1684-1685.
LA SALLE IN TEXAS.
DEPARTURE.--QUARRELS WITH BEAUJEU.--ST. DOMINGO.--LA SALLE ATTACKED
WITH FEVER.--HIS DESPERATE CONDITION.--THE GULF OF MEXICO.--A FATAL
ERROR.--LANDING.--WRECK OF THE "AIMABLE."--INDIAN ATTACK.--TREACHERY
OF BEAUJEU.--OMENS OF DISASTER.
The four ships sailed on the twenty-fourth of July; but the "Joly" soon
broke her bowsprit, and they were forced to put back. [Footnote: La Salle
believed that this mishap, which took place in good weather, was
intentional.--_Mémoire autographe de l'Abbé Jean Cavelier sur la Voyage
de_ 1684, MS. Compare Joutel, 15.] On the first of August, they again set
sail. La Salle, with the principal persons of the expedition, and a crowd
of soldiers, artisans, and women, the destined mothers of Louisiana, were
all on board the "Joly." Beaujeu wished to touch at Madeira: La Salle, for
excellent reasons, refused; and hence there was great indignation among
passengers and crew. The surgeon of the ship spoke with insolence to La
Salle, who rebuked him, whereupon Beaujeu took up the word in behalf of
the offender, saying that the surgeon was, like himself, an officer of the
king. [Footnote: "Le capitaine du batiment, qui avait en deux autres
occasions assez fait connoitre qu'il étoit mécontent de ce que son
autorité étoit partagée, prit la parole, disant au dit Sr. de la Salle que
le chirurgien étoit officier du roi comme lui."--_Memoire autographe de
l'Abbé Jean Cavelier,_ MS.] When they crossed the tropic, the sailors made
ready a tub on deck to baptize the passengers, after the villanous
practice of the time; but La Salle refused to permit it, to the
disappointment and wrath of all the crew, who had expected to extort a
bountiful ransom, in money and liquor, from their victims. There was an
incessant chafing between the two commanders; and when at length, after a
long and wretched voyage, they reached St. Domingo, Beaujeu showed clearly
that he was, to say the least, utterly indifferent to the interests of the
expedition. La Salle wished to stop at Port de Paix, where he was to meet
the Marquis de St. Laurent, Lieutenant-General of the Islands; Begon, the
Intendant; and De Cussy, Governor of the Island of La Tortue,--who had
orders from the king to supply him with provisions, and give him all
possible assistance. Beaujeu had consented to stop here; [Footnote: "C'est
la (au Port de Paix) ou Mr. de Beaujeu était convenu de s'arreter."--
_Memoire autographe de l'Abbé Jean Cavelier,_ Joutel says that this was
resolved on at a council held on board the "Joly," and that a Procès
Verbal to that effect was drawn up.--_Journal Historique,_ 22.] but he
nevertheless ran by the place in the night, and, to the extreme vexation
of La Salle, cast anchor on the twenty-seventh of September, at Petit
Goave, on the other side of the island.
The "Joly" was alone; the other vessels had lagged behind. She had more
than fifty sick men on board, and La Salle was of the number. He
despatched a messenger to St. Laurent, Begon, and Cussy, begging them to
join him, commissioned Joutel to get the sick ashore, suffocating as they
were in the hot and crowded ship, and caused the soldiers to be landed on
a small island in the harbor. Scarcely had the voyagers sung _Te Deum_ for
their safe arrival, when two of the lagging vessels appeared, bringing the
disastrous tidings that the third, the ketch "St. François," had been
taken by the Spaniards. She was laden with munitions, tools, and other
necessaries for the colony; and the loss was irreparable. Beaujeu was
answerable for it; for, had he followed his instructions, and anchored at
Port de Paix, it would not have occurred. The Lieutenant-General, with
Begon and Cussy, who had arrived, on La Salle's request, plainly spoke
their minds to him. [Footnote: Joutel, _Journal Historique_, 28.]
