1680.
FORT CRÈVECOEUR.
BUILDING OF THE FORT.--LOSS OF THE "GRIFFIN."--A BOLD RESOLUTION.
--ANOTHER VESSEL.--HENNEPIN SENT TO THE MISSISSIPPI.--DEPARTURE
OF LA SALLE.
La Salle now resolved to leave the Indian camp, and fortify himself for
the winter in a strong position, where his men would be less exposed to
dangerous influence, and where he could hold his ground against an
outbreak of the Illinois or an Iroquois invasion. At the middle of
January, a thaw broke up the ice which had closed the river; and he set
out in a canoe, with Hennepin, to visit the site he had chosen for his
projected fort. It was half a league below the camp, on a little hill, or
knoll, two hundred yards from the southern bank. On either side was a deep
ravine, and, in front, a low ground, overflowed at high water. Thither,
then, the party was removed. They dug a ditch behind the hill, connecting
the two ravines, and thus completely isolating it. The hill was nearly
square in form. An embankment of earth was thrown up on every side: its
declivities were sloped steeply down to the bottom of the ravines and the
ditch, and further guarded by _chevaux-de-frise;_ while a palisade,
twenty-five feet high, was planted around the whole. The men were lodged
in huts, at the angles: in the middle there was a cabin of planks for La
Salle and Tonty, and another for the three friars; while the blacksmith
had his shed and forge in the rear.
Hennepin laments the failure of wine, which prevented him from saying
mass; but every morning and evening he summoned the men to his cabin, to
listen to prayers and preaching, and on Sundays and fête days they chanted
vespers. Father Zenobe usually spent the day in the Indian camp, striving,
with very indifferent success, to win them to the faith, and to overcome
the disgust with which their manners and habits inspired him.
Such was the first civilized occupation of the region which now forms the
State of Illinois. The spot may still be seen, a little below Peoria. La
Salle christened his new fort Fort Crèvecoeur. The name tells of disaster
and suffering, but does no justice to the iron-hearted constancy of the
sufferer. Up to this time he had clung to the hope that his vessel (the
"Griffin") might still be safe. Her safety was vital to his enterprise.
She had on board articles of the last necessity to him, including the
rigging and anchors of another vessel, which he was to build at Fort
Crèvecoeur, in order to descend the Mississippi, and sail thence to the
West Indies. But now his last hope had well-nigh vanished. Past all
reasonable doubt, the "Griffin" was lost; and in her loss he and all his
plans seemed ruined alike.
Nothing, indeed, was ever heard of her. Indians, fur-traders, and even
Jesuits, have been charged with contriving her destruction. Some say that
the Ottawas boarded and burned her, after murdering those on board; others
accuse the Pottawattamies; others affirm that her own crew scuttled and
sunk her; others, again, that she foundered in a storm. [Footnote:
Charlevoix, i. 459; La Potherie, ii. 140; La Hontan, _Memoir on the Fur-
Trade of Canada_, MS. I am indebted for a copy of this paper to Winthrop
Sargent, Esq., who purchased the original at the sale of the library of
the poet Southey. Like Hennepin, La Hontan went over to the English; and
this memoir is written in their interest.] As for La Salle, the belief
grew in him to a settled conviction, that she had been treacherously sunk
by the pilot and the sailors to whom he had intrusted her; and he thought
he had found evidence that the authors of the crime, laden with the
merchandise they had taken from her, had reached the Mississippi and
ascended it, hoping to join Du Lhut, a famous chief of _coureurs de bois_,
and enrich themselves by traffic with the northern tribes. [Footnote:
_Lettre de la Salle à La Barre, Chicagou,_ 4 _Juin_, 1683, MS. This is a
long letter, addressed to the successor of Frontenac, in the government of
Canada. La Salle says that a young Indian belonging to him told him that,
three years before, he saw a white man, answering the description of the
pilot, a prisoner among a tribe beyond the Mississippi. He had been
captured with four others on that river, while making his way with canoes
laden with goods, towards the Sioux. His companions had been killed. Other
circumstances, which La Salle details at great length, convinced him that
the white prisoner was no other than the pilot of the "Griffin." The
evidence, however, is not conclusive.]
But whether her lading was swallowed in the depths of the lake, or lost in
the clutches of traitors, the evil was alike past remedy. She was gone, it
mattered little how. The main-stay of the enterprise was broken; yet its
inflexible chief lost neither heart nor hope. One path, beset with
hardships and terrors, still lay open to him. He might return on foot to
Fort Frontenac, and bring thence the needful succors.
