained every point, and, in spite of the dangerous navigation, had not lost a single canoe. Thanks to the enforced and gratuitous assistance of the inhabi tants, the whole had cost the King only about ten thousand francs, which Frontenac had advanced on his ovwi credit. Though in a commercial point of view the new estabUshment was of very questionable benefit to the colony at large, the govemor had, nevertheless, conferred an inestimable blessing on all Canada by the assurance he had gained of a long 96 LA SALLE AND FRONTENAC. [1673. respite from the fearfiU scourge of Iroquois hostility. "Assuredly," he writes, "I may boast of haring impressed them at once vrith respect, fear, and good- wUl."^ He adds that the fort at Cataraqui, with the aid of a vessel now building, vrill command Lake Ontario, keep the peace with the Iroquois, and cut off the trade with the EngUsh; and he proceeds to say that by another fort at the mouth of the Niagara, and another vessel on Lake Erie, we, the French, can command all the Upper Lakes. This plan was an essential link in the schemes of La Salle ; and we shall soon find him employed in executing it. A curious incident occurred soon after the build ing of the fort on Lake Ontario. Frontenac, on his way back, quarrelled vrith Perrot, the govemor of Montreal, whom, in view of his speciUations in the fur-trade, he seems to have regarded as a rival in business ; but who, by his folly and arrogance, would have justified any reasonable measure of severity. Frontenac, however, was not reasonable. He arrested Perrot, threw him into prison, and set up a man of his own as governor in his place ; and as the judge of Montreal was not in his interest, he removed him, and substituted another on whom he could rely. Thus for a time he had Montreal well in hand. The priests of the Seminary, seigniors of the island, regarded these arbitrary proceedings with extreme uneasiness. They claimed the right of nominating their own govemor; and Perrot, though he held a » l^Urt de Frmtenac au Ministre, 13 Nov., 1673. 1674.] ABBE F^NELON. 97 commission from the King, owed his place to their appointment. True, he had set them at nought, and proved a veritable King Stork ; yet nevertheless they regarded his removal as an infringement of their rights. During the quarrel with Perrot, La Salle chanced to be at Montreal, lodged in the house of Jacques Le Ber, who, though one of the principal merchants and most influential inhabitants of the settlement, was accustomed to sell goods across his counter in person to white men and Indians, his wife taking his place when he was absent. Such were the primitive manners of the secluded little colony. Le Ber, at this time, was in the interest of Frontenac and La Salle ; though he afterwards became one of their most determined opponents. Amid the excitement and discussion occasioned by Perrot's arrest. La Salle declared himself an adherent of the govemor, and wamed aU persons against speaking ill of him in his hearing. The Abb^ Fdnelon, already mentioned as half- brother to the famous Archbishop, had attempted to mediate between Frontenac and Perrot, and to this end had made a joumey to Quebec on the ice, in midvrinter. Being of an ardent temperament, and more courageous than prudent, he had spoken some what indiscreetly, and had been very roughly treated by the stormy and imperious Count. He retumed to Montreal greatly excited, and not without cause. It fell to his lot to preach the Easter sermon. The 7 98 LA SALLE AND FRONTENAC. [1674. service was held in the little church of the H6tel- Dieu, which was crowded to the porch, all the chief persons of the settlement being present. The cure of the parish, whose name also was Perrot, said High Mass, assisted by La Salle's brother, Cavelier, and two other priests. Then F^nelon mounted the pulpit. Certain passages of his sermon were obri- ously levelled against Frontenac. Speaking of the duties of those clothed with temporal authority, he said that the magistrate, inspired with the spirit of Christ, was as ready to pardon offences against him self as to punish those against his prince; that he was full of respect for the ministers of the altar, and never maltreated them when they attempted to recon- cUe enemies and restore peace ; that he never made favorites of those who flattered him, nor under specious pretexts oppressed other persons in author ity who opposed his enterprises; that he used his power to serve his king, and not to his own advan tage ; that he remained content with his salary, with out disturbing the commerce of the country, or abusing those who refused him a share in their profits; and that he never troubled the people by inordinate and unjust levies of men and material, using the name of his prince as a cover to his own designs.^ • Faillon, Colonie Franfaise, iii. 497, and manuscript authorities there cited. I have examined the principal of these. Faillon him self is a priest of St. Sulpice. Compare H. Verreau, Les DeuxAbbia de Ftnelon, chap. vii. 1674.] LA SALLE AND FTNELON. 99 La Salle sat near the door; but as the preacher proceeded he suddenly rose to his feet in such a manner as to attract the notice of the congregation. As they turned their heads, he signed to the principal persons among them, and by his angry looks and gesticulation called their attention to the words of Ftnelon. Then meeting the eye of the cur^, who sat beside the altar, he made the same signs to him, to which the cur^ repUed by a deprecating shrug of the shoulders. Ftnelon changed color, but continued his sermon.^ This indecent proceeding of La Salle, and the zeal vrith which throughout the quarrel he took the part of the governor, did not go unrewarded. Hence forth, Frontenac was more than ever his friend ; and this plainly appeared in the disposition made, through his influence, of the new fort on Lake Ontario. Attempts had been made to induce the king to have it demoUshed; but it was resolved at last that, being built, it should be aUowed to stand; and, after long delay, a final arrangement was made for its mainte nance, in the manner following: In the autumn of 1674, La SaUe went to France, with letters of strong recommendation from Frontenac.^ He was weU ^ Information faicte par nous, Charles le Tar dieu, Sieur de Tilly, et Nicolas Dupont, etc., etc., contre le S''- Abbe de Fenelon. Tilly and Dupont were sent by Frontenac to inquire into the affair. Among the deponents is La Salle himself. ' In his despatch to the minister Colbert, of the fourteenth of November, 1674, Frontenac speaks of La Salle as follows : " I can not help, Monseigneur, recommending to you the Sieur de la SaU^ 100 LA SALLE AND FRONTENAC. [1674. received at Court; and he made two petitions to the King, — the one for a patent of nobility, ia considera tion of his services as an explorer; and the other for a grant in seigniory of Fort Frontenac, for so he called the new post, in honor of his patron. On his part, he offered to pay back the ten thousand francs which the fort had cost the King; to maintain it at his own charge, with a garrison equal to that of Montreal, besides fifteen or twenty laborers ; to form a French colony around it; to build a church, when ever the number of inhabitants should reach one hundred; and, meanwhile, to support one or more R^coUet friars; and, finally, to form a settlement of domesticated Indians in the neighborhood. His offers were accepted. He was raised to the rank of the untitled nobles ; received a grant of the fort and lands adjacent, to the extent of four leagues in front and half a league in depth, besides the neighboring islands; and was invested with the government of the fort and settlement, subject to the orders of the governor-general. ^ who is about to go to France, and who is a man of intelligence and ability, more capable than anybody else I know here to accomplish every kind of enterprise and discovery which may be intrusted to him, as he has the most perfect knowledge of the state of the coun try, as you will see, if you are disposed to give him a few moments of audience." I Memoire pour I'entretien du Fort Frontenac, par le S''- de la SaUe, 1674. Petition du S'- de la Salle au Roi. Lettres patentes de conces sion, du Fort de Frontenac et terres adjacentes au profit du Sr- de hi Salle; donnies A Compiigne le 13 Mai, 1675. Arret qui accepte les offres faitet par Robert Cavelier S''- de la Salle ; d Compiigne le 13 1675.] ENEMIES OF LA SALLE. 