Meanwhile, La Salle's illness rose to a violent fever. He lay delirious in
a wretched garret in the town, attended by his brother, and one or two
others who stood faithful to him. A goldsmith of the neighborhood, moved
at his deplorable condition, offered the use of his house; and the Abbé
Cavelier had him removed thither. But there was a tavern hard by, and the
patient was tormented with daily and nightly riot. At the height of the
fever, a party of Beaujeu's sailors spent a night in singing and dancing
before the house; and, says Cavelier, "The more we begged them to be
quiet, the more noise they made." La Salle lost reason and well-nigh life;
but at length his mind resumed its balance, and the violence of the
disease abated. A friendly Capucin friar offered him the shelter of his
roof; and two of his men supported him thither on foot, giddy with
exhaustion and hot with fever. Here he found repose, and was slowly
recovering, when some of his attendants rashly told him of the loss of the
ketch "St. François;" and the consequence was a critical return of the
disease. [Footnote: The above particulars are from the unpublished memoir
of La Salle's brother, the Abbé Cavelier, already cited.]
There was no one to fill his place; Beaujeu would not; Cavelier could not.
Joutel, the gardener's son, was apparently the most trusty man of the
company; but the expedition was virtually without a head. The men roamed
on shore, and plunged into every excess of debauchery, contracting
diseases which eventually killed them.
Beaujeu, in the extremity of ill humor, resumed his correspondence with
Seignelay. "But for the illness of the Sieur de la Salle," he writes, "I
could not venture to report to you the progress of our voyage, as I am
charged only with the navigation, and he with the secrets; but as his
malady has deprived him of the use of his faculties, both of body and
mind, I have thought myself obliged to acquaint you with what is passing,
and of the condition in which we are."
He then declares that the ships freighted by La Salle were so slow, that
the "Joly" had continually been forced to wait for them, thus doubling the
length of the voyage; that he had not had water enough for the passengers,
as La Salle had not told him that there were to be any such till the day
they came on hoard; that great numbers were sick, and that he had told La
Salle there would be trouble, if he filled all the space between decks
with his goods, and forced the soldiers and sailors to sleep on deck; that
he had told him he would get no provisions at St. Domingo, but that he
insisted on stopping; that it had always been so; that, whatever he
proposed, La Salle would refuse, alleging orders from the king; "and now,"
pursues the ruffled commander, "everybody is ill; and he himself has a
violent fever, as dangerous, the surgeon tells me, to the mind as to the
body."
The rest of the letter is in the same strain. He says that a day or two
after La Salle's illness began, his brother Cavelier came to ask him to
take charge of his affairs; but that he did not wish to meddle with them,
especially as nobody knows any thing about them, and as La Salle has sold
some of the ammunition and provisions; that Cavelier tells him that he
thinks his brother keeps no accounts, wishing to hide his affairs from
everybody; that he learns from buccaneers that the entrance of the
Mississippi is very shallow and difficult, and that this is the worst
season for navigating the Gulf; that the Spaniards have in these seas six
vessels of from thirty to sixty guns each, besides row-galleys; but that
he is not afraid, and will perish, or bring back an account of the
Mississippi. "Nevertheless," he adds, "if the Sieur de la Salle dies, I
shall pursue a course different from that which he has marked out; for his
plans are not good."
"If," he continues, "you permit me to speak my mind, M. de la Salle ought
to have been satisfied with discovering his river, without undertaking to
conduct three vessels with troops two thousand leagues through so many
different climates, and across seas entirely unknown to him. I grant that
he is a man of knowledge; that he has reading, and even some tincture of
navigation; but there is so much difference between theory and practice,
that a man who has only the former will always be at fault. There is also
a great difference between conducting canoes on lakes and along a river,
and navigating ships with troops on distant oceans." [Footnote: "Si vous
me permettez de dire mon sentiment, M. de la Salle devait se contenter
d'avoir découvert sa riviére, sans se charger de conduire trois vaisseaux
et des troupes à deux mille lieues au travers de tant de climats
différents et par des mers qui lui étaient tout à fait inconnues. Je
demeure d'accord qu'il est savant, qu'il a de la lecture, et même quelque
teinture de la navigation. Mais il y a tant de différence entre la théorie
et la pratique, qu'un homme qui n'aura que celle-là s'y trompera toujours.
Il y a aussi bien de la difference entre conduire des canots sur des lacs
et le long d'une rivière et mener des vaisseaux et des troupes dans des
mers si éloignées."--_Lettre de Beaujeu au Ministre_, 20 _Oct_. 1684, MS.]
It was near the end of November before La Salle could resume the voyage.
