1684.
A NEW ENTERPRISE.
LA SALLE AT COURT.--HIS PROPOSALS.--OCCUPATION OF LOUISIANA.--INVASION
OF MEXICO--ROYAL FAVOR.--PREPARATION.--THE NAVAL COMMANDER.--HIS
JEALOUSY OF LA SALLE.--DISSENSIONS.
From the wilds of the Illinois,--crag, forest, and prairie, squalid
wigwams, and naked savages,--La Salle crossed the sea; and before him rose
the sculptured wonders of Versailles, that world of gorgeous illusion and
hollow splendor, where Louis the Magnificent held his court. Amid its pomp
of weary ceremonial, its glittering masquerade of vice and folly, its
carnival of vanity and pride, stood the man whose home for sixteen years
had been the wilderness, his bed the earth, his roof the sky, and his
companions a rude nature and ruder men. In all that throng of hereditary
nobles, there was none of a prouder spirit than the son of the burgher of
Rouen.
He announced what he had achieved in words of energetic simplicity, more
impressive than all the tinsel of rhetoric. [Footnote: Witness the
following. He speaks of himself in the third person. "To acquit himself of
the commission with which he was charged, he has neglected all his private
affairs, because they were alien to his enterprise; he has omitted nothing
that was needful to its success, notwithstanding dangerous illness, heavy
losses, and all the other evils he has suffered, which would have overcome
the courage of any one who had not the same zeal and devotion for the
accomplishment of this purpose. During five years he has made five
journeys, of more, in all, than five thousand leagues, for the most part
on foot, with extreme fatigue, through snow and through water, without
escort, without provisions, without bread, without wine, without
recreation, and without repose. He has traversed more than six hundred
leagues of country hitherto unknown, among savage and cannibal nations,
against whom he must daily make fight, though accompanied only by thirty-
six men, and consoled only by the hope of succeeding in an enterprise
which he thought would be agreeable to his Majesty."
See the original, as printed by Margry, _Journal Général de I'Instruction
Publique,_ xxxi. 699.] He had friends near the court,--Count Frontenac was
one of them,--and he gained the ear of the colonial minister. There was a
wonderful change in the views of the court towards him. The great Colbert
had lately died, bequeathing to his son Seignelay, his successor in the
control of the Marine and Colonies, some of his talents, and all of his
harshness and violence. Seignelay entered with vigor into the schemes of
La Salle, and commended them to the king, his master. The memorial, in
which these schemes are set forth, is still preserved, as well as another
memorial designed to prepare the way for it; and the following is the
substance of them. The preliminary document states that the late
Monseigneur Colbert was of opinion that it was important for the service
of his Majesty to discover a port in the Gulf of Mexico; that to this end
the memorialist, La Salle, made five journeys of upwards of five thousand
leagues, in great part on foot; and traversed more than six hundred
leagues of unknown country, among savages and cannibals, at the cost of a
hundred and fifty thousand crowns. He now proposes to return by way of the
Gulf of Mexico to the countries he has discovered, whence great benefits
may be expected; first, the cause of God may be advanced by the preaching
of the gospel to many Indian tribes; and, secondly, great conquests may be
effected for the glory of the king, by the seizure of provinces rich in
silver mines, and defended only by a few indolent and effeminate
Spaniards. The Sieur de la Salle, pursues the memorial, binds himself to
accomplish this enterprise within one year after his arrival on the spot;
and he asks for this purpose only one vessel and two hundred men, with
their arms, munitions, pay, and maintenance. When Monseigneur shall direct
him, he will give the details of what he proposes. The memorial then
describes the boundless extent, the fertility and resources of the country
watered by the River Colbert, or Mississippi; the necessity of guarding it
against foreigners, who will be eager to seize it now that La Salle's
discovery has made it known; and the ease with which it may be defended by
one or two forts at a proper distance above its mouth, which would form
the key to an interior region eight hundred leagues in extent. "Should
foreigners anticipate us," he adds, "they will complete the ruin of New
France, which they already hem in by their establishments of Virginia,
Pennsylvania, New England, and Hudson's Bay." [Footnote: _Memoire du Sr.
de la Salle, pour rendre compte a Monseigneur de Seignelay de la
decouverte qu'il a faite par l'ordre de sa Majesté_, MS.]