101 La Salle retumed to Canada, proprietor of a seigniory which, all things considered, was one of the most valuable in the colony. His friends and his fanuly, rejoicing in his good fortune and not unvriU ing to share it, made him large advances of money, enabling him to pay the stipulated sum to the King, to rebuUd the fort in stone, maintaia soldiers and laborers, and procure in part, at least, the necessary outfit. Had La SaUe been a mere merchant, he was in a fair way to make a fortune, for he was in a posi tion to control the better part of the Canadian fur- trade. But he was not a mere merchant; and no commercial profit could content his ambition. Those may believe, who will, that Frontenac did not expect a share in the profits of the new post. That he did expect it, there is positive evidence ; for a deposition is extant, taken at the instance of his enemy the Intendant Duchesneau, in which three vritnesses attest that the governor. La Salle, his lieutenant La Forest, and one Boisseau, had formed a partnership to carry on the trade of Fort Frontenac. No sooner was La SaUe installed in his new post than the merchants of Canada joined hands to oppose him. Le Ber, once his friend, became his bitter enemy; for he himself had hoped to share the monopoly of Fort Frontenac, of which he and one Bazire had at first been placed provisionally in con- Mai, 1675. Lettres de noblesse pour le S''- Cavelier de la Salle ; donnSet d Compiigne le 13 Mai, 1675. Papiers de Famille. Memoire au Boi. 102 LA SALLE AND FRONTENAC. [1675. trol, and from which he now saw himself ejected. La Chesnaye, Le Moyne, and others of more or less influence took part in the league, which, in fact, embraced all the traders in the colony except the few joined with Frontenac and La SaUe. Duchesneau, intendant of the colony, aided the malcontents. As time went on, their bitterness grew more bitter; and when at last it was seen that, not satisfied. with the monopoly of Fort Frontenac, La Salle aimed at the control of the valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi, and the usufruct of half a continent, the ire of his opponents redoubled, and Canada became for him a nest of hornets, buzzing in wrath and watching the moment to sting. But there was another element of opposition, less noisy, but not less formidable; and this arose from the Jesuits. Frontenac hated them; and they, under befitting forms of duty and courtesy, paid him back in the same coin. Having no love for the govemor, they would naturally have Uttle for his partisan and proUge ; but their opposition had another and a deeper root, for the plans of the daring young schemer jarred with their own. We have seen the Canadian Jesuits in the early apostolic days of their mission, when the flame of their zeal, fed by an ardent hope, burned bright and high. This hope was doomed to disappointment. Their avowed purpose of building another Paraguay on the borders of the Great Lakes ^ was never accom- 1 This purpose is several times indicated in the Relations. For an instance, see " The Jesuits in North America," 245. 1675.] PURPOSES OF THE JESUITS. 103 plished, and their missions and their converts were swept away in an avalanche of ruin. Still, they would not despair. From the lakes they turned their eyes to the Valley of the Mississippi, in the hope to see it one day the seat of their new empire of the Faith. But what did this new Paraguay mean ? It meant a little nation of converted and domesticated savages, docile as children, under the paternal and absolute rule of Jesuit fathers, and trained by them in industrial pursuits, the results of which were to inure, not to the profit of the producers, but to the buUding of churches, the founding of colleges, the es tabUshment of warehouses and magazines, and the construction of works of defence, • — all controlled by Jesuits, and forming a part of the vast possessions of the Order. Such was the old Paraguay; ^ and such, we may suppose, would have been the new, had the plans of those who designed it been realized. I have said that since the middle of the century the religious exaltation of the early missions had sensibly declined. In the nature of things, that grand enthusiasm was too intense and fervent to be long sustained. But the vital force of Jesuitism had suffered no diminution. That marvellous esprit de corps, that extinction of self and absorption of the indiridual m. the Order which has marked the Jesuits from their first existence as a body, was no whit changed or lessened, — a principle, which, though 1 Compare Charlevoix, Histoire de Paraguay, with Robertson, Letters on Paraguay. 104 LA SALLE AND FRONTENAC. [1675. different, was no less strong than the self-devoted patriotism of Sparta or the early Roman Republic. The Jesuits were no longer supreme in Canada; or, in other words, Canada was no longer simply a mission. It had become a colony. Temporal interests and the civil power were constantly gaining ground ; and the disciples of Loyola felt that relatively, if not absolutely, they were losing it. They struggled vigorously to maintain the ascendency of their Order, or, as they would have expressed it, the ascendency of reUgion; but in the older and more settled parts of the colony it was clear that the day of their undi vided nUe was past. Therefore, they looked with redoubled soUcitude to their missions in the West. They had been among its first explorers; and they hoped that here the Catholic Faith, as represented by Jesuits, might reign with undisputed sway. In Paraguay, it was their constant aim to exclude white men from their missions. It was the same in North America. They dreaded fur-traders, partly because they interfered with their teachings and perverted their converts, and partly for other reasons. But La Salle was a fur-trader, and far worse than a fur- trader: he aimed at occupation, fortification, and settlement. The scope and vigor of his enterprises, and the powerful influence that aided them, made him a stumbUng-block in their path. He was their most dangerous rival for the control of the West, and from first to last they set themselves against him. 1674-78.] SPIRIT OF LA SALLE. 105 What manner of man was he who could con ceive designs so vast and defy enmities so many and so powerfiU? And in what spirit did he em brace these designs ? We wiU look hereafter for an answer. CHAPTER vn. 1678. PARTY STRIFE. La Salle and his Reporter. — Jesuit Ascendency. — The Mis sions AND THE Fur-trade. — Female Inquisitors. — Plots AGAINST La Salle : his Brother the Priest. — Intrigues of the Jesuits. — La Salle poisoned : he exculpates the Jesu its. — Renewed Intrigues. One of the most curious monuments of La SaUe's time is a long memoir, written by a person who made his acquaintance at Paris in the summer of 1678, when, as we shall soon see, he had returned to France in prosecution of his plans. The writer knew the Sulpi tian GaUn^e,^ who, as he says, had a very high opinion of La SaUe ; and he was also in close relations with the discoverer's patron, the Prince de Conti.^ He says that he had ten or twelve interviews with La Salle; and, becoming interested in him and in that which he communicated, he wrote down the substance of his conversation. The paper is divided into two 1 Ante, p. 17. " Louis-Armand de Bourbon, second Prince de Conti. The author of the memoir seems to have been Abb^ Renaudot, a learned churchman. 1678.] LA SALLE'S MEMOIR. 107 parts: the first, called "Memoire sur Mr. de la Salle," is devoted to the state of affairs in Canada, and chiefly to the Jesuits; the second, entitled "Histoire de Mr. de la Salle," is an account of the discoverer's life, or as much of it as the writer had leamed from him.^ Both parts bear throughout the internal evidence of being what they profess to be ; but they embody the statements of a man of intense partisan feeUng, transmitted through the mind of another person in sympathy with him, and evidently sharing his prepossessions. In one respect, however, the paper is of unquestionable historical value ; for it gives us a vivid and not an exaggerated picture of the bitter strife of parties which then raged in Canada, and which was destined to tax to the utmost the vast energy and fortitude of La Salle. At times, the memoir is fully sustained by contemporary evi dence; but often, again, it rests on its own unsup ported authority. I give an abstract of its statements as I find them. The following is the writer's account of La SaUe : " AU those among my friends who have seen him find him a man of great intelligence and sense. He rarely speaks of any subject except when questioned about it, and his words are very few and very precise. He distinguishes perfectiy between that which he knows with certainty and that which he knows with some mingling of doubt. When he does not know, he does ^ Extracts from this have already been given in connection with La Salle's supposed discovery of the Mississippi. Ante, p. 29. 108 PARTY STRIFE. [1678. not hesitate to avow it; and though I have heard him say the same thing more than five or six times, when persons were present who had not heard it before, he always said it in the same manner. In short, I never heard anybody speak whose words carried with them more marks of truth. "^ After mentioning that he is thirty-three or thirty- four years old, and that he has been twelve years in America, the memoir declares that he made the fol- lovring statements: that the Jesuits are masters at Quebec; that the bishop is their creature, and does nothing but in concert with them ; * that he is not well inclined towards the Rdcollets,^ who have Uttle 1 " Tons ceux de mes amis qui I'ont vu luy trouve beaucoup d'esprit et un trfes-grand sens ; il ne parle guferes que des choses sur lesquelles on I'interroge ; il les dit en tr^s-peu de mots et trfes-bien circonstanci^es ; il dtstingue parfaitement ce qu'il scait avec certi tude, de ce qu'il scait avec quelque melange de doute. H avoue sans aucune f a9on ne pas savoir ce qu'il ne scait pas, et quoyque je luy aye ouy dire plus de oinq ou six f ois les mesme choses k I'occa- sion de quelques personnes qui ne les avaient point encore entendues, je les luy ay toujours ouy dire de la mesme manifere. En un mot je n'ay jamais ouy parler personne dont les paroles portassent plus de marques de v^rit^." 