France and England in North America, Part III: La Salle, Discovery of The Great West
Beaujeu, on his return. He immediately went back on foot to Fort St.
Louis of the Illinois, and prepared to descend the Mississippi, "dans
l'espérance de lui donner secours." _Lettre de Tonty au Ministre, 24
Aoust, 1686; Ibid., à Cabart de Villermont, même date_; _Mémoire de
Tonty_; _Procès Verbal de Tonty, 13 Avril, 1686._
[341] The date is from the _Procès Verbal_. In the _Mémoire_, hastily
written long after, he falls into errors of date.
[342] Iberville sent it to France, and Charlevoix gives a portion of it.
(_Histoire de la Nouvelle France_, ii. 259.) Singularly enough, the
date, as printed by him, is erroneous, being 20 April, 1685, instead of
1686. There is no doubt whatever, from its relations with concurrent
events, that this journey was in the latter year.
[343] Tonty, _Mémoire; Ibid., Lettre à Monseigneur de Ponchartrain_,
1690. Joutel, _Journal Historique_, 301.
[344] Joutel says that the Parisian boy, Barthelemy, was left behind. It
was this youth who afterwards uttered the ridiculous defamation of La
Salle mentioned in a preceding note. The account of the death of La
Salle, taken from the lips of Couture, was received by him from Cavelier
and his companions, during their stay at the Arkansas. Couture was by
trade a carpenter, and was a native of Rouen.
[345] The condition of Fort St. Louis, at this time, may be gathered
from several passages of Joutel. The houses, he says, were built at the
brink of the cliff, forming, with the palisades, the circle of defence.
The Indians lived in the area.
[346] Joutel adds that this was occasioned by "une espèce de
conspiration qu'on a voulu faire contre les interests de Monsieur de la
Salle."--_Journal Historique_, 350.
"Ce Père appréhendoit que le dit sieur ne l'y rencontrast, ... suivant
ce que j'en ai pu apprendre, les Pères avoient avancé plusieurs choses
pour contrebarrer l'entreprise et avoient voulu détacher plusieurs
nations de Sauvages, lesquelles s'estoient données à M. de la Salle. Ils
avoient esté mesme jusques à vouloir destruire le fort Saint-Louis, en
ayant construit un à Chicago, où ils avoient attiré une partie des
Sauvages, ne pouvant en quelque façon s'emparer du dit fort. Pour
conclure, le bon Père ayant eu peur d'y estre trouvé, aima mieux se
précautionner en prenant le devant.... Quoyque M. Cavelier eust dit au
Père qu'il pouvoit rester, il partit quelques sept ou huit jours avant
nous."--_Relation_ (Margry, iii. 500).
La Salle always saw the influence of the Jesuits in the disasters that
befell him. His repeated assertion, that they wished to establish
themselves in the valley of the Mississippi, receives confirmation from
a document entitled _Mémoire sur la proposition à faire par les R. Pères
Jésuites pour la découverte des environs de la rivière du Mississipi et
pour voir si elle est navigable jusqu'à la mer_. It is a memorandum of
propositions to be made to the minister Seignelay, and was apparently
put forward as a feeler, before making the propositions in form. It was
written after the return of Beaujeu to France, and before La Salle's
death became known. It intimates that the Jesuits were entitled to
precedence in the valley of the Mississippi, as having first explored
it. It affirms that _La Salle had made a blunder, and landed his colony,
not at the mouth of the river, but at another place_; and it asks
permission to continue the work in which he has failed. To this end, it
petitions for means to build a vessel at St. Louis of the Illinois,
together with canoes, arms, tents, tools, provisions, and merchandise
for the Indians; and it also asks for La Salle's maps and papers, and
for those of Beaujeu. On their part, it pursues, the Jesuits will engage
to make a complete survey of the river, and return an exact account of
its inhabitants, its plants, and its other productions.
[347] Tonty, Du Lhut, and Durantaye came to the aid of Denonville with a
hundred and eighty Frenchmen, chiefly _coureurs de bois_, and four
hundred Indians from the upper country. Their services were highly
appreciated; and Tonty especially is mentioned in the despatches of
Denonville with great praise.
[348] "Monsieur Tonty, croyant M. de la Salle vivant, ne fit pas de
difficulté de luy donner pour environ quatre mille liv. de pelleterie,
de castors, loutres, un canot, et autres effets."--Joutel, _Journal
Historique_, 349.
Tonty himself does not make the amount so great: "Sur ce qu'ils
m'assuroient qu'il étoit resté au Golfe de Mexique en bonne santé, je
les reçus comme si ç'avoit esté lui mesme et luy prestay [_à Cavelier_]
plus de 700 francs."--Tonty, _Mémoire_.
Cavelier must have known that La Salle was insolvent. Tonty had long
served without pay. Douay says that he made the stay of the party at the
fort very agreeable, and speaks of him, with some apparent compunction,
as "ce brave gentilhomme, toujours inséparablement attaché aux intérêts
du Sieur de la Salle, dont nous luy avons caché la déplorable destinée."
Couture, from the Arkansas, brought word to Tonty, several months after,
of La Salle's death, adding that Cavelier had concealed it, with no
other purpose than that of gaining money or supplies from him (Tonty),
in his brother's name. Cavelier had a letter from La Salle, desiring
Tonty to give him supplies, and pay him 2,652 livres in beaver. If
Cavelier is to be believed, this beaver belonged to La Salle.