The second memorial is more explicit. The place, it says, which the Sieur
de la Salle proposes to fortify, is on the River Colbert, or Mississippi,
sixty leagues above its mouth, where the land is very fertile, the climate
very mild, and whence we, the French, may control the continent; since,
the river being narrow, we could defend ourselves by means of fire-ships
against a hostile fleet, while the position is excellent both for
attacking an enemy or retreating in case of need. The neighboring Indians
detest the Spaniards, but love the French, having been won over by the
kindness of the Sieur de la Salle. We could form of them an army of more
than fifteen thousand savages, who, supported by the French and Abenakis,
followers of the Sieur de la Salle, could easily subdue the province of
New Biscay (the most northern province of Mexico), where there are but
four hundred Spaniards, more fit to work the mines than to fight. On the
north of New Biscay lie vast forests, extending to the River Seignelay
[Footnote: This name, also given to the Illinois, is used to designate Red
River on the map of Franquelin, where the forests above mentioned are
represented.] (Red River), which is but forty or fifty leagues from the
Spanish province. This river affords the means of attacking it to great
advantage.
In view of these facts, pursues the memorial, the Sieur de la Salle
offers, if the war with Spain continues, to undertake this conquest with
two hundred men from France. He will take on his way fifty buccaneers at
St. Domingo, and direct the four thousand Indian warriors at Fort St.
Louis of the Illinois to descend the river and join him. He will separate
his force into three divisions, and attack on the same day the centre and
the two extremities of the province. To accomplish this great design, he
asks only for a vessel of thirty guns, a few cannon for the forts, and
power to raise in France two hundred such men as he shall think fit, to he
armed, paid, and maintained at the king's charge, for a term not exceeding
a year, after which they will form a self-sustaining colony. And if a
treaty of peace should prevent us from carrying our conquest into present
execution, we shall place ourselves in a favorable position for effecting
it on the outbreak of the next war with Spain. [Footnote: _Mémoire du Sr.
de la Salle sur I'Entreprise qu'il a proposé à Monseigneur le Marquis de
Seignelay sur une des provinces de Mexique_, MS.]
Such, in brief, was the substance of this singular proposition. And,
first, it is to be observed that it is based on a geographical blunder,
the nature of which is explained by the map of La Salle's discoveries made
in this very year. Here, the River Seignelay, or Red River, is represented
as running parallel to the northern border of Mexico, and at no great
distance from it; the region now called Texas being almost entirely
suppressed. According to the map, New Biscay might be reached from this
river in a few days; and, after crossing the intervening forests, the
coveted mines of Ste. Barbe, or Santa Barbara, would be within striking
distance. [Footnote: Both the memorial and the map represent the banks of
Red River, as inhabited by Indians, called Terliquiquimechi, and known to
the Spaniards as _Indios bravos_, or _Indios de guerra_. The Spaniards, it
is added, were in great fear of them, as they made frequent inroads into
Mexico. La Salle's Mexican geography was in all respects confused and
erroneous; nor was Seignelay better informed. Indeed, Spanish jealousy
placed correct information beyond their reach.] That La Salle believed in
the possibility of invading the Spanish province of New Biscay from the
Red River, there can he no doubt; neither can it reasonably be doubted
that he hoped at some future day to make the attempt; and yet it is
incredible that he proposed his plan of conquest with the serious
intention of attempting to execute it at the time and in the manner which
he indicates. He was a bold schemer, but neither a madman nor a fool. The
project, as set forth in his memorial, bears all the indications of being
drawn up with the view of producing a certain effect on the minds of the
king and the minister. Ignorant as they were of the nature of the country
and the character of its inhabitants, they could see nothing impracticable
in the plan of mustering and keeping together an army of fifteen thousand
Indians. [Footnote: While the plan, as proposed in the memorial, was
clearly impracticable, the subsequent experience of the French in Texas
tended to prove that the tribes of that region could be used with
advantage in attacking the Spaniards of Mexico, and that an inroad, on a
comparatively small scale, might have been successfully made with their
help. In 1689, Tonty actually made the attempt, as we shall see, but
failed from the desertion of his men. In 1697, the Sieur de Louvigny wrote
to the Minister of the Marine, asking to complete La Salle's discoveries,
and invade Mexico from Texas.--_Lettre de M. de Louvigny_, 14 _Oct._ 1697,
MS. In an unpublished memoir of the year 1700, the seizure of the Mexican
mines is given as one of the motives of the colonization of Louisiana.]
La Salle's immediate necessity was to obtain from the court the means for
establishing a fort and a colony within the mouth of the Mississippi. This
was essential to his own commercial plans; nor did he in the least
exaggerate the value of such an establishment to the French nation, and
the importance of anticipating other powers in the possession of it. But
he needed a more glittering lure to attract the eyes of Louis and
Seignelay; and thus, it would appear, he held before them, in a definite
and tangible form, the project of Spanish conquest which had haunted his
imagination from youth, trusting that the speedy conclusion of peace,
which actually took place, would absolve him from the immediate execution
of the scheme, and give him time, with the means placed at his disposal,
to mature his plans and prepare for eventual action. Such a procedure may
be charged with indirectness; but it was in accordance with the wily and
politic element from which the iron nature of La Salle was not free, but
which was often defeated in its aims by other elements of his character.