2 " II y a une autre chose qui me de'plait, qui est I'entifere depen dence dans laquelle les PrStres du S^minaire de Qu^ec et le Grand Vicaire de I'EvSque sont pour les Pferes Jesuites, car il ne fait pas la moindre chose sans leur ordre ; ce qui fait qu'indirectement lis sont les maitres de ce qui regarde le spirituel, qui, comme vous savez, est une grande machine pour remuer tout le reste." — Lettre de Frontenac d Colbert, 2 Nov., 1672. * " Ces rfligieux [les Recollets] sont fort prot^g^s partout par le comte de Frontenac, gouverneur du pays, et i cause de oela assez maltrait^s par I'^vesque, parceque la doctrine de Wvesque et des Jesuites est que les affaires de la Religion chrestienne n'iront point bien dans ce pays-li que quand le gouverneur sera creature dea 1878.] JESUIT ASCENDENCY. 109 credit, but who are protected by Frontenac ; that in Canada the Jesuits think everybody an enemy to religion who is an enemy to them ; that, though they refused absolution to all who sold brandy to the Indians, they sold it themselves, and that he. La Salle, had himself detected them in it;^ that the bishop laughs at the orders of the King when they do not agree with the wishes of the Jesuits ; that the Jesuits dismissed one of their servants named Robert, because he told of their trade in brandy; that Albanel,^ in particular, carried on a great fur-trade, and that the Jesuits have built their college in part from the profits of this kind of traffic; that they J&uites, ou que I'^vesque sera gouverneur.'' — Mimoire sur M"' de la Salle. 1 " Ds [les Jesuites] r^f usent I'absolution ^ ceux qui ne veulent pas promettre de n'en plus vendre [de V eau-de-vie], et s'ils meurent en cet ^t&t, ils lee privent de la sepulture ecclesiastique ; au con- traire ils se permettent Ji eux-m6mes sans aucune diflicult^ ce mesme trafic quoique toute sorte de trafic soit interdite 'h tons les eccl^sias- tiques par les ordonnances du Roy, et par une buUe expresse du Pape. La Bulle et les ordonnances sont notoires, et quoyqu'ils cachent le trafic qu'ils font d'eau-de-vie, M. de la Salle pretend qu'il ne I'est pas moins ; qu'outre la notoriety il en a des preuves certaines, et qu'il les a surpris dans ce trafic, et qu'ils luy ont tendu des pifeges pour I'y surprendre. . . . Hs ont chass^ leur valet Robert k cause qu'il r^vfla qu'ils en traitaient jour et unit." — Ibid. The writer says that he makes this last statement, not on the authority of La Salle, but on that of a memoir made at the time when the intendant. Talon, with whom he elsewhere says that he was well acquainted, retumed to France. A great number of particulars are added respecting the Jesuit trade in furs. ^ Albanel was prominent among the Jesuit explorers at this time. He is best known by his journey up the Saguenay to Hud son's Bay in 1672. 110 PARTY STRIFE. [1678 admitted that they carried on a trade, but denied that they gained so much by it as was commonly supposed.^ The memoir proceeds to affirm that they trade largely vrith the Sioux at Ste. Marie, and with other tribes at Michilimackinac, and that they are masters of the trade of that region, where the forts are in their possession. ^ An Indian said, in full council, at Quebec, that he had prayed and been a Christian as long as the Jesuits would stay and teach him, but since no more beaver were left in his country, the missionaries were gone also. The Jesuits, pursues the memoir, wUl have no priests but themselves in their missions, and call them all Jansenists, not excepting the priests of St. Sulpice. The bishop is next accused of harshness and intolerance, as well as of grovring rich by tithes, and even by trade, in which it is affirmed he has a covert interest. 3 It is added that there exists in Quebec, under the auspices of the Jesuits, an association ^ " Pour vous parler franchement, ils [les Jesuites] songent autant k la conversion du Castor qu'^ celle des ames." — Lettre de Frontenac a. Colbert, 2 Nov., 1672. In his despatch of the next year, he says that the Jesuits ought to content themselves with instructing the Indians in their old mis sions, instead of neglecting them to make new ones in countries where there are " more beaver-skins to gain than souls to save." 2 These forts were built by them, and were necessary to the secu rity of their missions. ^ Fran9ois Xavier de Laval-Montmorency, first bishop of Que bec, was a prelate of austere character. His memory is cherished in Canada by adherents of the Jesuits and all ultramontane Catholics. 167o.] FEMALE INQUISITORS. Ill called the Sainte Famille, of which Madame Bourdon ^ is superior. They meet in the cathedral every Thursday, with closed doors, where they relate to each other — as they are bound by a vow to do — all they have learned, whether good or evil, conceming other people, during the week. It is a sort of female inquisition, for the benefit of the Jesuits, the secrets of whose friends, it is said, are kept, while no such discretion is observed with regard to persons not of their party. ^ 1 This Madame Bourdon was the widow of Bourdon, the engineer (see "The Jesuits in North America," 297). H we may credit the letters of Marie de I'lncarnation, she had married him from a religious motive, in order to charge herself with the care of his motherless children; stipulating in advance that he should live with her, not as a husband, but as a brother. As may be imagined, she was regarded as a most devout and saint-like person. * " II y a dans Quebec une congregation de femmes et de fiUes qu'ils [les Jesuites] appellent la sainte famille, dans laquelle on fait voeu sur les Saints Evangiles de dire tout ce qu'on salt de bien et de mal des personnes qu'on connoist. La Supferieure de cette com pagnie s'appelle Madame Bourdon ; une M''*- d'Ailleboust est, je crois, I'assistante et une M*«- Charron, la Tr^sorifere. La Compagnie s'assemble tons les Jeudis dans la Cath^drale, i porte ferm^e, et li elles se disent les unes aux autres tout ce qu'elles ont appris. C'est une espfece d'Inquisition contre toutes les personnes qui ne sont pas unies avec les Jesuites. Ces personnes sont accus^es de tenir secret ce qu'elles apprennent de mal des personnes de leur party et de n'avoir pas la mesme discretion pour les autres." — Memoire sur M'-- de la Salle. The Madame d'Ailleboust mentioned above was a devotee like Madame Bourdon, and, in one respect, her history was similar. See "The Jesuits in North America," 360. The association of the Sainte Famille was founded by the Jesuit Chaumonot at Montreal in 1663. Laval, Bishop of Quebec, after wards encouraged its establishment at that place ; and, as Chaumo not himself writes, caused it to be attached to the cathedral. Vie 112 PARTY STRIFE. [1678. Here follow a series of statements which it is need less to repeat, as they do not concern La Salle. They relate to abuse of the confessional, hostility to other priests, hostility to civU authorities, and over- hasty baptisms, in regard to which La Salle is reported to have made a comparison, unfavorable to the Jesuits, between them and the Recollets and Sulpitians. We now come to the second part of the memoir, entitled "History of Monsieur de la Salle." After stating that he left France at the age of twenty-one or twenty-two, vrith the purpose of attempting some new discovery, it makes the statements repeated in a former chapter, conceming his discovery of the Ohio, the Illinois, and possibly tbe Mississippi. It then mentions the building of Fort Frontenac, and says that one object of it was to prevent the Jesuits from becoming undisputed masters of the fur-trade.^ Three years ago, it pursues. La Salle came to France, ind obtained a grant of the fort; and it proceeds to give examples of the means used by the party opposed to him to injure his good name and bring him within reach of the law. Once, when he was at Quebec, the farmer of the King's revenue, one of the richest de Chaumonot, 83. For its establishment at Montreal, see Faillon, Vie de M^^- Mance, i. 233. " lis [les Jesuites] ont tons une si grande envie de savoir tout ce qui se fait dans les famiUes qu'ils ont des Inspeoteurs h, gages dans la Ville, qui leur rapportent tout ce qui se fait dans les maisons," etc., etc. — Lettre de Frontenac au Ministre, 13 Nov., 1673. • Mention has been made (p. 88, note) of the report set on foot by the Jesuit Dablon, to prevent the building of the fort. 1678.] PLOTS AGAINST LA SALLE. 113 men in the place, was extremely urgent in his proffers of hospitality, and at length, though he knIew La SaUe but slightly, persuaded him to lodge in his house. He had been here but a few days when his host's wife began to enact the part of the wife of Potiphar, and this with so much vivacity that on one occasion La Salle was forced to take an abrupt leave, in order to avoid an infringement of the laws of hos pitality. As he opened the door, he found the hus band on the watch, and saw that it was a plot to entrap him.^ Another attack, of a different character, though in the same direction, was soon after made. The remittances which La SaUe received from the various members and connections of his family were sent through the hands of his brother, Abb4 Cavelier, from whom his enemies were, therefore, very eager to alienate him. To this end, a report was made to reach the priest's ears that La Salle had seduced a young woman, with whom he was living in an open and scandalous manner at Fort Frontenac. The effect of this device exceeded the wi^es of its con trivers ; for the priest, aghast at what he had heard, set out for the fort, to administer his fraternal rebuke, but on arriving, in place of the expected abomination, found his brother, assisted by two R4collet friars, ruling vrith edifying propriety over a most exemplary household. 