Beaujeu had been heard to say, that he would wait no longer for the
storeship "Amiable," and that she might follow as she could. [Footnote:
_Mémoire autographe de l'Abbé Jean Cavelier_, MS.] La Salle feared that he
would abandon her; and he therefore embarked in her himself, with his
friend Joutel, his brother Cavelier, Membré, Douay, and others, the
trustiest of his followers. On the twenty-fifth, they set sail; the "Joly"
and the little frigate "Belle" following. They coasted the shore of Cuba,
and landed at the Isle of Pines, where La Salle shot an alligator, which
the soldiers ate; and the hunters brought in a wild pig, half of which he
sent to Beaujeu. Then they advanced to Cape St. Antoine, where bad weather
and contrary winds long detained them. A load of cares oppressed the mind
of La Salle, pale and haggard with recent illness, wrapped within his own
thoughts, seeking sympathy from none. The feud of the two commanders still
rankled beneath the veil of formal courtesy with which men of the world
hide their dislikes and enmities.
At length, they entered the Gulf of Mexico, that forbidden sea, whence by
a Spanish decree, dating from the reign of Philip II., all foreigners were
excluded on pain of extermination. [Footnote: _Letter of Don Luis de Onis
to the Secretary of State, American State Papers_, xii. 27, 31.] Not a man
on board knew the secrets of its perilous navigation. Cautiously feeling
their way, they held a northerly course, till, on the twenty-eighth of
December, a sailor at the mast-head of the "Aimable" saw land. La Salle
and all the pilots had been led to form an exaggerated idea of the force
of the easterly currents; and they therefore supposed themselves near the
Bay of Appalache, when, in fact, they were much farther westward. At their
right lay a low and sandy shore, washed by breakers, which made the
landing dangerous. La Salle had taken the latitude of the mouth of the
Mississippi, but could not determine the longitude. On the sixth of
January, the "Aimable" seems to have been very near it; but his attempts
to reconnoitre the shore were frustrated by the objections of the pilot of
the vessel, to which, with a fatal facility, very unusual with him, he
suffered himself to yield. [Footnote: Joutel, 45. He places the date on
the tenth, but elsewhere corrects himself. La Salle himself says, "La
hauteur nous a fait remarquer... que ce que nous avons vue, le sixième
janvier, estoit en effet la principale entrée de la rivière que nous
cherchions."--_Lettre de la Salle au Ministre_, 4 _Mars_, 1685.] Still
convinced that the Mississippi was to the westward, he coasted the shores
of Texas. As Joutel, with a boat's crew, was vainly trying to land, a
party of Indians swam out through the surf, and were taken on board; but
La Salle could learn nothing from them, as their language was wholly
unknown to him. The coast began to trend southward. They saw that they had
gone too far. Joutel again tried to land, but the surf that lashed the
sand-bars deterred him. He approached as near as he dared, and, beyond the
intervening breakers, saw vast plains and a dim expanse of forests; the
shaggy buffalo running with their heavy gallop along the shore, and troops
of deer grazing on the marshy meadows.
A few days after, he succeeded in reaching the shore at a point not far
south of Matagorda Bay. The aspect of the country was not cheering; sandy
plains and shallow ponds of salt water, full of wild ducks and other fowl.
The sand was thickly marked with, the hoof-prints of deer and buffalo; and
they saw them in the distance, but could kill none. They had been for many
days separated from the "Joly," when at length, to La Salle's great
relief, she hove in sight; but his joy was of short duration. Beaujeu sent
D'Aire, his lieutenant, on board the "Aimable," to charge La Salle with
having deserted him. The desertion in fact was his own; for he had stood
out to sea, instead of coasting the shore, according to the plan agreed
on. Now ensued a discussion as to their position. Had they in fact passed
the mouth of the Mississippi; and, granting that they had, how far had
they left it behind? La Salle was confident that they had passed it on the
sixth of January, and he urged Beaujeu to turn back with him in quest of
it. Beaujeu replied that he had not provisions enough, and must return to
France without delay, unless La Salle would supply him from his own
stores. La Salle offered him provisions for fifteen days, which was more
than enough for the additional time required; but Beaujeu remained
perverse and impracticable, and would neither consent nor refuse. La
Salle's men beguiled the time with hunting on shore; and he had the
courtesy, very creditable under the circumstances, to send a share of the
game to his colleague.