Even with this madcap enterprise lopped off, La Salle's scheme of
Mississippi trade and colonization, perfectly sound in itself, was too
vast for an individual; above all, for one crippled and crushed with debt.
While he grasped one link of the great chain, another, no less essential,
escaped from his hand; while he built up a colony on the Mississippi, it
was reasonably certain that evil would befall his distant colony of the
Illinois. The glittering project which he now unfolded found favor in the
eyes of the king and the minister; for both were in the flush of an
unparalleled success, and looked in the future, as in the past, for
nothing but triumphs. They granted more than the petitioner asked, as
indeed they well might, if they expected the accomplishment of all that he
proposed to attempt. La Forest, La Salle's lieutenant, ejected from Fort
Frontenac by La Barre, was now at Paris; and he was despatched to Canada,
empowered to reoccupy, in La Salle's name, both Fort Frontenac and Fort
St. Louis of the Illinois. The king himself wrote to La Barre in a strain
that must have sent a cold thrill through the veins of that official. "I
hear," he says, "that you have taken possession of Fort Frontenac, the
property of the Sieur de la Salle, driven away his men, suffered his land
to run to waste, and even told the Iroquois that they might seize him as
an enemy of the colony." He adds, that, if this is true, he must make
reparation for the wrong, and place all La Salle's property, as well as
his men, in the hands of the Sieur de la Forest, "as I am satisfied that
Fort Frontenac was not abandoned, as you wrote to me that it had been."
[Footnote:_Lettre du Roy à la Barre, Versailles, 10 Avril, 1684,_ MS.]
Four days later, he wrote to the Intendant of Canada, De Meules, to the
effect that the bearer, La Forest, is to suffer no impediment, and that La
Barre is to surrender to him, without reserve, all that belongs to La
Salle. [Footnote:_Lettre du Roy à De Mettles, Versailles, 14 Avril, 1684._
Selgnelay wrote to De Meules to the same effect.] Armed with this letter,
La Forest sailed for Canada. [Footnote: On La Forest's mission,--_Memoire
pour representer à Monseigneur le Marquis de Seignelay la nécessité
d'envoyer le Sr. de la Forest en diligence à la Nouvelle France,_ MS.;
_Lettre du Roy à la Barre, 14 Avril, 1684,_ MS.; _Ibid., 31 Oct. 1684,_
MS.
There is before me a promissory note of La Salle to La Forest, of 5,200
livres, dated at Rochelle, 17 July, 1684. This seems to be pay due to La
Forest, who had served as La Salle's officer for nine years. A memorandum,
is attached, signed by La Salle, to the effect, that it is his wish that
La Forest reimburse himself, "_par préférence_," out of any property of
his, La Salle's, in France or Canada.]
La Salle had asked for two vessels, [Footnote: _Le Sieur de la Salle
demande_, MS. This is the caption of the memorial, in which he states what
is required; viz., a war vessel of thirty guns, pay and maintenance of two
hundred men for a year at farthest, tools, munitions, cannon for the
forts, a small vessel in pieces, the furniture of two chapels, a forge,
with a supply of iron, weapons for his followers and allies, medicines,
&c.] and four were given to him. Agents were sent to Rochelle and
Rochefort to gather recruits. A hundred soldiers were enrolled, besides
mechanics and laborers; and thirty volunteers, including gentlemen and
burghers of condition, joined the expedition. And, as the plan was one no
less of colonization than of war, several families embarked for the new
land of promise, as well as a number of girls, lured by the prospect of
almost certain matrimony. Nor were missionaries wanting. Among them was La
Salle's brother, Cavelier, and two other priests of St. Sulpice. Three
Récollets were added: Zenobe Membré, who was then in France; Anastase
Douay, and Maxime Le Clercq. Including soldiers, sailors, and colonists of
all classes, the number embarked was about two hundred and eighty. The
principal vessel was the "Joly," belonging to the royal navy, and carrying
thirty-six guns. Another armed vessel of six guns was added, together with
a store-ship and a ketch. In an evil hour, the naval command of the
expedition was given to Beaujeu, a captain of the royal navy, who was
subordinated to La Salle in every thing but the management of the vessels
at sea. [Footnote: _Letter de Cachet a Mr. de la Salle, Versailles, 12
Avril, 1684, signé, Louis_, MS.] He had his full share of the arrogant and
scornful spirit which marked the naval service of Louis XIV., joined to
the contempt for commerce which belonged to the _noblesse_ of France, but
which did not always prevent them from dabbling in it when they could do
so with secrecy and profit. He was unspeakably galled that a civilian
should be placed over him, and he, too, a burgher recently ennobled. La
Salle was far from being the man to soothe his ruffled spirit. Bent on his
own designs, asking no counsel, and accepting none; detesting a divided
authority, impatient of question, cold, reserved, and impenetrable,--he
soon wrought his colleague to the highest pitch of exasperation. While the
vessels still lay at Rochelle; while all was bustle and preparation; while
stores, arms, and munitions were embarking; while faithless agents were
gathering beggars and vagabonds from the streets to serve as soldiers and
artisans,--Beaujeu was giving vent to his disgust in long letters to the
minister.