1 This story is told at considerable length, and the advances of the lady particularly described. 114 PARTY STRIFE. [1678. Thus far the memoir. From passages in some of La Salle's letters, it may be gathered that Abbd Cavelier gave him at times no little annoyance. In his double character of priest and elder brother, he seems to have constituted himself the counseUor, monitor, and guide of a man who, though many years his junior, was in all respects incomparably superior to him, as the sequel will show. This must have been almost insufferable to a nature like that of La SaUe, who, nevertheless, was forced to arm himself vrith patience, since his brother held the purse- strings. On one occasion his forbearance was put to a severe proof, when, wishing to marry a damsel of good connections in the colony, Abb6 Cavelier saw fit for some reason to interfere, and prevented the alliance.^ To resume the memoir. It declares that the Jesuits procured an ordinance from the Supreme Council prohibiting traders from going into the Indian country, in order that they, the Jesuits, being already established there in their missions, might carry on trade without competition. But La Salle induced a good number of the Iroquois to settle around his fort; thus bringing the trade to his own door, without breaking the ordinance. These Iroquois, he is further reported to have said, were very fond of him, and aided him in rebuilding the fort with cut stone. The Jesuits told the Iroquois on the south side of the lake, where they were estab- ' Letter of La Salle, in possession of M. Margry. 1678.] INTRIGUES OF THE JESUITS. 115 lish'ed as missionaries, that La Salle was strengthen ing his defences with the view of making war on them. They and the intendant, who was their crea ture, endeavored to embroil the Iroquois with the French in order to ruin La Salle ; writing to him at the same time that he was the bulwark of the country, and that he ought to be always on his guard. They also tried to persuade Frontenac that it was necessary to raise men and prepare for war. La Salle suspected them; and seeing that the Iroquois, in consequence of their intrigues, were in an excited state, he induced the governor to come to Fort Frontenac to pacify them. He accordingly did so; and a council was held, which ended in a complete restoration of confidence on the part of the Iroquois.^ At this councU they accused the two Jesuits, Bruyas and Pierron,^ of spreading reports that the French were preparing to attack them. La Salle thought that the 1 Louis XIV. alludes to this visit, in a letter to Frontenac, dated 28 April, 1677. " I cannot but approve," he writes, " of what you have done, in your voyage to Fort Frontenac, to reconcile the minds of the Five Iroquois Nations, and to clear yourself from the suspicions they had entertained, and from the motives that might induce them to make war." Frontenac's despatches of this year, as well as of the preceding and following years, are missing from the archives. In a memoir written in November, 1680, La Salle alludes to " le desir que Ton avoit que Monseigneur le Comte de Frontenac fist la guerre aux Iroquois." See Thomassy, Geologie Pratique de la Loui- siane, 203. ^ Bruyas was about this time stationed among the Onondagas. Pierron was among the Senecas. He had lately removed to them from the Mohawk country. Relation des Jesuites, 1673-79, 140 (Shea). Bruyas was also for a long time among the Mohawks. 116 PARTY STRIFE. [1678. object of the intrigue was to make the Iroquois jealous of him, and engage Frontenac in expenses which would offend the King. After La SaUe and the governor had lost credit by the rupture, the Jesuits would come forward as pacificators, in the full assurance that they could restore quiet, and appear in the attitude of saviors of the colony. La Salle, pursues his reporter, went on to say that about this time a quantity of hemlock and verdigris was given him in a salad ; and that the guilty person was a man in his employ named Nicolas Perrot, otherwise called Jolycoeur, who confessed the crime. ^ The memoir adds that La Salle, who recovered from the effects of the poison, wholly exculpates the Jesuits. This attempt, which was not, as we shall see, the only one of the kind made against La Salle, is alluded to by him in a letter to a friend at Paris, 1 This puts the character of Perrot in a new light ; for it is not likely that any other can be meant than the famous voyageur. I have found no mention elsewhere of the synonyme of Jolycoeur Poisoning was the current crime of the day, and persons of the highest rank had repeatedly been charged with it. The following is the passage : — " Quoiqu'il en soit, M''- de la Salle se sentit quelque temps aprfis empoissonn^ d'une salade dans laquelle on avoit mesW du cigue, qui est poison en ce pays 1^, et du verd de gris. II en fut malade Ji I'extr^mit^, vomissant presque continuellement 40 ou 50 jours apr^s, et il ne r^chappa que par la force extreme de sa constitution. Celuy qui luy donna le poison fut un nomm6 Nicolas Perrot, autrement Jolycoeur, I'un de ses domestiques. ... II pouvait faire mourir cet homme, qui a confess^ son crime, mais il s'est content^ de Ten- fermer les fers aux pieds." — Histoire de M''- de la SaUe, 1678.] LA SALLE EXCULPATES THE JESUITS. 117 written in Canada when he was on the point of departure on his great expedition to descend the Mississippi. The following is an extract from it: " I hope to give myself the honor of sending you a more particular account of this enterprise when it shall have had the success which I hope for it; but I have need of a strong protection for its support. It traverses the commercial operations of certain persons, who will find it hard to endure it. They intended to make a new Paraguay in these parts, and the route which I close against them gave them faciUties for an advantageous correspondence with Mexico. This check vrill infallibly be a mortification to them ; and you know how they deal with whatever opposes them. Nevertheless, I am bound to render them the justice to say that the poison which was given me was not at all of their instigation. The person who was conscious of the guilt, believing that I was their enemy because he saw that our sentiments were opposed, thought to exculpate himself by accusing them, and I confess that at the time I was not sorry to have this indica tion of their ill-will ; but having afterwards carefully 3xamined the affair, I clearly discovered the falsity of the accusation which this rascal had made against them. I nevertheless pardoned him, in order not to give notoriety to the affair; as the mere suspicion might suUy their reputation, to which I should scrupulously avoid doing the slightest injury unless I thought it necessary to the good of the public, and unless the fact were fully proved. Therefore, 118 PARTY STRIFE. [1678. Monsieur, if anybody shared the suspicion which I felt, obUge me by undeceiving him. " ^ This letter, so honorable to La Salle, explains the statement made in the memoir, that, notwithstanding his grounds of complaint against the Jesuits, he con tinued to live on terms of courtesy with them, enter tained them at his fort, and occasionally corresponded with them. The writer asserts, however, that they intrigued with his men to induce them to desert, — - employing for this purpose a young man named Deslauriers, whom they sent to him with letters of recommendation. La Salle took him into his service; but he soon after escaped, with several other men, and took refuge in the Jesuit missions. ^ The object of the intrigue is said to have been the reduction of La Salle's garrison to a number less than that which he was bound to maintain, thus exposing him to a forfeiture of his title of possession. He is also stated to have declared that Louis JoUet was an impostor, ^ and a donnS of the Jesuits, — that 1 The following words are underlined in the original : " Je suis pourtant oblige de leur rendre une justice, que le poison qu'on m'avoit donne n' estoit point de leur instigation." — Lettre de La Salle au Prince de Conti, 31 Oct., 1678. ^ In a letter to the King, Frontenac mentions that several men who had been induced to desert from La SaUe had gone to Albany, where the English had received them well. Lettre de Frontenac au Roy, 6 Nov., 1679. The Jesuits had a mission in the neighboring tribe of the Mohawks and elsewhere in New York. • This agrees with expressions used by La Salle in a memoir addressed by him to Frontenac iu November, 1680. In this, he intimates his belief that Joliet went but little below the mouth of the Illinois, thus doing flagrant injustice to that brave explorer. 1678.] RENEWED INTRIGUES. 