CHAPTER VIII.
1677, 1678.
THE GRAND ENTERPRISE.
La Salle at Fort Frontenac.--La Salle at Court: his
Memorial.--Approval of the King.--Money and Means.--Henri de
Tonty.--Return to Canada.
"If," writes a friend of La Salle," 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."[97] 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 journey distant, and he was master
of all 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,
a mill, and a bakery. Nine small cannon were mounted on the walls. Two
officers and a surgeon, with ten or twelve soldiers, made up the
garrison; and three or four times that number of masons, laborers, and
canoe-men were at one time maintained at the place.
[Sidenote: LA SALLE AT FORT FRONTENAC.]
Along the shore south of the fort was a small village 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 villages
were the house and chapel of two Récollet 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 built for the lake and the river; but canoes served
best for ordinary uses, and La Salle's followers became so skilled 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 little empire.[98]
[Sidenote: LA SALLE'S MEMORIAL.]
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 madman; but a memorial of his, which his friends
laid before the minister Colbert, found a favorable hearing. 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 little trouble, all that is needful for the support
of flourishing colonies. The soil will 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 by the sample which the Sieur de la
Salle has brought with him. Hemp and cotton grow here naturally, and may
be manufactured with good results; 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 disposition; 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 themselves 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 western 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 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 accomplishment
of his plans, he asks the confirmation of his title to Fort Frontenac,
and the permission to establish at his own cost two other posts, with
seigniorial rights over all lands which he may discover and colonize
within twenty years, and the government 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:--
[Sidenote: THE KING'S APPROVAL.]
"Louis, by the grace of God King of France and Navarre, to our dear and
well-beloved Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle, greeting. We have
received with favor the very humble petition made us in your name, to
permit you to labor at the discovery of the western parts of New France;
and we have the more willingly entertained this proposal, since we have
nothing more at heart than the exploration of this country, through
which, to all appearance, 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 confirm 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 with the savages called 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 associates, 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 execution
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 the memorial had asked. It
authorizes La Salle to build and own, not two forts only, 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 discountenanced settlement in
the West, partly as tending 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 Joliet the permission to plant a trading
station in the Valley of the Mississippi.[99] 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
Mississippi, in order to sail down that river to its mouth, and open a
route to commerce through the Gulf of Mexico. It is evident 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.
[Sidenote: MONEY AND MEANS.]
What he now most needed was money; and having none of his own, he set
himself to raising it from others. A notary named Simonnet lent him four
thousand livres; an advocate named Raoul, twenty-four thousand; and one
Dumont, six thousand. His cousin François 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 family, who became
sharers in his undertaking. "His brothers and relations," says a
memorial afterwards addressed by them to the King, "spared nothing to
enable him to respond worthily to the royal goodness;" and the document
adds, that, before his allotted five years were ended, his discoveries
had cost them more than five hundred thousand livres (francs).[100] La
Salle himself believed, and made others believe, 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, Seignelay, and the Prince de
Conti. Others, too, in stations less conspicuous, warmly espoused his
cause, and none more so than the learned Abbé 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 Italian officer, a _protégé_ 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 having been blown off by a grenade in the Sicilian wars.[101] His
father, who had been governor of Gaeta, but who had come to France in
consequence of political disturbances in Naples, had earned no small
reputation as a financier, and had invented the form of life insurance
still called the Tontine. La Salle learned 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 well known to you; but
perhaps you would not have thought him capable of doing things for which
a strong constitution, an acquaintance with the country, and the use of
both hands seemed absolutely necessary. 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 river of the Bay of St. Esprit, to reach the Gulf of
Mexico."[102]
[Sidenote: RETURN TO CANADA.]
Besides Tonty, La Salle found in France another ally, La Motte de
Lussière, to whom he offered a share in the enterprise, and who joined
him at Rochelle, the place of embarkation. Here vexatious delays
occurred. 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 sail 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 merchants, 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.[103]
FOOTNOTES:
[97] _Mémoire pour Monseigneur le Marquis de Seignelay sur les
Descouvertes du Sieur de la Salle_, 1682.
[98] _État de la dépense faite par Mr. de la Salle, Gouverneur du
Fort Frontenac. Récit de Nicolas de la Salle. Revue faite au Fort de
Frontenac, 1677; Mémoire 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 1685. _Relation des Découvertes du Sieur
de la Salle._ When Frontenac was at the fort in September, 1677, he
found only four _habitants_. It appears, by the _Relation des
Découvertes du Sieur de la Salle_, that, three or four years later,
there were thirteen or fourteen families. La Salle spent 34,426 francs
on the fort. _Mémoire au Roy, Papiers de Famille._
[99] _Colbert à Duchesneau, 28 Avril, 1677._
[100] _Mémoire au Roy, présenté sous la Régence; Obligation du Sieur de
la Salle envers le Sieur Plet; Autres Emprunts de Cavelier de la Salle_
(Margry, i. 423-432).
[101] Tonty, _Mémoire_, in Margry, _Relations et Mémoires inédits_, 5.
[102] _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 "medicine" of the first
order. La Potherie erroneously ascribes the loss of his hand to a
sabre-cut received in a _sortie_ at Messina.
[103] _La Motte de Lussière à----, sans date; Mémoíre de la Salle sur
les Extorsions commises par Bellinzani; Société formée par La Salle;
Relation de Henri de Tonty_, 1684 (Margry, i. 338, 573; ii. 2, 25).