Landing, passing the fort, and walking southward along the shore, one would soon have left the rough clearings, and entered the primeval forest. Here, mile after mile, he would have journeyed on in solitude, 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 settlement. It was where the St. Lawrence widens into the broad expanse called the Lake of St. Louis. Here, La Salle had traced out the circuit of a palisaded village, and assigned to each settler half an arpent, or about a third of an acre, within the enclosure, for which he was to render to the young seigneur a yearly acknowledgment of three capons, besides six deniersthat is, half a sou in money. To each was assigned, moreover, sixty arpents of land beyond the limits of the village, with the perpetual 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 payment 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 beginnings of all the Canadian seigniories formed at this troubled period. [Footnote: The above particulars have been unearthed by the indefatigable Abbé Faillon. Some of La Salle's grants are still preserved in the ancient records of Montreal.]
That La Salle came to Canada with objects distinctly 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. [Footnote: Papiers de Famille, MSS. 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.] 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 semblance of friendship. The visitors spent the winter 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 journey of eight or nine months. Evidently, the Ohio and the Mississippi are here merged into one. [Footnote: According to Dollier de Casson, who had good opportunities of knowing, the Iroquois always called the Mississippi the Ohio, while the Algonquins gave it its present name.] 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 California. If so, it would give him what he sought,a western passage to China; while, 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 to his intended exploration. Few men were more skilled than he in the art of clear and plausible statement. Both the Governor, Courcelles, and the Intendant, Talon, were readily won over to his plan; for which, however, they seem to have given him no more substantial aid than that of the Governor's letters patent authorizing the enterprise. [Footnote: Talon, in his letter to the king, of 10 Oct. 1670, expresses himself as if the enterprise had originated with him.] The cost was to be his own; and he had no money, having spent it all on his seigniory. He therefore proposed that the Seminary, 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 ironmonger, for twenty-eight hundred livres. [Footnote: Faillon, Colonie Française en Canada, iii. 288.] With this he bought four canoes, with the necessary supplies, and hired fourteen men.
Meanwhile, the Seminary itself 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 government. The Seminary priests of Montreal were jealous of these powerful rivals, and eager to emulate their zeal in the saving of souls, and the conquering of new domains for the Faith. Under this impulse, they had, three years before, established a mission at Quinté, on the north shore of Lake Ontario, in charge of two of their number, one of whom was the Abbé Fénelon, elder brother of the celebrated Archbishop of Cambray. Another of them, Dollier de Casson, had spent the winter in a hunting-camp of the Nipissings, where an Indian prisoner, captured in the North-west, told him of populous 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 Dollier, was fitted out to this end.
He was not ill 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 uncommon bodily strength, of which he had given striking proofs in the campaign of Courcelles against the Iroquois, three years before. [Footnote: He was the author of the very curious and valuable Histoire de Montréal, preserved in the Bibliothèque Mazarine, of which a copy is in my possession. The Historical Society of Montreal has recently resolved to print it.] On going to Quebec, to procure the necessary outfit, he was urged by Courcelles to modify his plans so far as to act in concert with La Salle in exploring the mystery of the great unknown river of the West. Dollier and his brother priests consented. One of them, Galinée, was joined with him as a colleague, because he was skilled 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 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 considerable 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 II. 1669-1671. LA SALLE AND THE SULPITIANS
THE FRENCH IN WESTERN NEW YORK.LOUIS JOLIET.THE SULPITIANS ON LAKE ERIE.AT DETROIT.AT SAUT STE. MARIE.THE MYSTERY OF LA SALLE.HE DISCOVERS THE OHIO.HE DESCENDS THE ILLINOIS.DID HE REACH THE MISSISSIPPI?
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 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 considerable 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 II. 1669-1671. LA SALLE AND THE SULPITIANS
THE FRENCH IN WESTERN NEW YORK.LOUIS JOLIET.THE SULPITIANS ON LAKE ERIE.AT DETROIT.AT SAUT STE. MARIE.THE MYSTERY OF LA SALLE.HE DISCOVERS THE OHIO.HE DESCENDS THE ILLINOIS.DID HE REACH THE MISSISSIPPI?
La Chine was the starting-point, and the combined 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 Salle's settlement, and who were now to act as guides. They fought their way upward against the perilous rapids of the St. Lawrence, then scarcely known to the voyager, threaded the romantic channels of the Thousand Islands, and issued on Lake Ontario. Thirty days of toil and exposure had told upon them so severely that not a man of the party, except the Indians, had escaped the attacks of disease in some form.
Their guides led them directly to the great village of the Senecas, near the banks of the Genesee, flattering them with the hope that they would here find other guides, to conduct them to the Ohio; and, in truth, the Senecas had among them a prisoner of one of the western tribes, who would have answered their purpose. The chiefs met in council: but La Salle had not yet mastered the language sufficiently to serve as spokesman; and a Dutch interpreter, brought by the priests, could not explain himself in French. The Jesuit Fremin was stationed at the village, and his servant came to their aid: but, as the two priests thought, wilfully misinterpreted them; and they also conceived the suspicion, perhaps uncharitable, that the Jesuits, jealous of their enterprise, had tampered with the Senecas, to thwart it. Be this as it may, the Indians proved impracticable, evaded their request for a guide, burned before their eyes the unfortunate western prisoner, and assured them that if they went to the Ohio the people of those parts would put them to death. As there were many among the Senecas who wished to kill them in revenge for the chief murdered near Montreal, and as these and others were at times in a frenzy of drunkenness with brandy brought from Albany, the position of the French was very hazardous. They remained, however, for a month; still clinging to the hope of obtaining guides. At length, an Indian from a village called Ganastogué, a kind of Iroquois colony at the head of Lake Ontario, offered to conduct them thither, assuring them that they would find what they sought. They left the Seneca town; coasted the south shore of the lake; passed the mouth of the Niagara, where they heard the distant roar of the cataract; and, five days after, reached Ganastogué. The inhabitants proved friendly, and La Salle received the welcome present of a Shawnee prisoner, who told them that the Ohio could he reached in six weeks, and that he would guide them to it. Delighted at this good fortune, they were about to set out; when they heard, to their astonishment, of the arrival of two other Frenchmen at a neighboring village. One of the strangers proved to be a man destined to hold a conspicuous place in the history of western discovery. This was Louis Joliet, a young man of about the age of La Salle. Like him, he had studied for the priesthood; but the world and the wilderness had conquered 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.
This meeting caused a change of plan. Joliet 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 follow the route which he suggested, notwithstanding the remonstrances of La Salle, who in vain reminded them that the Jesuits had pre-occupied the field, and would regard them as intruders. They resolved that the Pottawattamies should 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.
Since reaching the head of Lake Ontario, La Salle had been attacked by a violent fever, from which he was not yet recovered. He now told his two colleagues that he was in no condition to go forward, and should be forced to part with them. The staple of La Salle's character, as his life will attest, was an invincible determination of purpose, 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, and the use of what Dollier de Casson styles belles paroles. He respected the priesthood,with the exception, it seems, of the Jesuits, and he was under obligations 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 following 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. Dollier said mass; La Salle and his followers received the sacrament, as did also those of his late colleagues; and thus they parted,the Sulpitians and their party descending the Grand River towards Lake Erie, while 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 follow the priests. When they reached Lake Erie, they saw it tossing like an angry ocean under a wild autumnal sky. They had no mind to tempt the dangerous and unknown navigation, and encamped for the winter in the forest near the peninsula 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 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 Pelée, towards the western 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 misfortune, this device of the arch-enemy excited their utmost resentment. "After the loss of our altar-service," writes Galinée, "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."