119 is, a man who worked for them without pay; and, further, that when he. La Salle, came to court to ask for privileges enabUng him to pursue his discoveries, the Jesuits represented in advance to the minister Colbert that his head was tumed, and that he was fit for nothing but a mad-house. It was only by the aid of influential friends that he was at length enabled to gain an audience. Here ends this remarkable memoir, which, criticise it as we may, does not exaggerate the jealousies and enmities that beset the path of the discoverer. CHAPTER Vm. 1677, 1678. THB GRAND ENTERPRISE. Salle at Fort Frontenac. — La Salle at Court : his Mbuo- miAL. — Approval or the King. — Monet and Means. — Henri de Tontt. — Return to Canada. •' If, " writes a friend of La SaUe, " he had preferred gain to glory, he had only to stay at his fort, where he was making more than twenty-five thousand livres a year."i He loved solitude and he loved power; and at Fort Frontenac he had both, so far as each consisted with the other. The nearest settlement was a week's joumey distant, and he was master of aU around him. He had spared no pains to fulfil the conditions on which his wilderness seigniory had been granted, and within two years he had demolished the original wooden fort, replacing it by another much larger, enclosed on the land side by ramparts and bastions of stone, and on the water side by palisades. It contained a range of barracks of squared timber, a guard-house, a lodging for officers, a forge, a well, I Memoire pour Monseigneur le Marquis de Seignelay sur Us Def eouvertes du Sieur de la Salle, 1682. 1675-78.] LA SALLE AT FORT FRONTENAC. 121 a miU, and a bakery. Nine small cannon were mounted on the waUs. Two officers and a surgeon, with ten or twelve soldiers, made up the garrison; and tliree or four times that number of masons, laborers, and canoe-men were at one time maintained at the place. Along the shore south of the fort was a small vUlage of French families, to whom La Salle had granted farms, and, farther on, a village of Iroquois, whom he had persuaded to settle here. Near these rillages were the house and chapel of two R^coUet friars, Luc Buisset and Louis Hennepin. More than a hundred French acres of land had been cleared of wood, and planted in part with crops ; while cattle, fowls, and swine had been brought up from Montreal. Four vessels, of from twenty-five to forty tons, had been buUt for the lake and the river; but canoes served best for ordinary uses, and La Salle's followers became so skiUed in managing them that they were reputed the best canoe-men in America. Feudal lord of the forests around him, commander of a garrison raised and paid by himself, founder of the mission, and patron of the church, he reigned the autocrat of his lonely Uttle empire.^ ^ ^tat de la depense faite par M''- de la Salle, Gouverneur du Fort Frontenac. Recit de Nicolas de la Salle. Reveue faite au Fort de Frontenac, 1677 ; Memoire sur le Projet du Sieur de la Salle (Margry, i. 329). Plan of Fort Frontenac, published by Faillon, from the original sent to France by Denonville in 1686. Relation des DScou- vertes du Sieur de la Salle. Wlien Frontenac was at the fort in Sep tember, 1677, he found only four habUants. It appears, by the Rela- 122 THE GRAND ENTERPRISE. [1677. It was not solely or chiefly for commercial gain that La Salle had established Fort Frontenac. He regarded it as a first step towards greater things ; and now, at length, his plans were ripe and his time was come. In the autumn of 1677 he left the fort in charge of his lieutenant, descended the St. Lawrence to Quebec, and sailed for France. He had the patronage of Frontenac and the help of strong friends in Paris. It is said, as we have seen already, that his enemies denounced him, in advance, as a mad man; but a memorial of his, which his friends laid before the minister Colbert, found a favorable hear ing. In it he set forth his plans, or a portion of them. He first recounted briefly the discoveries he had made, and then described the country he had seen south and west of the great lakes. " It is nearly all so beautiful and so fertile ; so free from forests, and so full of meadows, brooks, and rivers; so abounding in fish, game, and venison, that one can find there in plenty, and with Uttle trouble, all that is needful for the support of flourishing colonies. The soil vrill produce everything that is raised in France. Flocks and herds can be left out at pasture all winter; and there are even native wild cattle, which, instead of hair, have a fine wool that may answer for making cloth and hats. Their hides are better than those of France, as appears tion des DScouvertes du Sieur de la Salle, that, three or four years later, there were thirteen or fourteen families. La Salle spent 84,426 francs on the fort. Memoire au Roy, Papiers de Famille 1678.] LA SALLE'S MEMORIAL. 123 by the sai!nple wliich the Sieur de la Salle has brought with him. Hemp and cotton grow here naturally, and may be manufactured with good re sults ; so there can be no doubt that colonies planted here would become very prosperous. They would be increased by a great number of western Indians, who are in the main of a tractable and social dispo sition; and as they have the use neither of our weapons nor of our goods, and are not in intercourse with other Europeans, they will readily adapt them selves to us and imitate our way of life as soon as they taste the advantages of our friendship and of the commodities we bring them, insomuch that these countries will infallibly furnish, within a few years, a great many new subjects to the Church and the King. " It was the knowledge of these things, joined to the poverty of Canada, its dense forests, its barren soil, its harsh climate, and the snow that covers the ground for half the year, that led the Sieur de la Salle to undertake the planting of colonies in these beautiful countries of the West." Then he recounts the difficulties of the attempt, — the vast distances, the rapids and cataracts that obstruct the way; the cost of men, provisions, and munitions; the danger from the Iroquois, and the rivalry of the English, who covet the westem country, and would gladly seize it for themselves. "But this last reason," says the memorial, "only animates the Sieur de la Salle the more, and impels 124 THE GRAND ENTERPRISE. [1678. him to anticipate them by the promptness of his action." He declares that it was for this that he had asked for the grant of Fort Frontenac; and he describes what he had done at that post, in order to make it a secure basis for his enterprise. He says that he has now overcome the chief difficulties in his way, and that he is ready to plant a new colony at the outlet of Lake Erie, of which the English, if not prevented, might easily take possession. Towards the accom plishment of his plans, he asks the confirmation of his title to Fort Frontenac, and the permission to estabUsh at his own cost two other posts, with sei gniorial rights over all lands which he may discover and colonize within twenty years, and the govern ment of all the country in question. On his part, he proposes to renounce all share in the trade carried on between the tribes of the Upper Lakes and the people of Canada. La Salle seems to have had an interview with the minister, in which the proposals of his memorial were somewhat modified. He soon received in reply the following patent from the King : — " Louis, by the grace of God King of France and Navarre, to our dear and well-beloved Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la SaUe, greeting. We have received with favor the very humble petition made us in your name, to permit you to labor at the dis covery of the westem parts of New France ; and we have the more willingly entertained this proposal. 1678.] THE KING'S APPROVAL. 125 since we have nothing more at heart than the explora tion of this country, through which, to all appear ance, a way may be found to Mexico. . . . For this and other causes thereunto moving us, we permit you by these presents, signed with our hand, to labor at the discovery of the western parts of our aforesaid country of New France; and, for the execution of this enterprise, to build forts at such places as you may think necessary, and enjoy possession thereof under the same clauses and conditions as of Fort Frontenac, conformably to our letters patent of May thirteenth, 1675, which, so far as needful, we con firm by these presents. And it is our will that they be executed according to their form and tenor: on condition, nevertheless, that you finish this enterprise within five years, failing which, these presents shall be void, and of no effect; that you carry on no trade vrith the savages caUed Ottawas, or with other tribes who bring their peltries to Montreal ; and that you do the whole at your own cost and that of your asso ciates, to whom we have granted the sole right of trade in buffalo-hides. And we direct the Sieur Count Frontenac, our governor and lieutenant- general, and also Duchesneau, intendant of justice, police, and finance, and the officers of the supreme council of the aforesaid country, to see to the execu tion of these presents ; for such is our pleasure. " Given at St. Germain en Laye, this 12th day of May, 1678, and of our reign the 35th year." This patent grants both more and less than thp 126 THE GRAND ENTERPRISE [1678. memorial had asked. It authorizes La Salle to build and own, not two forts oidy, but as many as he may see fit, provided that he do so within five years ; and it gives him, besides, the monopoly of buffalo-hides, for which at first he had not petitioned. Nothing is said of colonies. To discover the country, secure it by forts, and find, if possible, a way to Mexico, are the only object set forth ; for Louis XIV. always dis countenanced settlement in the West, partly as tend ing to deplete Canada, and partly as removing his subjects too far from his paternal control. It was but the year before that he refused to Louis JoUet the permission to plant a trading station in the Valley of the Mississippi. 