Time wore on. La Salle grew impatient, and landed a party of men, under
his nephew Moranget and his townsman Joutel, to explore the adjacent
shores. They made their way on foot northward and eastward for several
days, till they were stopped by a river too wide and deep to cross. They
encamped, and were making a canoe, when, to their great joy, for they were
famishing, they descried the ships, which had followed them along the
coast. La Salle landed, and became convinced--his wish, no doubt,
fathering the thought--that the river was no other than the stream now
called Bayou Lafourche, which forms a western mouth of the Mississippi.
[Footnote: La Salle dates his letter to Seignelay, of the fourth of March:
"_A l'embouchure occidentals dufleuve Colbert_" (Mississippi). He says,
"La saison étant très-avancée, et voyant qu'il me restoit fort peu de
temps pour achever l'entreprise don't j'estois charge, je resolus de
remonter ce canal du fleuve Colbert, plus tost que de retourner au plus
considérable, éloigné de 25 à 30 lieues d'icy vers le nord-est, que nous
avions remarqué dès le sixième janvier, mais que nous n'avions pu
reconnoistre, croyant sur le rapport des pilotes du vaisseau de sa Majesté
et des nostres, n'avoir pas encore passé la baye du Saint-Esprit" (Mobile
Bay). He adds that the difficulty of returning to the principal mouth of
the Mississippi had caused him "prendre le party de remonter le fleuve par
icy." This fully explains the reason of La Salle's landing on the coast of
Texas, which would otherwise have been a postponement, not to say an
abandonment, of the main object of the enterprise. He believed himself at
the western mouth of the Mississippi; and lie meant to ascend it, instead
of going by sea to the principal mouth. About half the length of Bayou
Lafourche is laid down on Franquelin's map of 1684; and this, together
with La Salle's letter and the statements of Joutel, plainly shows the
nature of his error.] He thought it easier to ascend by this passage than
to retrace his course along the coast, against the winds, the currents,
and the obstinacy of Beaujeu. Eager, moreover, to be rid of that
refractory commander, he resolved to disembark his followers, and.
despatch the "Joly" back to France.
The Bay of St. Louis, now Matagorda Bay, [Footnote: The St. Bernard's Bay
of old maps. La Salle, in his letter to Seignelay of 4 March, says, that
it is in latitude twenty-eight degrees and eighteen or twenty minutes.
This answers to the entrance of Matagorda Bay.
In the Archives de la Marine is preserved a map made by an engineer of the
expedition, inscribed _Minuty del_, and entitled _Entrée du lac où on a
laissé le Sieur de la Salle_. It represents the entrance of Matagorda Bay,
the camp of La Salle on the left, the Indian camps on the borders of the
bay, the "Belle" lying safely at anchor within, the "Aimable" stranded
near the island at the entrance, and the "Joly" anchored in the open sea.
At Versailles, Salle des Marines, there is a good modern picture of the
landing of La Salle in Texas.] forms a broad and sheltered harbor,
accessible from the sea by a narrow passage, obstructed by sand-bars, and
by the small island now called Pelican Island. La Salle prepared to
disembark on the western shore, near the place which now bears his name;
and, to this end, the "Aimable" and the "Belle" must be brought over the
bar. Boats were sent to sound and buoy out the channel, and this was
successfully accomplished on the sixteenth of February. The "Aimable" was
ordered to enter; and, on the twentieth, she weighed anchor. La Salle was
on shore watching her. A party of men, at a little distance, were cutting
down a tree to make a canoe. Suddenly, some of them ran towards him with
terrified faces, crying out that they had been set upon by a troop of
Indians, who had seized their companions and carried them off. La Salle
ordered those about him to take their arms, and at once set out in
pursuit. He overtook the Indians, and opened a parley with them; but when
he wished to reclaim his men, he discovered that they had been led away
during the conference to the Indian camp, a league and a half distant.
Among them was one of his lieutenants, the young Marquis de la
Sablonnière. He was deeply vexed, for the moment was critical; but the men
must be recovered, and he led his followers in haste towards the camp. Yet
he could not refrain from turning a moment to watch the "Aimable," as she
neared the shoals; and he remarked with deep anxiety to Joutel, who was
with him, that if she held that course she would soon be aground.
