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 solitude1 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 wilderness3 seigniory had been granted, and within two years he had demolished4 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 lodging5 for officers, a forge, a well, [Pg 121] a mill, and a bakery. Nine small cannon6 were mounted on the walls. Two officers and a surgeon, with ten or twelve soldiers, made up the garrison7; and three or four times that number of masons, laborers8, and canoe-men were at one time maintained at the place.
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 chapel10 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, fowls11, and swine had been brought up from Montreal. Four vessels13, 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 followers14 became so skilled in managing them that they were reputed the best canoe-men in America. Feudal15 lord of the forests around him, commander of a garrison raised and paid by himself, founder16 of the mission, and patron of the church, he reigned18 the autocrat19 of his lonely little empire.[98]
[Pg 122]
LA SALLE'S MEMORIAL.
It was not solely20 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 lieutenant21, descended22 the St. Lawrence to Quebec, and sailed for France. He had the patronage24 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 forth25 his plans, or a portion of them. He first recounted briefly26 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, brooks27, and rivers; so abounding28 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 herds29 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 [Pg 123] by the sample which the Sieur de la Salle has brought with him. Hemp30 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 tractable31 and social disposition32; and as they have the use neither of our weapons nor of our goods, and are not in intercourse33 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 dense34 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 cataracts35 that obstruct37 the way; the cost of men, provisions, and munitions38; the danger from the Iroquois, and the rivalry39 of the English, who covet40 the western country, and would gladly seize it for themselves. "But this last reason," says the memorial, "only animates41 the Sieur de la Salle the more, and impels42 [Pg 124] 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 outlet43 of Lake Erie, of which the English, if not prevented, might easily take possession. Towards the accomplishment44 of his plans, he asks the confirmation45 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 colonize46 within twenty years, and the government of all the country in question. On his part, he proposes to renounce47 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:—
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 humble48 petition made us in your name, to permit you to labor9 at the discovery of the western parts of New France; and we have the more willingly entertained this proposal, [Pg 125] 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 tenor49: 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 savages50 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 supreme51 council of the aforesaid country, to see to the execution of these presents; for such is our pleasure.
This patent grants both more and less than the [Pg 126] memorial had asked. It authorizes52 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 deplete54 Canada, and partly as removing his subjects too far from his paternal55 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 vessel12 on some branch of the Mississippi, in order to sail down that river to its mouth, and open a route to commerce through the Gulf56 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 procured58 iron, cordage, and anchors, not for one vessel, but for two.
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 notary59 named Simonnet lent him four thousand livres; an advocate named Raoul, twenty-four [Pg 127] thousand; and one Dumont, six thousand. His cousin Fran?ois Plet, a merchant of Rue60 St. Martin, lent him about eleven thousand, at the interest of forty per cent; and when he returned to Canada, Frontenac found means to procure57 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 undertaking61. "His brothers and relations," says a memorial afterwards addressed by them to the King, "spared nothing to enable him to respond worthily62 to the royal goodness;" and the document adds, that, before his allotted63 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.
Lodged64 rather obscurely in Rue de la Truanderie, and of a nature reserved and shy, he nevertheless found countenance53 and support from personages no less exalted65 than Colbert, Seignelay, and the Prince de Conti. Others, too, in stations less conspicuous66, warmly espoused67 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 invaluable68. This was Henri de Tonty, an Italian [Pg 128] 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 disturbances69 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 amiable70 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 situated71 near that great cataract36, more than a hundred and twenty toises in height, by which the lakes of higher elevation72 precipitate73 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 remains74 to descend23 the great [Pg 129] river of the Bay of St. Esprit, to reach the Gulf of Mexico."[102]
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 embarkation75. Here vexatious delays occurred. Bellinzani, director of trade, who had formerly76 taken lessons in rascality77 in the service of Cardinal78 Mazarin, abused his official position to throw obstacles in the way of La Salle, in order to extort79 money from him; and he extorted80, in fact, a considerable sum, which his victim afterwards reclaimed81. 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, [Pg 130] 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 par2 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 contumacious82 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).
