France and England in North America, Part III: La Salle, Discovery of The Great West
clothes, which were drenched when we took them off, froze stiff as
sticks, so that we could not put them on in the morning without making a
fire to thaw them. The fire betrayed us to the Indians, who were
encamped across the marsh; and they ran towards us with loud cries, till
they were stopped halfway by a stream so deep that they could not get
over, the ice which had formed in the night not being strong enough to
bear them. We went to meet them, within gun-shot; and whether our
fire-arms frightened them, or whether they thought us more numerous than
we were, or whether they really meant us no harm, they called out, in
the Illinois language, that they had taken us for Iroquois, but now saw
that we were friends and brothers; whereupon, they went off as they
came, and we kept on our way till the fourth, when two of my men fell
ill and could not walk."
In this emergency, La Salle went in search of some watercourse by which
they might reach Lake Erie, and soon came upon a small river, which was
probably the Huron. Here, while the sick men rested, their companions
made a canoe. There were no birch-trees; and they were forced to use
elm-bark, which at that early season would not slip freely from the wood
until they loosened it with hot water. Their canoe being made, they
embarked in it, and for a time floated prosperously down the stream,
when at length the way was barred by a matted barricade of trees fallen
across the water. The sick men could now walk again, and, pushing
eastward through the forest, the party soon reached the banks of the
Detroit.
[Sidenote: THE JOURNEY'S END.]
La Salle directed two of the men to make a canoe, and go to
Michilimackinac, the nearest harborage. With the remaining two, he
crossed the Detroit on a raft, and, striking a direct line across the
country, reached Lake Erie not far from Point Pelée. Snow, sleet, and
rain pelted them with little intermission: and when, after a walk of
about thirty miles, they gained the lake, the Mohegan and one of the
Frenchmen were attacked with fever and spitting of blood. Only one man
now remained in health. With his aid, La Salle made another canoe, and,
embarking the invalids, pushed for Niagara. It was Easter Monday when
they landed at a cabin of logs above the cataract, probably on the spot
where the "Griffin" was built. Here several of La Salle's men had been
left the year before, and here they still remained. They told him woful
news. Not only had he lost the "Griffin," and her lading of ten thousand
crowns in value, but a ship from France, freighted with his goods,
valued at more than twenty-two thousand livres, had been totally wrecked
at the mouth of the St. Lawrence; and of twenty hired men on their way
from Europe to join him, some had been detained by his enemy, the
Intendant Duchesneau, while all but four of the remainder, being told
that he was dead, had found means to return home.
His three followers were all unfit for travel: he alone retained his
strength and spirit. Taking with him three fresh men at Niagara, he
resumed his journey, and on the sixth of May descried, looming through
floods of rain, the familiar shores of his seigniory and the bastioned
walls of Fort Frontenac. During sixty-five days he had toiled almost
incessantly, travelling, by the course he took, about a thousand miles
through a country beset with every form of peril and obstruction,--"the
most arduous journey," says the chronicler, "ever made by Frenchmen in
America."
Such was Cavelier de la Salle. In him, an unconquerable mind held at its
service a frame of iron, and tasked it to the utmost of its endurance.
The pioneer of western pioneers was no rude son of toil, but a man of
thought, trained amid arts and letters.[168] He had reached his goal;
but for him there was neither rest nor peace. Man and Nature seemed in
arms against him. His agents had plundered him; his creditors had seized
his property; and several of his canoes, richly laden, had been lost in
the rapids of the St. Lawrence.[169] He hastened to Montreal, where his
sudden advent caused great astonishment; and where, despite his crippled
resources and damaged credit, he succeeded, within a week, in gaining
the supplies which he required and the needful succors for the forlorn
band on the Illinois. He had returned to Fort Frontenac, and was on the
point of embarking for their relief, when a blow fell upon him more
disheartening than any that had preceded.
[Sidenote: THE MUTINEERS.]
On the twenty-second of July, two _voyageurs_, Messier and Laurent, came
to him with a letter from Tonty, who wrote that soon after La Salle's
departure nearly all the men had deserted, after destroying Fort
Crèvecoeur, plundering the magazine, and throwing into the river all
the arms, goods, and stores which they could not carry off. The
messengers who brought this letter were speedily followed by two of the
_habitants_ of Fort Frontenac, who had been trading on the lakes, and
who, with a fidelity which the unhappy La Salle rarely knew how to
inspire, had travelled day and night to bring him their tidings. They
reported that they had met the deserters, and that, having been
reinforced by recruits gained at Michilimackinac and Niagara, they now
numbered twenty men.[170] They had destroyed the fort on the St.
Joseph, seized a quantity of furs belonging to La Salle at
Michilimackinac, and plundered the magazine at Niagara. Here they had
separated, eight of them coasting the south side of Lake Ontario to find
harborage at Albany, a common refuge at that time of this class of
scoundrels; while the remaining twelve, in three canoes, made for Fort
Frontenac along the north shore, intending to kill La Salle as the
surest means of escaping punishment.
[Sidenote: CHASTISEMENT.]