They hurried on till they saw the Indian huts. About fifty of them, oven-
shaped, and covered with mats and hides, were clustered on a rising
ground, with their inmates gathered among and around them. As the French
entered the camp, there was the report of a cannon from the seaward. The
startled savages dropped flat with terror. A different fear seized La
Salle, for he knew that the shot was a signal of disaster. Looking back,
he saw the "Aimable" furling her sails, and his heart sank with the
conviction that she had struck upon the reef. Smothering his distress,--
she was laden with all the stores of the colony,--he pressed forward among
the filthy wigwams, whose astonished inmates swarmed about the band of
armed strangers, staring between curiosity and fear. La Salle knew those
with whom he was dealing, and, without ceremony, entered the chief's lodge
with his followers. The crowd closed around them, naked men and half-naked
women, described by Joutel as of a singular ugliness. They gave buffalo-
meat and dried porpoise to the unexpected guests; but La Salle, racked
with anxiety, hastened to close the interview; and, having without
difficulty recovered the kidnapped men, he returned to the beach, leaving
with the Indians, as usual, an impression of good-will and respect.
When he reached the shore, he saw his worst fears realized. The "Aimable"
lay careened over on the reef, hopelessly aground. Little remained but to
endure the calamity with firmness, and to save, as far as might be, the
vessel's cargo. This was no easy task. The boat which hung at her stern
had been stove in,--it is said, by design. Beaujeu sent a boat from the
"Joly," and one or more Indian pirogues were procured. La Salle urged on
his men with stern and patient energy; a quantity of gunpowder and flour
was safely landed; but now the wind blew fresh from the sea, the waves
began to rise, a storm came on, the vessel, rocking to and fro on the
sand-bar, opened along her side, the ravenous waves were strewn with her
treasures; and, when the confusion was at its height, a troop of Indians
came down to the shore, greedy for plunder. The drum was beat; the men
were called to arms; La Salle set his trustiest followers to guard the
gunpowder, in fear, not of the Indians alone, but of his own countrymen.
On that lamentable night, the sentinels walked their rounds through the
dreary bivouac among the casks, bales, and boxes which the sea had yielded
up; and here, too, their fate-hunted chief held his drearier vigil,
encompassed with treachery, darkness, and the storm.
Those who have recorded the disaster of the "Aimable" affirm that she was
wilfully wrecked, [Footnote: This is said by Joutel and Le Clercq, and by
La Salle himself, in his letter to Seignelay, 4 March, 1685, as well as in
the account of the wreck drawn up officially.--_Procès verbal du Sieur de
la Salle sur le naufraqe de la flûte l'Aimable à l'embouchure du Fleuve
Colbert_, MS. He charges it, as do also the others, upon Aigron, the pilot
of the vessel, the same who had prevented him from exploring the mouth of
the Mississippi on the sixth of January. The charges are supported by
explicit statements, which render them probable. The loss was very great,
including nearly all the beef and other provisions, 60 barrels of wine, 4
pieces of cannon, 1,620 balls, 400 grenades, 4,000 pounds of iron, 5,000
pounds of lead, most of the blacksmith's and carpenter's tools, a forge, a
mill, cordage, boxes of arms, nearly all the medicines, most of the
baggage of the soldiers and colonists, and a variety of miscellaneous
goods.] an atrocious act of revenge against a man whose many talents often
bore for him no other fruit than the deadly one of jealousy and hate.
The neighboring Bracamos Indians still hovered about them, with very
doubtful friendship: and, a few days after the wreck, the prairie was seen
on fire. As the smoke and name rolled towards them before the wind, La
Salle caused all the grass about the camp to be cut and carried away, and
especially around the spot where the powder was placed. The danger was
averted; but it soon became known that the Indians had stolen a number of
blankets and other articles, and carried them to their wigwams. Unwilling
to leave his camp, La Salle sent his nephew Moranget and several other
volunteers, with a party of men, to reclaim them. They went up the bay in
a boat, landed at the Indian camp, and, with more mettle than discretion,
marched into it, sword in hand. The Indians ran off, and the rash
adventurers seized upon several canoes as an equivalent for the stolen
goods. Not knowing how to manage them, they made slow progress on their
way back, and were overtaken by night before reaching the French camp.
They landed, made a fire, placed a sentinel, and lay down on the dry grass
to sleep. The sentinel followed their example; when suddenly they were
awakened by the war-whoop and a shower of arrows. Two volunteers, Oris and
Desloges, were killed on the spot; a third, named Gayen, was severely
wounded; and young Moranget received an arrow through the arm. He leaped
up and fired his gun at the vociferous but invisible foe. Others of the
party did the same, and the Indians fled.