He complains that the vessels are provisioned only for six months, and
that the voyage to the liver which La Salle claims to have discovered, and
again back to France, cannot be made in that time. If La Salle had told
him at the first what was to be done, he could have provided accordingly;
but now it is too late. "He says," pursues the indignant commander, "that
there are fourteen passengers, besides the Sieur Minet, [Footnote: One of
the engineers of the expedition.] to sit at my table. I hope that a fund
will be provided for them, and that I shall not be required to support
them."
"You have ordered me, Monseigneur," he continues, "to give all possible
aid to this undertaking, and I shall do so to the best of my power; but
permit me to take great credit to myself, for I find it very hard to
submit to the orders of the Sieur de la Salle, whom I believe to be a man
of merit, but who has no experience of war, except with savages, and who
has no rank, while I have been captain of a ship thirteen years, and have
served thirty, by sea and land. Besides, Monseigneur, he has told me that,
in case of his death, you have directed that the Sieur de Tonty shall
succeed him. This, indeed, is very hard; for, though I am not acquainted
with that country, I should be very dull, if, being on the spot, I did not
know, at the end of a month, as much of it as they do. I beg, Monseigneur,
that I may at least share the command with them; and that, as regards war,
nothing may be done without my knowledge and concurrence; for, as to their
commerce, I neither intend nor desire to know any thing about it."
[Footnote:_Lettre de Beaujau au Ministre, Rochelle_, 30 _Mai_, 1684, MS.]
In another letter, he says: "He [La Salle] is so suspicious, and so
fearful that somebody will penetrate his secrets, that I dare not ask him
any thing." And, again, he complains of being placed in subordination to a
man "who never commanded anybody but school-boys." [Footnote: "Qui n'a
jamais commandé qu'a des écoliers."--_Lettre de Beaujeu au Ministre_, 21
_Juin_, 1684, MS. It appears from Hennepin that La Salle was very
sensitive to any allusion to a "_pédant_," or pedagogue.] "I pray," he
continues, "that my orders may be distinct and explicit, that I may not be
held answerable for what may happen in consequence of the Sieur de la
Salle's exercising command."
He soon fell into a dispute with him with respect to the division of
command on board the "Joly," Beaujeu demanding, and it may be thought with
good reason, that, when at sea, his authority should include all on board;
while La Salle insisted that only the sailors, and not the soldiers,
should be under his orders. "Though this is a very important matter,"
writes Beaujeu, "we have not quarrelled, but have referred it to the
Intendant." [Footnote: _Lettre de Beaujeu au Ministre_, 25 _Juin_, 1684,
MS. Arnoult, the Intendant at Rochelle, had received the king's orders to
aid the enterprise. In a letter to La Salle, dated 14 April, and enclosing
his commission, the king tells him that Beaujeu is to command the working
of the ship, _la manoeuvre_, subject to his direction. Louis XIV. seems to
have taken no little interest in the enterprise. He tells La Barre in one
of his letters that La Salle is a man whom he has taken under his special
protection.]
While these ill-omened bickerings went on, the various members of the
expedition were mustering at Rochelle. Joutel, a fellow-townsman of La
Salle, returning to his native Rouen, after sixteen years of service in
the army, found all astir with the new project. His father had been
gardener to La Salle's uncle, Henri Cavelier; [Footnote: At the modest
wages of fifty francs a year and his maintenance.--Family papers found by
Margry.] and, being of an adventurous spirit, he was induced to volunteer
for the enterprise, of which he was to become the historian. With La
Salle's brother, the priest, and two of his nephews, of whom one was a boy
of fourteen, besides several others of his acquaintance, Joutel set out
for Rochelle, where all were to embark together for their promised land.
[Footnote: Joutel, _Journal Historique_, 12.]