1 La Salle, however, still held to his plan of a commercial and industrial colony, and in connection with it to another purpose, of which his memorial had made no mention. This was the building of a vessel on some branch of the Missis sippi, in order to sail down that river to its mouth, and open a route to commerce through the Gulf of Mexico. It is erident that this design was already formed; for he had no sooner received his patent, than he engaged ship-carpenters, and procured iron, cordage, and anchors, not for one vessel, but for two. What he now most needed was money ; and hav ing none of his own, he set himself to raising it from others. A notaiy named Simonnet lent him four thousand livres; an advocate named Raoul, twenty- 1 Colbert a Duchesneau, 28 Avril, 1677. 1678.] MONEY AND MEANS. 127 four thousand ; and one Dumont, six thousand. His cousin Fram; ois Plet, a merchant of Rue St. Martin, lent him about eleven thousand, at the interest of forty per cent; and when he returned to Canada, Frontenac found means to procure him another loan of about fourteen thousand, secured by the mortgage of Fort Frontenac. But his chief helpers were his famUy, who became sharers in his undertaking. "His brothers and relations," says a memorial after wards addressed by them to the King, "spared noth ing to enable him to respond worthily to the royal goodness;" and the document adds, that, before his aUotted five years were ended, his discoveries had cost them more than five hundred thousand livres (francs). 1 La SaUe himself beUeved, and made others beUeve, that there was more profit than risk in his schemes. Lodged rather obscurely in Rue de la Truanderie, and of a nature reserved and shy, he nevertheless found countenance and support from personages no less exalted than Colbert, Seignelaj^, and the Prince de Conti. Others, too, in stations less conspicuous, warmly espoused his cause, and none more so than the leamed Abb^ Renaudot, who helped him with tongue and pen, and seems to have been instrumental in introducing to him a man who afterwards proved invaluable. This was Henri de Tonty, an ItaUan * Memoire au Roy, presente sous la Regence ; Obligation du Sieur de la Salle envers le Sieur Plet; Autres Emprunts de CaveUer de la Salh (Margry, i. 423-432). 128 THE GRAND ENTERPRISE. [1678, officer, a protigi of the Prince de Conti, who sent him to La Salle as a person suited to his purposes, Tonty had but one hand, the other haring been blown off by a grenade in the Sicilian wars.^ His father, who had been governor of Gaeta, but who had come to France in consequence of political dis turbances in Naples, had earned no small reputation as a financier, and had invented the form of life insurance still called the Tontine. La Salle leamed to know his new lieutenant on the voyage across the Atlantic ; and, soon after reaching Canada, he wrote of him to his patron in the following terms: "His honorable character and his amiable disposition were W: ' ' known to you ; but perhaps you would not have the dght him capable of doing things for which a strong constitution, an acquaintance with the country, and the use of both hands seemed absolutely neces sary. Nevertheless, his energy and address make him equal to anything; and now, at a season when everybody is in fear of the ice, he is setting out to begin a new fort, two hundred leagues from this place, and to which I have taken the liberty to give the name of Fort Conti. It is situated near that great cataract, more than a hundred and twenty toises in height, by which the lakes of higher elevation precipitate themselves into Lake Frontenac [Ontario]. From there one goes by water, five hundred leagues, to the place where Fort Dauphin is to be begun; from which it only remains to descend the great 1 Tonty, Mimoire, in Margry, Relations et Memoires inedits, 6. 1678.] RETURN TO CANADA. 129 river of the Bay of St. Esprit, to reach the Gulf of Mexico. " 1 Besides Tonty, La Salle found in France another ally. La Motte de LussiSre, to whom he offered a share in the enterprise, and who joined him at Rochelle, the place of embarkation. Here vexatious delays oci.-urred. Bellinzani, director of trade, who had formerly taken lessons in rascality in the service of Cardinal Mazarin, abused his official position to throw obstacles in the way of La Salle, in order to extort money from him; and he extorted, in fact, a considerable sum, which his victim afterwards reclaimed. It was not till the fourteenth of July that La Salle, with Tonty, La Motte, and thirty men, set saU for Canada, and two months more elapsed before he reached Quebec. Here, to increase his resources and strengthen his position, he seems to have made a league with several Canadian mer- 1 Lettre de La Salle, 31 Oct., 1678. Fort Conti was to have been built on the site of the present Fort Niagara. The name of Lac de Conti was given by La Salle to Lake Erie. The fort mentioned as Fort Dauphin was built, as we shall see, on the Illinois, though under another name. La Salle, deceived by Spanish maps, thought that the Mississippi discharged itself into the Bay of St. Esprit (Mobile Bay). Henri de Tonty signed his name in the Gallicized, and not in the original Italian form Tonti. He wore a hand of iron or some other metal, which was usually covered with a glove. La Potherie says that he once or twice used it to good purpose when the Indians became disorderly, in breaking the heads of the most contumacious or knocking out their teeth. Not knowing at the time the secret of the unusual efficacy of his blows, they regarded him as a " medi cine" of the first order. La Potherie erroneously ascribes Jie loss of his hand to a sabre-cut received in a sortie at Messina. 9 130 THE GRAND ENTERPRISE. [1678. chants, some of whom had before been his enemies, and were to be so again. Here, too, he found Father Louis Hennepin, who had come down from Fort Frontenac to meet him.^ > La Motte de Lussiire a — , sans date; Memoire de la S He sur les Extorsions commises par Bellinzani ; Saciete formic par Im Salle; Relation de Henri de Tonty, 1684 (Margry, i. 338, 573; ii. ? 25). CHAPTER IX. 1678-1679. LA SALLE AT NIAGARA. Father Louis Hennepin : his Past Life ; his Character.— Embarkation. — Niagara Falls. — Indian Jealousy. — La Motte AND the Senecas. — A Disaster. — La Salle and his Followers. Hennepin was aU eagerness to join in the adven ture ; and, to his great satisfaction. La SaUe gave him a letter from his Prorincial, Father Le F^vre, con taining the coveted permission. Whereupon, to prepare himself, he went into retreat at the R^coUet convent of Quebec, where he remained for a time in such prayer and meditation as his nature, the reverse of spiritual, would permit. Frontenac, always partial to his Order, then invited him to dine at the ch&,teau; and having risited the bishop and asked his bless ing, he went down to the Lower Town and embarked. His vessel was a small birch canoe, paddled by two men. With sandaUed feet, a coarse gray capote, and peaked hood, the cord of St. Francis about his waist, and a rosary and crucifix hanging at his side, the father set forth on his memorable joumey. He 132 LA SALLE AT NIAGARA. [1678. carried with him the furniture of a portable altar, which in time of need he could strap on his back like a knapsack. He slowly made his way up the St. Lawrence, stopping here and tiiere, where a clearing and a few log houses marked the feeble beginning of a parish and a seigniory. The settlers, though good Catholics, were too few and too poor to support a priest, and hailed the arrival of the friar vrith delight. He said mass, exhorted a little, as was his custom, and on one occasion baptized a child. At length he reached Montreal, where the enemies of the enterprise enticed away his two canoe-men. He succeeded in finding two others, with whom he continued his voyage, passed the rapids of the upper St. Lavsrrence, and reached Fort Frontenac at eleven o'clock at night of the second of November, where his brethren of the mission, Ribourde and Buisset, received him with open arms.^ La Motte, with most of the men, appeared on the eighth; but La Salle and Tonty did not arrive till more than a month later. Meanwhile, in pursuance of his orders, fifteen men set out in canoes for Lake Michigan and the Illinois, to trade with the Indians and coUect provisions, while La Motte embarked in a small vessel for Niagara, accom panied by Hennepin.^ 1 Hennepin, Description de la Louisiane (1683), 19; Ibid., Voyagi Curieux (1704), 66., Ribourde had lately arrived. * Lettre de La Motte de la Lussiire, sans date ; Relation de Henri de Tonty icrite de Quebec, le 14 Novembre, 1684 (Margry, i. 573). Fatbei Hennepin Celebrating Mass. Drawn by Howard Pyle. L.A Salle and the Discovery of the Great West, 13a, eoiiffU&C? Paris. 1678.] HENNEPIN 133 This bold, hardy, and adventurous friar, the histo rian of the expedition, and a conspicuous actor in it, has unwittingly painted his own portrait with toler able distinctness. "I always," he says, "felt a strong inclination to fly from the world and Uve according to the rules of a pure and severe virtue; and it was with this riew that I entered the Order of St. Francis."^ He then speaks of his zeal for the saving of souls, but admits that a passion for travel and a burning desire to visit strange lands had no small part in his inclination for the missions.