This untoward incident, joined to the loss of the store-ship, completed
the discouragement of some among the colonists. Several of them, including
one of the priests and the engineer Minet, declared their intention of
returning home with Beaujeu, who apparently made no objection to receiving
them. He now declared that since the Mississippi was found, his work was
done, and he would return to France. La Salle desired that he would first
send on shore the cannon-balls and stores embarked for the use of the
colony. Beaujeu refused, on the ground that they were stowed so deep in
the hold that to take them out would endanger the ship. The excuse is
itself a confession of gross mismanagement. Remonstrance would have
availed little. Beaujeu spread his sails and departed, and the wretched
colony was left to its fate.
Was Beaujeu deliberately a traitor, or was his conduct merely a result of
jealousy and pique? There can be little doubt that he was guilty of
premeditated bad faith. There is evidence that he knew the expedition to
have passed the true mouth of the Mississippi, and that, after leaving La
Salle, he sailed in search of it, found it, and caused a map to be made of
it. [Footnote: This map, the work of the engineer Minet, bears the date of
_May_, 1685. La Salle's last letter to the minister, which he sent home by
Beaujeu, is dated March 4th. Hence, Beaujeu, in spite of his alleged want
of provisions, seems to have remained some time in the Gulf. The
significance of the map consists in two distinct sketches of the mouth of
the Mississippi, which is styled "La Rivière du Sr. de la Salle." Against
one of these sketches are written the words "Embouchure de la rivière
comme M. de la Salle la marque dans sa carte." Against the other, "Costes
et lacs par la hauteur de sa rivière, _comme nous les avons trouvés_." The
italics are mine. Both sketches plainly represent the mouth of the
Mississippi, and the river as high as New Orleans, with the Indian
villages upon it. The coast line is also indicated as far east as Mobile
Bay. My attention was first drawn to this map by M. Margry. It is in the
Archives Scientifiques de la Marine.]
A lonely sea, a wild and desolate shore, a weary waste of marsh and
prairie; a rude redoubt of drift-wood, and the fragments of a wreck; a few
tents, and a few wooden hovels; bales, boxes, casks, spars, dismounted
cannon, Indian canoes, a pen for fowls and swine, groups of dejected men
and desponding, homesick women,--this was the forlorn reality to which the
air-blown fabric of an audacious enterprise had sunk. Here were the
conquerors of New Biscay; they who were to hold for France a region as
large as the half of Europe. Here was the tall form and the fixed calm
features of La Salle. Here were his two nephews, the hot-headed Moranget,
still suffering from his wound, and the younger Cavelier, a mere school-
boy. Conspicuous only by his Franciscan garb was the small slight figure
of Zenobe Membré. His brother friar, Anastase Douay; the trusty Joutel, a
man of sense and observation; the Marquis de la Sablonnière, a debauched
noble whose patrimony was his sword; and a few of less mark,--comprised
the leaders of the infant colony. The rest were soldiers, recruited from
the scum of Rochelle and Rochefort; and artisans, of whom the greater part
knew nothing of their pretended vocation. Add to these the miserable
families and the infatuated young women, who had come to tempt fortune in
the swamps and cane-brakes of the Mississippi.
La Salle set out to explore the neighborhood. Joutel remained in command
of the so-called fort. He was beset with wily enemies, and often at night
the Indians would crawl in the grass around his feeble stockade, howling
like wolves; but a few shots would put them to flight. A strict guard was
kept, and a wooden horse was set in the enclosure, to punish the sentinel
who should sleep at his post. They stood in daily fear of a more
formidable foe, and once they saw a sail, which they doubted not was
Spanish; but she happily passed without discovering them. They hunted on
the prairies, and speared fish in the neighboring pools. On Easter day,
the Sieur le Gros, one of the chief men of the company, went out after the
service to shoot snipes; but, as he walked barefoot through the marsh, a
snake bit him, and he soon after died. Two men deserted, to starve on the
prairie, or to become savages among savages. Others tried to escape, but
were caught; and one of them was hung. A knot of desperadoes conspired to
kill Joutel; but one of them betrayed the secret, and the plot was
crushed.
La Salle returned from his journey. He had made an ominous discovery; for
he had at length become convinced that he was not, as he had fondly hoped,
on an arm of the Mississippi. The wreck of the "Aimable" itself was not
pregnant with consequences so disastrous. A deep gloom gathered around the
colony. There was no hope but in the energies of its unconquerable chief.