[349] _Lettre du Roy à Denonville, 1 Mai, 1689._ Joutel must have been a
young man at the time of the Mississippi expedition; for Charlevoix saw
him at Rouen, thirty-five years after. He speaks of him with emphatic
praise; but it must be admitted that his connivance in the deception
practised by Cavelier on Tonty leaves a shade on his character, as well
as on that of Douay. In other respects, everything that appears
concerning him is highly favorable, which is not the case with Douay,
who, on one or two occasions, makes wilful misstatements.
Douay says that the elder Cavelier made a report of the expedition to
the minister Seignelay. This report remained unknown in an English
collection of autographs and old manuscripts, whence I obtained it by
purchase, in 1854, both the buyer and seller being at the time ignorant
of its exact character. It proved, on examination, to be a portion of
the first draft of Cavelier's report to Seignelay. It consists of
twenty-six small folio pages, closely written in a clear hand, though in
a few places obscured by the fading of the ink, as well as by occasional
erasures and interlineations of the writer. It is, as already stated,
confused and unsatisfactory in its statements; and all the latter part
has been lost. On reaching France, he had the impudence to tell Abbé
Tronson, Superior of St. Sulpice, "qu'il avait laissé M. de la Salle
dans un très-beau pays avec M. de Chefdeville en bonne santé."--_Lettre
de Tronson à Mad. Fauvel-Cavelier, 29 Nov., 1688._
Cavelier addressed to the King a memorial on the importance of keeping
possession of the Illinois. It closes with an earnest petition for money
in compensation for his losses, as, according to his own statement, he
was completely _épuisé_. It is affirmed in a memorial of the heirs of
his cousin, François Plet, that he concealed the death of La Salle some
time after his return to France, in order to get possession of property
which would otherwise have been seized by the creditors of the deceased.
The prudent abbé died rich and very old, at the house of a relative,
having inherited a large estate after his return from America.
Apparently, this did not satisfy him; for there is before me the copy of
a petition, written about 1717, in which he asks, jointly with one of
his nephews, to be given possession of the seigniorial property held by
La Salle in America. The petition was refused.
Young Cavelier, La Salle's nephew, died some years after, an officer in
a regiment. He has been erroneously supposed to be the same with one De
la Salle, whose name is appended to a letter giving an account of
Louisiana, and dated at Toulon, 3 Sept., 1698. This person was the son
of a naval official at Toulon, and was not related to the Caveliers.
CHAPTER XXIX.
1688-1689.
FATE OF THE TEXAN COLONY.
Tonty attempts to rescue the Colonists: his Difficulties and
Hardships.--Spanish Hostility.--Expedition of Alonzo de Leon: he
reaches Fort St. Louis.--A Scene of Havoc.--Destruction of the
French.--The End.
[Sidenote: COURAGE OF TONTY.]
Henri De Tonty, on his rock of St. Louis, was visited in September by
Couture and two Indians from the Arkansas. Then, for the first time, he
heard with grief and indignation of the death of La Salle, and the
deceit practised by Cavelier. The chief whom he had served so well was
beyond his help; but might not the unhappy colonists left on the shores
of Texas still be rescued from destruction? Couture had confirmed what
Cavelier and his party had already told him, that the tribes south of
the Arkansas were eager to join the French in an invasion of northern
Mexico; and he soon after received from the governor, Denonville, a
letter informing him that war had again been declared against Spain. As
bold and enterprising as La Salle himself, Tonty resolved on an effort
to learn the condition of the few Frenchmen left on the borders of the
Gulf, relieve their necessities, and, should it prove practicable, make
them the nucleus of a war-party to cross the Rio Grande, and add a new
province to the domain of France. It was the revival, on a small scale,
of La Salle's scheme of Mexican invasion; and there is no doubt that,
with a score of French musketeers, he could have gathered a formidable
party of savage allies from the tribes of Red River, the Sabine, and the
Trinity. This daring adventure and the rescue of his suffering
countrymen divided his thoughts, and he prepared at once to execute the
double purpose.[350]
[Sidenote: TONTY MISREPRESENTED.]
He left Fort St. Louis of the Illinois early in December, in a pirogue,
or wooden canoe, with five Frenchmen, a Shawanoe warrior, and two Indian
slaves; and, after a long and painful journey, he reached the villages
of the Caddoes on Red River on the twenty-eighth of March. Here he was
told that Hiens and his companions were at a village eighty leagues
distant; and thither he was preparing to go in search of them, when all
his men, excepting the Shawanoe and one Frenchman, declared themselves
disgusted with the journey, and refused to follow him. Persuasion was
useless, and there was no means of enforcing obedience. He found himself
abandoned; but he still pushed on, with the two who remained faithful. A
few days after, they lost nearly all their ammunition in crossing a
river. Undeterred by this accident, Tonty made his way to the village
where Hiens and those who had remained with him were said to be; but no
trace of them appeared, and the demeanor of the Indians, when he
inquired for them, convinced him that they had been put to death. He
charged them with having killed the Frenchmen, whereupon the women of
the village raised a wail of lamentation; "and I saw," he says, "that
what I had said to them was true." They refused to give him guides; and
this, with the loss of his ammunition, compelled him to forego his
purpose of making his way to the colonists on the Bay of St. Louis. With
bitter disappointment, he and his two companions retraced their course,
and at length approached Red River. Here they found the whole country
flooded. Sometimes they waded to the knees, sometimes to the neck,
sometimes pushed their slow way on rafts. Night and day it rained
without ceasing. They slept on logs placed side by side to raise them
above the mud and water, and fought their way with hatchets through the