^ Being in a convent in Artois, his Superior sent him to Calais, at the season of the herring-fishery, to beg alms, after the practice of the Franciscans. Here and at Dunkirk he made friends of the sailors, and was never tired of their stories. So insatiable, indeed, was his appetite for them, that " often, " he says, " I hid myself behind tavern doors while the sailors were teUing of their voyages. The tobacco smoke made me very sick at the stomach ; but, notwithstanding, I listened attentively to all they said about their adventures at sea and their travels in distant countries. I could have passed whole days and nights in this way without eating."^ He presently set out on a roving mission through This paper, apparently addressed to Abb^ Renaudot, is entirely dis tinct from Tonty's memoir of 1693, addressed to the minister Ponohartrain. • Hennepin, Nouvelle Decouverte (1697), 8. ^ Ibid., Avnnt Propos, 5. ' Ibid., Voyage Curieux (1704), 12. 134 LA SALLE AT NIAGARA. [1678. Holland; and he recounts various mishaps which befell him, "in consequence of my zeal in laboring for the saving of souls." "I was at the bloody fight of Seneff," he pursues, "where so many perished by fire and sword, and where I had abundance of work in comforting and consoliag the poor wounded soldiers. After undergoing great fatigues, and run ning extreme danger in the sieges of towns, in the trenches, and in battles, where I exposed myself freely for the salvation of others while the soldiers were breathing nothing but blood and carnage, I found myself at last in a way of satisfying my old inclination for travel."^ He got leave from his superiors to go to Canada, the most adventurous of all the missions, and accord ingly sailed in 1675, in the ship which carried La Salle, who had just obtained the grant of Fort Frontenac. In the course of the voyage, he took it upon him to reprove a party of girls who were amus ing themselves and a circle of officers and other passengers by dancing on deck. La Salle, who was among the spectators, was annoyed at Hennepin's interference, and told him that he was behaving like a pedagogue. The friar retorted, by alluding — unconsciously, as he says — to the circumstance that La Salle was once a pedagogue himself, having, according to Hennepin, been for ten or twelve years teacher of a class in a Jesuit school. La Salle, he adds, tumed pale with rage, and never forgave him * Hennepin, Voyage Curieux (1704), 13. 1677-78.] HENNEPIN. 135 to his dying day, but always maligned and persecuted him.^ On arriring in Canada, he was sent up to Fort Frontenac, as a missionary. That wild and remote post was greatly to his liking. He planted a gigantic cross, superintended the buUding of a chapel for him self and his colleague Buisset, and instructed the Iroquois colonists of the place. He visited, too, the neighboring Indian settlements, — paddling his canoe in summer, when the lake was open, and journeying in winter on snow-shoes, with a blanket slung at his back. His most noteworthy joumey was one which he made in the winter, — apparently of 1677, — with a soldier of the fort. They crossed the eastern extremity of Lake Ontario on snow-shoes, and pushed southward through the forests, towards Onondaga, — stopping at evening to dig away the snow, which was several feet deep, and collect wood for their fire, which they were forced to replenish repeatedly during the night, to keep themselves from freezing. At length, they reached the great Onondaga town, where the Indians were much amazed at their hardihood. Theiice they proceeded eastward to the Oneidas, and afterwards to the Mohawks, who regaled them with small frogs, pounded up with a porridge of Indian corn. Here Hennepin found the Jesuit Bruyas, who permitted him to copy a diction- 1 Ibid., Avis au Lecteur. He elsewhere represents himself as on excellent terms with La Salle ; with whom, he says, he used to read histories of travels at Fort Frontenac, after which they discussed together their plans of discovery. 136 LA SALLE AT NIAGARA. [1678- ary of the Mohawk language ^ which he had compiled ; and here he presently met three Dutchmen, who urged him to visit the neighboring settiement of Orange, or Albany, — an invitation which he seems to have declined.^ They were pleased with him, he says, because be spoke Dutch. Bidding them farewell, he tied on his snow-shoes again, and retumed with his companion to Fort Frontenac. Thus he inured himself to the hardships of the woods, and prepared for the execu tion of the grand plan of discovery which he calls his own, — "an enterprise," to borrow his own words, " capable of terrifying anybody but me." ^ When the later editions of his book appeared, doubts had been expressed of his veracity. "I here protest to you, before God," he writes, addressing the reader, "that my narrative is faithful and sincere, and that you may believe everything related in it." * And yet, as we shall see, this reverend father was the most impudent of Uars; and the narrative of which he speaks is a rare monument of brazen mendacity. Hennepin, however, had seen and dared much; for 1 This was the Racines Agniires of Bruyas. It was published by Mr. Shea in 1862. Hennepin seems to have studied it carefully ; for on several occasions he makes use of words evidently borrowed from it, putting them into the mouths of Indians speaking a dialect different from that of the Agniers, or Mohawks. 2 Compare Brodhead in Hist. Mag., x. 268. 8 "TTue enterprise capable d'^pouvanter tout autre que moi." — Hennepin, Voyage Curieux, Avant Propos (1704). * " Je vous proteste ici devant Dieu, que ma Relation est fidfele et sincere," etc. — Ibid., Avis an Lecteur. 1678.] HENNEPIN 137 among his many failings fear had no part, and where his vanity or his spite was not involved, he often told the truth. His books have their value, with all their enormous fabrications. ^ La Motte and Hennepin, with sixteen men, went on board the little vessel of ten tons, which lay at Fort Frontenac. The friar's two brethren, Buisset and Ribourde., threw theu arms about his neck as they bade him farewell ; while his Indian proselytes, learning whither he was bounci stood with their hands pressed upon their mouths, m amazement at the perils which awaited their ghostly instructor. La SaUe, vrith the rest of the party, was to follow as soon as he could finish his preparations. It was a boisterous and gusty day, the eighteenth of November, The sails were spread ; the shore receded, — the stone walls of the fort, the huge cross that the friar had reared, the vrigwams, the settlers' cabins, the group of staring Indians on the strand. The lake was rough; and the men, crowded in so small a craft, grew nervous and uneasy. They hugged the northern shore, to escape the fury of the wind, which blew savagely from the northeast; while the long gray sweep of naked forests on their right betokened that winter was fast closing in. On the twenty-sixth, they reached the neighborhood of the Indian town of 1 The nature of these fabrications will be shown hereafter They occur, not in the early editions of Hennepin's narrative, which are comparatively truthful, but in the edition of 1697 and those which followed. La Salle was dead at the time of their publication. 138 LA SALLE AT NIAGARA. [1678. Taiaiagon,^ not far from Toronto, and ran their vessel, for safety, into the mouth of a river, — prob ably the Humber, — where the ice closed about her, and they were forced to cut her out vrith axes. On the fifth of December, they attempted to cross to the mouth of the Niagara; but darkness overtook them, and they spent a comfortless night, tossing on the troubled lake, five or six miles from shore. In the morning, they entered the mouth of the Niagara, and landed on the point at its eastern side, where now stand the historic ramparts of Fort Niagara. Here they found a small village of Senecas, attracted hither by the fisheries, who gazed with curious eyes at the vessel, and listened in wonder as the voyagers sang Te Deum in gratitude for their safe arrival. Hennepin, with several others, now ascended the river in a canoe to the foot of the mountain ridge of Lewiston, which, stretching on the right hand and on the left, forms the acclivity of a vast plateau, rent with the mighty chasm, along which, from this point to the cataract, seven miles above, rush, with the fury of an Alpine torrent, the gathered waters of four inland oceans. To urge the canoe farther was impossible. He landed, with his companions, on the west bank, near the foot of that part of the ridge now called Queenstovni Heights, cUmbed the steep ascent, and pushed through the wintry forest on a 1 This place is laid down on a manuscript map sent to France by the Intendant Duchesneau, and now preserved in the Archives de la Marine, and also on several other contemporary maps. 1678.] NIAGARA FALLS. 