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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par
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| n.标准，票面价值，平均数量；adj.票面的，平常的，标准的 | |
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wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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demolished
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| v.摧毁( demolish的过去式和过去分词 )；推翻；拆毁（尤指大建筑物）；吃光 | |
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lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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cannon
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| n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮 | |
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garrison
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| n.卫戍部队；驻地，卫戍区；vt.派(兵)驻防 | |
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laborers
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| n.体力劳动者，工人( laborer的名词复数 )；（熟练工人的）辅助工 | |
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labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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fowls
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| 鸟( fowl的名词复数 )； 禽肉； 既不是这； 非驴非马 | |
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vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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feudal
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| adj.封建的，封地的，领地的 | |
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Founder
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| n.创始者，缔造者 | |
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reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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reigned
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| vi.当政，统治（reign的过去式形式） | |
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autocrat
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| n.独裁者；专横的人 | |
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solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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patronage
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| n.赞助，支援，援助；光顾，捧场 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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brooks
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| n.小溪( brook的名词复数 ) | |
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abounding
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| adj.丰富的，大量的v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的现在分词 ) | |
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herds
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| 兽群( herd的名词复数 )； 牧群； 人群； 群众 | |
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hemp
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| n.大麻；纤维 | |
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tractable
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| adj.易驾驭的；温顺的 | |
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disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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cataracts
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| n.大瀑布( cataract的名词复数 )；白内障 | |
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cataract
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| n.大瀑布，奔流，洪水，白内障 | |
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obstruct
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munitions
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| n.军火，弹药；v.供应…军需品 | |
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rivalry
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| n.竞争，竞赛，对抗 | |
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covet
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| vt.垂涎；贪图(尤指属于他人的东西) | |
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animates
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| v.使有生气( animate的第三人称单数 )；驱动；使栩栩如生地动作；赋予…以生命 | |
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impels
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| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的第三人称单数 ) | |
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outlet
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| n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄 | |
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accomplishment
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| n.完成，成就，（pl.）造诣，技能 | |
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confirmation
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| n.证实，确认，批准 | |
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colonize
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| v.建立殖民地，拓殖；定居，居于 | |
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renounce
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| v.放弃；拒绝承认，宣布与…断绝关系 | |
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humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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tenor
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| n.男高音（歌手），次中音（乐器），要旨，大意 | |
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savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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authorizes
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| 授权，批准，委托( authorize的名词复数 ) | |
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countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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deplete
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| v.弄空，排除，减轻，减少...体液，放去...的血 | |
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paternal
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| adj.父亲的，像父亲的，父系的，父方的 | |
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gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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procure
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| vt.获得，取得，促成；vi.拉皮条 | |
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procured
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| v.（努力）取得， （设法）获得( procure的过去式和过去分词 )；拉皮条 | |
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notary
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| n.公证人，公证员 | |
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rue
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| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
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undertaking
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| n.保证，许诺，事业 | |
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worthily
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| 重要地，可敬地，正当地 | |
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allotted
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| 分配，拨给，摊派( allot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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lodged
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| v.存放( lodge的过去式和过去分词 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
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exalted
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| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
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conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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espoused
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| v.（决定）支持，拥护（目标、主张等）( espouse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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invaluable
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| adj.无价的，非常宝贵的，极为贵重的 | |
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69
disturbances
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| n.骚乱( disturbance的名词复数 )；打扰；困扰；障碍 | |
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70
amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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71
situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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72
elevation
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| n.高度；海拔；高地；上升；提高 | |
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73
precipitate
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| adj.突如其来的；vt.使突然发生；n.沉淀物 | |
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74
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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75
embarkation
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| n. 乘船, 搭机, 开船 | |
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formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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77
rascality
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| 流氓性，流氓集团 | |
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78
cardinal
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| n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的 | |
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extort
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| v.勒索，敲诈，强要 | |
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80
extorted
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| v.敲诈( extort的过去式和过去分词 )；曲解 | |
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81
reclaimed
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| adj.再生的；翻造的；收复的；回收的v.开拓( reclaim的过去式和过去分词 )；要求收回；从废料中回收（有用的材料）；挽救 | |
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contumacious
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| adj.拒不服从的，违抗的 | |
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