France and England in North America, Part III: La Salle, Discovery of The Great West
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 of La Salle: 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.
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 diplomatic posts and honorable employments at Court. They were
destined to find a better claim to distinction. In 1643 was born at
Rouen Robert Cavelier, better known by the designation of La Salle.[1]
His father Jean and his uncle Henri were wealthy merchants, 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
especially 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 statement, it is probably
true.[2]
[Sidenote: LA SALLE AND THE JESUITS.]
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 imagination. 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 himself not at the centre of power, but at the
circumference; not the mover, but the moved; the passive instrument of
another's will, taught to walk in prescribed paths, to renounce his
individuality 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-controlled 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 personality 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 excellent acquirements and unimpeachable
morals. This last is very credible. The cravings of a deep ambition, the
hunger of an insatiable intellect, the intense longing for action and
achievement, subdued in him all other passions; and in his faults the
love of pleasure had no part. He had an elder brother in Canada, the
Abbé Jean Cavelier, a priest of St. Sulpice. Apparently, it was this
that shaped his destinies. His connection with the Jesuits had deprived
him, 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.[3]
[Sidenote: LA SALLE AT MONTREAL.]
Next, we find him at Montreal. In another volume, we have seen how an
association of enthusiastic devotees had made a settlement at this
place.[4] 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 perhaps the
most dangerous place in Canada. In time of war, which might have been
called the normal condition of the colony, it was exposed by its
position 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 conceived, 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 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 delivering to the Seminary, on every change of ownership, a
medal of fine silver, weighing one mark.[5] 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 Montreal 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, called St. Paul Street.
On a hill at the right stood the windmill of the seigniors, built of
stone, and pierced with loopholes to serve, 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 buildings of the Seminary, and, nearly
adjoining them, those of the Hôtel-Dieu, or Hospital, both provided for
defence in case of an Indian attack. In the hospital enclosure was a
small church, opening on the street, and, in the absence of any other,
serving for the whole settlement.[6]
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 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
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.[7]
[Sidenote: LA CHINE.]
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.[8] 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.[9] 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.
[Sidenote: SCHEMES OF DISCOVERY.]
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 skilled than he
in the art of clear and plausible statement. Both the governor Courcelle
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.[10] 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