La Salle felt deeply the dangers of such a step. His men were uneasy,
discontented, and terrified by the stories, with which the jealous
Illinois still constantly filled their ears, of the whirlpools and the
monsters of the Mississippi. He dreaded, lest, in his absence, they should
follow the example of their comrades, and desert. In the midst of his
anxieties, a lucky accident gave him the means of disabusing them. He was
hunting, one day, near the fort, when he met a young Illinois, on his way
home, half-starved, from a distant war excursion. He had been absent so
long that he knew nothing of what had passed between his countrymen and
the French. La Salle gave him a turkey he had shot, invited him to the
fort, fed him, and made him presents. Having thus warmed his heart, he
questioned him, with apparent carelessness, as to the countries he had
visited, and especially as to the Mississippi, on which the young warrior,
seeing no reason to disguise the truth, gave him all the information he
required. La Salle now made him the present of a hatchet, to engage him to
say nothing of what had passed, and, leaving him in excellent humor,
repaired, with some of his followers, to the Illinois camp. Here he found
the chiefs seated at a feast of bear's meat, and he took his place among
them on a mat of rushes. After a pause, he charged them with having
deceived him in regard to the Mississippi, adding that he knew the river
perfectly, having been instructed concerning it by the Master of Life. He
then described it to them with so much accuracy that his astonished
hearers, conceiving that he owed his knowledge to "medicine," or sorcery,
clapped their hands to their mouths, in sign of wonder, and confessed that
all they had said was but an artifice, inspired by their earnest desire
that he should remain among them. [Footnote: _Relation des Découvertes et
des Voyages du Sr. de la Salle, Seigneur et Gouverneur du Fort de
Frontenac, au delà des grands Lacs de la Nouvelle France, faits par ordre
de Monseigneur Colbert;_ 1679, 80 et 81, MS. Hennepin gives a story which
is not essentially different, except that he makes himself a conspicuous
actor in it.]
Here was one source of danger stopped; one motive to desert removed. La
Salle again might feel a reasonable security that idleness would not breed
mischief among his men. The chief purpose of his intended journey was to
procure the equipment of a vessel, to be built at Fort Crèvecoeur; and he
resolved that before he set out he would see her on the stocks. The pit-
sawyers and some of the carpenters had deserted; but energy supplied the
place of skill, and he and Tonty urged on the work with such vigor that
within six weeks the hull was nearly finished. She was of forty tons
burden, [Footnote: _Lettre de Duchesneau, à_--, 10 _Nov_. 1680, MS.] and
built with high bulwarks to protect those within from the arrows of
hostile Indians.
La Salle now bethought him that in his absence he might get from Hennepin
service of more value than his sermons; and he requested him to descend
the Illinois, and explore it to its mouth. The friar, though hardy and
daring, would fain have excused himself, alleging a troublesome bodily
infirmity; but his venerable colleague, Ribourde,--himself too old for the
journey,--urged him to go, telling him that if he died by the way, his
apostolic labors would redound to the glory of God. Membré had been living
for some time in the Indian camp, and was thoroughly out of humor with the
objects of his missionary efforts, of whose obduracy and filth he bitterly
complained. Hennepin proposed to take his place, while he should assume
the Mississippi adventure; but this Membré declined, preferring to remain
where he was. Hennepin now reluctantly accepted the proposed task.
"Anybody but me," he says, with his usual modesty, "would have been very
much frightened at the dangers of such a journey; and, in fact, if I had
not placed all my trust in God, I should not have been the dupe of the
Sieur de la Salle, who exposed my life rashly." [Footnote: "Tout autre que
moi en auroit été fort ébranlé. Et en effet, je n'eusse pas été la duppe
du Sieur de la Salle, qui m'exposait témérairement, si je n'eusse mis
toute ma confiance en Dieu" (1704), 241.]
On the last day of February, Hennepin's canoe lay at the water's edge; and
the party gathered on the bank to bid him farewell. He had two companions,
Michel Accau, and a man known as the Picard Du Gay, [Footnote: An eminent
writer has mistaken "Picard" for a personal name. Du Gay was called "Le
Picard," because he came from the province of Picardy. Accau, and not
Hennepin, was the real chief of the party.] though his real name was
Antoine Auguel. The canoe was well laden with gifts for the Indians,--
tobacco, knives, beads, awls, and other goods, to a very considerable
value, supplied at La Salle's cost; "and, in fact," observes Hennepin, "he
is liberal enough towards his friends." [Footnote: (1683), 188. This
commendation is suppressed in the later editions.]
The friar bade farewell to La Salle, and embraced all the rest in turn.
Father Ribourde gave him his benediction. "Be of good courage and let your
heart be comforted," said the excellent old missionary, as he spread his
hands in benediction over the shaven crown of the reverend traveller. Du
Gay and Accau plied their paddles; the canoe receded, and vanished at
length behind the forest. We will follow Hennepin hereafter on his
adventures, imaginary and real. Meanwhile, we will trace the footsteps of
his chief, urging his way, in the storms of winter, through those vast and
gloomy wilds,--those realms of famine, treachery, and death, that lay
betwixt him and his far-distant goal of Fort Frontenac.
On the second of March, [Footnote: Tonty erroneously places their
departure on the twenty-second.] before the frost was yet out of the
ground, when the forest was still leafless and gray, and the oozy prairie
still patched with snow, a band of discontented men were again gathered on
the shore for another leave-taking. Hard by, the unfinished ship lay on
the stocks, white and fresh from the saw and axe, ceaselessly reminding
them of the hardship and peril that was in store. Here you would have seen
the calm impenetrable face of La Salle, and with him the Mohegan hunter,
who seems to have felt towards him that admiring attachment which he could
always inspire in his Indian retainers. Besides the Mohegan, four
Frenchmen were to accompany him: Hunaud, La Violette, Collin, and Dautray.
[Footnote: _Déclaration faite par Moyse Hillaret, charpentier de barque,
MS._] His parting with Tonty was an anxious one, for each well knew the
risks that environed both. Embarking with his followers in two canoes, he
made his way upward amid the drifting ice; while the faithful Italian,
with two or three honest men and twelve or thirteen knaves, remained to
hold Fort Crèvecoeur in his absence.