139 tour of exploration. On his left sank the cliffs, the furious river raging below; till at length, in primeval solitudes unprofaned as yet by the pettiness of man, the imperial cataract burst upon his sight. ^ The explorers passed three miles beyond it, and encamped for the night on the banks of Chippewa Creek, scraping away the snow, which was a foot deep, in order to kindle a fire. In the morning they retraced their steps, startling a number of deer and wild turkeys on their way, and rejoined their com- pamons at the mouth of the river. I Hennepin's account of the falls and river of Niagara — espe cially his second account, on his return from the West — is very minute, and on the whole very accurate. He indulges in gross exaggeration as to the height of the cataract, which, in the edition of 1683, he states at five hundred feet, and raises to six hundred in that of 1697. He also says that there was room for four carriages to pass abreast under the American Fall without being wet. This is, of course, an exaggeration at the best; but it is extremely probable that a great change has taken place since his time. He speaks of a small lateral fall at the west side of the Horse Shoe Fall which does not now exist. Table Rock, now destroyed, is dis tinctly figured in his picture. He says that he descended the cliffs on the west side to the f oo^ of the cataract, but that no human being can get down on the east side. The name of Niagara, written Onguiaahra by Lalemant in 1641, and Ongiara by Sanson, on his map of 1657, is used by Hennepin in its present form. His description of the falls is the earliest known to exist. They are clearly indicated on the map of Champlain, 1632. For early references to them, see "The Jesuits in North America,'' 235, note. A brief but curious notice of them is given by Gendron, Quelques Particularitez du Pays des Hurons, 1659. The indefatigable Dr. O'Callaghan has discovered thirty-nine distinct forms of the name Niagara. Index to Colonial Documents of New York, 465. It is of Iroquois origin, and in the Mohawk dialect li pronounced Ny^garah. 140 LA SALLE AT NIAGARA. [1678. La Motte now began the buUding of a fortified house, some two leagues above the mouth of the Niagara. 1 Hot water was used to soften the frozen ground; but frost was not the only obstacle. The Senecas of the neighboring viUage betrayed a suUen jealousy at a design which, indeed, boded them no good. Niagara was the key to the four great lakes above; and whoever held possession of it could, in no smaU measure, control the fur-trade of the interior. Occupied by the French, it would in time of peace intercept the trade which the Iroquois carried on between the western Indians and the Dutch and English at Albany, and in time of war threaten them with serious danger. La Motte saw the necessity of conciUating these formidable neighbors, and, if pos sible, cajoling them to give their consent to the plan. La SaUe, indeed, had instructed him to that effect. He resolved on a joumey to the great village of the Senecas, and called on Hennepin, who was busied in buUding a bark chapel for himself, to accompany him. They accordingly set out with several men weU armed and equipped, and bearing at their backs presents of very considerable value. The village was beyond the Genesee, southeast of the site of Rochester.2 After a march of five days, they reached it on the last day of December. They were con- * Tonty, Relation, 1684 (Margry, i. 573). " Near the town of Victor. It is laid down on the map of Gali- n€e, and other unpublished maps. Compare Marshall, Historical Sketchea ofthe Niagara Frontier, 14 1678.] LA MOTTE AND THE SENECAS. 141 ducted to the lodge of the great chief, where they were beset by a staring crowd of women and children. Two Jesuits, Raffeix and Julien Gamier, were in the viUage; and their presence boded no good for the embassy. La Motte, who seems to have had little love for priests of any kind, was greatiy annoyed at seeing them ; and when the chiefs assembled to hear what he had to say, he insisted that the two fathers should leave the councU-house. At this, Hennepin, out of respect for his cloth, thought it befitting that he shoiUd retire also. The chiefs, forty-two in number, squatted on the ground, arrayed in cere monial robes of beaver, wolf, or black-squirrel skin. "The senators of Venice," writes Hennepin, "do not look more grave or speak more deUberately than the counseUors of the Iroquois." La Motto's inter preter harangued the attentive conclave, placed gift after gift at their feet, — coats, scarlet cloth, hatchets, knives, and beads, — and used all his eloquence to persuade them that the building of a fort on the banks of the Niagara, and a vessel on Lake Erie, were measures vital to their interest. They gladly took the gifts, but answered the interpreter's speech with evasive generalities; and having been enter tained with the burning of an Indian prisoner, the discomfited embassy retumed, half-famished, to Niagara. Meanwhile, La Salle and Tonty were on their way from Fort Frontenac, with men and supplies, to join La Motte and his advance party. They were 142 LA SALLE aT NIAGARA. [1679. in a small vessel, with a pilot either unskilful or treacherous. On Christmas eve, he was near vsreck- ing them off the Bay of Quints. On the next day they crossed to the mouth of the Genesee; and La Salle, after some delay, proceeded to the neighboring town of the Senecas, where he appears to have arrived just after the departure of La Motte and Hennepin. He, too, called them to a council, and tried to soothe the extreme jealousy vrith which they regarded his proceedings. "I told them my plan," he says, "and gave the best pretexts I could, and I succeeded in my attempt."^ More fortunate than La Motte, he persuaded them to consent to his carrying arms and ammunition by the Niagara portage, building a vessel above the cataract, and establishing a fortified ware house at the mouth of the river. This success was followed by a calamity. La Salle had gone up the Niagara to find a suitable place for a ship-yard, when he learned that the pilot in charge of the vessel he had left had disobeyed his orders, and ended by wrecking it on tiie coast. Little was saved except the anchors and cables destined for the new vessel to be built above the cataract. This loss threw him into extreme perplexity, and, as Hennepin says, "would have made anybody but him give up the enterprise. "2 The whole party were now gath- 1 Lettre de La Salle a un de ses associis (Margry, ii. 32). » Description de la Louisiane (1683), 41. It is characteristic of Hennepin that, in the editions of his book published after La Salle's death, he substitutes, for " anybody but him," " anybody but those who had formed so generous a design," — meaning to include him- 1679.] JEALOUSIES. 143 ered at the palisaded house which La Motte had built, a little below the mountain ridge of Lewiston. They were a motley crew of French, Flemings, and Italians, aU mutually jealous. La SaUe's enemies had tampered with some of the men; and none of them seemed to have had much heart for the enter prise. The fidelity even of La Motte was doubtful. "He served me very ill," says La Salle; "and Messieurs de Tonty and de la Forest knew that he did his best to debauch all my men."i His health soon failed under the hardships of these vrinter jour- neyings, and he retumed to Fort Frontenac, half- blinded by an inflammation of the eyes.^ La Salle, seldom happy in the choice of subordinates, had, perhaps, in all his company but one man whom he could fully trust; and this was Tonty. He and Hennepin were on indifferent terms. Men thrown together in a rugged enterprise Uke this quickly leam to know each other; and the vain and assuming friar was not likely to commend himself to La Salle's brave and loyal lieutenant. Hennepin says that it was La SaUe's poUcy to govern through the dissensions of his foUowers ; and, from whatever cause, it is certain that those beneath him were rarely in perfect harmony. self, though he lost nothing by the disaster, and had not formed the design. On these incidents, compare the two narratives of Tonty, of 1684 and 1693. The book bearing Tonty's name is a compilation full of errors. He disowned its authorship. » Lettre de La Salle, 22 Aoiit, 1682 (Margry, ii. 213). ' Lettre de La Motte, sans date. CHAPTER X. 1679. THE LAUNCH OF THE "GRIFFIN." Fhe Niagara Portage. — A Vessel on the Stocks. — Sufperins AND Discontent. — La Salle's Winter Journbt. — The Ves sel LAUNCHED. — FeESH DISASTERS. A MOKE important work than that of the warehouse at the mouth of the river was now to be begun. This was the building of a vessel above the cataract. The small craft which had brought La Motte and Hennepin with their advance party had been hauled to the foot of the rapids at Lewiston, and drawn ashore vrith a capstan, to save her from the drifting ice. Her lading was taken out, and must now be carried beyond the cataract to the calm water above. The distance to the destined point was at least twelve mUes, and the steep heights above Lewiston must first be climbed. This heavy task was accom plished on the twenty-second of January. The level of the plateau was reached, and the file of burdened men, some thirty in number, toiled slowly on its way over the snowy plains and through the gloomy forests of spruce and naked oak-trees; whUe Hennepin plodded through the drifts with his portable altar 1679.] THE NIAGARA PORTAGE. 145 lashed fast to his back. They came at last to the mouth of a stream which entered the Niagara two leagues above the cataract, and which was undoubt edly that now called Cayuga Creek. ^ 1 It has been a matter of debate on which side of the Niagara the first vessel on the Upper Lakes was built. A close study of Hennepin, and a careful examination of the localities, have con vinced me that the spot was that indicated above. Hennepin repeatedly alludes to a large detached rock, rising out of the water at the foot of the rapids above Lewiston, on the west side of the river. This rock may still be seen immediately under the western end of the Lewiston suspension-bridge. Persons living in the neigh borhood remember that a ferry-boat used to pass between it and the cliffs of the western shore ; but it has since been undermined by the current and has inclined in that direction, so that a considerable part of it is submerged, while the gravel and earth thrown down fr