He lost no time in lamentation. Of the few men at his command he chose
nine of the trustiest, embarked with them in canoes, and went to meet
the marauders. After passing the Bay of Quinté, he took his station with
five of his party at a point of land suited to his purpose, and detached
the remaining four to keep watch. In the morning, two canoes were
discovered approaching without suspicion, one of them far in advance of
the other. As the foremost drew near, La Salle's canoe darted out from
under the leafy shore,--two of the men handling the paddles, while he,
with the remaining two, levelled their guns at the deserters, and called
on them to surrender. Astonished and dismayed, they yielded at once;
while two more, who were in the second canoe, hastened to follow their
example. La Salle now returned to the fort with his prisoners, placed
them in custody, and again set forth. He met the third canoe upon the
lake at about six o'clock in the evening. His men vainly plied their
paddles in pursuit. The mutineers reached the shore, took post among
rocks and trees, levelled their guns, and showed fight. Four of La
Salle's men made a circuit to gain their rear and dislodge them, on
which they stole back to their canoe and tried to escape in the
darkness. They were pursued, and summoned to yield; but they replied by
aiming their guns at their pursuers, who instantly gave them a volley,
killed two of them, and captured the remaining three. Like their
companions, they were placed in custody at the fort, to await the
arrival of Count Frontenac.[171]
FOOTNOTES:
[163] _Lettre de La Salle à un de ses associés_ (Thouret?), _29 Sept.,
1680_ (Margry, ii. 50).
[164] Membré says that he was in the town at the time; but this could
hardly have been the case. He was, in all probability, among the
Illinois, in their camp near Fort Crèvecoeur.
[165] The same whom Hennepin calls Chassagouasse. He was brother of the
chief, Nicanopé, who, in his absence, had feasted the French on the day
after the nocturnal council with Monso. Chassagoac was afterwards
baptized by Membré or Ribourde, but soon relapsed into the superstitions
of his people, and died, as the former tells us, "doubly a child of
perdition." See Le Clerc, ii. 181.
[166] Tonty, _Mémoire_. The order was sent by two Frenchmen, whom La
Salle met on Lake Michigan.
[167] _Déclaration de Moyse Hillaret; Relation des Découvertes._
[168] A Rocky Mountain trapper, being complimented on the hardihood of
himself and his companions, once said to the writer, "That's so; but a
gentleman of the right sort will stand hardship better than anybody
else." The history of Arctic and African travel and the military records
of all time are a standing evidence that a trained and developed mind is
not the enemy, but the active and powerful ally, of constitutional
hardihood. The culture that enervates instead of strengthening is always
a false or a partial one.
[169] Zenobe Membré in Le Clerc, ii. 202.
[170] When La Salle was at Niagara, in April, he had ordered Dautray,
the best of the men who had accompanied him from the Illinois, to return
thither as soon as he was able. Four men from Niagara were to go with
him and he was to rejoin Tonty with such supplies as that post could
furnish. Dautray set out accordingly, but was met on the lakes by the
deserters, who told him that Tonty was dead, and seduced his men.
(_Relation des Découvertes._) Dautray himself seems to have remained
true; at least, he was in La Salle's service immediately after, and was
one of his most trusted followers. He was of good birth, being the son
of Jean Bourdon, a conspicuous personage in the early period of the
colony; and his name appears on official records as Jean Bourdon, Sieur
d'Autray.
[171] La Salle's long letter, written apparently to his associate
Thouret, and dated 29 Sept., 1680, is the chief authority for the above.
The greater part of this letter is incorporated, almost verbatim, in the
official narrative called _Relation des Découvertes_. Hennepin, Membré,
and Tonty also speak of the journey from Fort Crèvecoeur. The death of
the two mutineers was used by La Salle's enemies as the basis of a
charge of murder.
CHAPTER XV.
1680.
INDIAN CONQUERORS.
The Enterprise renewed.--Attempt to rescue Tonty.--Buffalo.--A
Frightful Discovery.--Iroquois Fury.--The Ruined Town.--A Night of
Horror.--Traces of the Invaders.--No News of Tonty.
[Sidenote: ANOTHER EFFORT.]
And now La Salle's work must be begun afresh. He had staked all, and all
had seemingly been lost. In stern, relentless effort he had touched the
limits of human endurance; and the harvest of his toil was
disappointment, disaster, and impending ruin. The shattered fabric of
his enterprise was prostrate in the dust. His friends desponded; his
foes were blatant and exultant. Did he bend before the storm? No human
eye could pierce the depths of his reserved and haughty nature; but the
surface was calm, and no sign betrayed a shaken resolve or an altered
purpose. Where weaker men would have abandoned all in despairing apathy,
he turned anew to his work with the same vigor and the same apparent
confidence as if borne on the full tide of success.
His best hope was in Tonty. Could that brave and true-hearted officer
and the three or four faithful men who had remained with him make good
their foothold on the Illinois, and save from destruction the vessel on
the stocks and the forge and tools so laboriously carried thither, then
a basis was left on which the ruined enterprise might be built up once
more. There was no time to lose. Tonty must be succored soon, or succor
would come too late. La Salle had already provided the necessary
material, and a few days sufficed to complete his preparations. On the
tenth of August he embarked again for the Illinois. With him went his
lieutenant La Forest, who held of him in fief an island, then called
Belle Isle, opposite Fort Frontenac.[172] A surgeon, ship-carpenters,