1683-1687
WAR AGAIN. THE IROQUOIS. NEW YORK AND HUDSON'S BAY
THE GOVERNMENTS OF DE LA BARRE AND DENONVILLE
GOVERNOR DE LA BARRE OPPOSES LA SALLE--THE POW-WOW IN THE NEW
PARISH CHURCH--WAR PREPARATIONS AT MONTREAL--THE DISEASE-STRICKEN
EXPEDITIONS RETURN--LAVAL LEAVES FOR FRANCE--THE PIONEER PAPER
MONEY INVENTED TO PAY THE SOLDIERS--NOTES ON "CARDS" AND CURRENCY
DURING FRENCH REGIME--GOVERNOR DENONVILLE AND MGR. DE ST. VALLIER
ARRIVE--CALLIERES BECOMES GOVERNOR OF MONTREAL--A GLOOMY REPORT
ON THE "YOUTH" AND DRAMSHOPS--MGR. DE ST. VALLIER'S MANDEMENT OF
THE VANITY OF THE WOMEN--THE FORTIFICATIONS REPAIRED--SALE OF ARMS
CONDEMNED--THE STRUGGLE FOR CANADA BY THE ENGLISH OF NEW YORK--THE
STRUGGLE FOR HUDSON'S BAY--THE PARTY FROM MONTREAL UNDER THE
SONS OF CHARLES LE MOYNE--THE DEATH OF LA SALLE--OTHER MONTREAL
DISCOVERERS--A PSYCHOLOGICAL APPRECIATION OF LA SALLE'S CHARACTER.
The recall of Frontenac had great influence on La Salle's career, for
the new governor, de La Barre, an aged man wanting in firmness and
decision, intended to enrich himself[130] and had accordingly connected
himself with a clique of merchants in the colony, intent on the
monopoly of the western fur trade. He believed in their representations
that by acting with them, he would be enabled to obtain large profits.
The principals in this arrangement were Aubert de la Chesnaye, Jacques
Leber and Charles Le Moyne, the latter two of Montreal.
Accordingly, when on April 3, 1683, after hearing that his protector,
Frontenac, had sailed for France, La Salle wrote the new governor,
telling of his success in the expedition to the mouth of the
Mississippi, and dwelling on the necessity of establishing colonists
along the route which he had opened, and asked that such of his men
as were sent to Montreal for supplies should not be arrested, he
little knew how poorly his exploration was valued by the governor. In
a second letter he speaks of the threatened rising of the Iroquois in
the Michillimackinac district, and of the danger he was in, at his Fort
St. Louis, on the River Illinois, on the top of "Starved Rock" (as it
was afterwards called after Pontiac's war in 1764), with but twenty
men, and only 100 pounds of powder. He asks that his men should not
be detained, as he was in need of reinforcements; likewise, that no
seizure of his property in Montreal should be permitted as he was in
want of munitions and supplies.
No supplies were sent him and his men were made prisoners in Montreal
as transgressors of the law. Moreover, on pretense that the conditions,
on which his fort at Frontenac had been granted, had not been carried
out, the governor sent Leber and de la Chesnaye to seize it in the
royal name. La Salle determined to appeal in person to the minister
in France and coming down the lakes he met the Chevalier de Baugis,
who had been sent by de La Barre to seize his Fort St. Louis. In the
next year, 1684, the king wrote to the governor and the intendant, de
Moules, commanding them to make restitution to La Salle for the injury
done him at Fort Frontenac and Fort St. Louis.
Hardly had La Barre arrived in Canada than he learned of the
declaration of war by the Iroquois against the Illinois, the allies of
the French. A deliberation of the highest in the land resulted in a
request to the king for help to restrain the Iroquois, which brought
the promise of a convoy of 200 soldiers to be sent without delay from
France! Wishing, however, to compromise with the Iroquois and to make
peace rather than war which would damage his personal trade relations
at Cataracqui, the governor sent Charles Le Moyne as envoy to Onondaga
to invite a deputation of their chiefs to visit Montreal. This was
fixed for June, but it was not till August that a meagre delegation
from but five cantons arrived, and the grand council was held in the
newly built church of Montreal.
Parkman tells the story thus: "Presents were given to the deputies
(forty-three Iroquois chiefs) to the value of more than two thousand
crowns. Soothing speeches were made them and they were urged not
to attack the tribes of the lakes, nor to plunder French traders,
_without permission_. They assented and La Barre then asked, timidly,
why they made war on the Illinois. 'Because they deserve to die,'
haughtily returned the Iroquois orator. La Barre dared not answer.
They complained that La Salle had given guns, powder and lead to the
Illinois; or in other words, that he had helped the allies of the
colony to defend themselves. La Barre, who hated La Salle and his
monopolies, assured them that he should be punished. It is affirmed on
good authority that he said more than this, and told them that they
were welcome to plunder and kill him. The rapacious old man was playing
with a two-edged sword." ("Frontenac," p. 84).
Montreal that summer witnessed the preparations of La Barre and
his 200 men, who left Quebec on July 10th ostensibly to fight the
Iroquois around Fort Frontenac; among them was de la Chesnaye. The
new intendant, Jacques de Meulles, Sieur de la Source, grieving no
doubt that he had to finance this new war, has the lowest opinion of
this enterprise and writes to the minister (July 8-11): "In a word,
Monseigneur, this war has been decided upon in the cabinet of monsieur,
the general (La Barre) along with six of the chief merchants of the
country," and in a postscript he added, "I will finish this letter,
Monseigneur, by telling you that he set out yesterday, July 10th, with
a detachment of 200 men. All Quebec was filled with grief to see him
embark on an expedition of war, _tête à tête_ with the man La Chesnaye.
Everybody says that the war is a sham, that these two will arrange
everything between them and in a word do whatever will help their
trade. The whole country is in despair to see how matters are managed."
(Quoted by Parkman, "Frontenac," p. 103.)
After a long stay at Montreal the little army of 130 regular soldiers,
700 Canadians and 200 savages, principally Iroquois from Caughnawaga
and Hurons from Lorette near Quebec, embarked at Lachine. The party
from Montreal landed under the palisades of Fort Frontenac or
Cataracqui, on a low, damp plain and became the victims of a malarial
fever of which the men sickened. On the 3d of September Le Moyne was
sent to La Famine at the mouth of the Salmon River, bringing with
him the wily and astute orator of the Iroquois, Big Mouth, Latinized
by La Hontan, who was present, as "Grangula." At the council which
followed at La Famine, whither La Barre with such of his men who were
well enough to move, had crossed to meet the Iroquois in their own
territory, Big Mouth had all the honours and the ending was humiliating
for the French. He declared the Iroquois could fight the Illinois to
the death, and La Barre dared not utter a word in behalf of his allies.
"He promised to decamp," says Parkman, "and set out for home on the
following morning, being satisfied with the promise that the Iroquois
would repair the damage done the French traders in the war against the
Illinois--a promise never realized. La Barre embarked and hastened
home in advance of his men. His camp was again full of the sick. Their
comrades placed them, shivering with ague fits, on board the flatboats
and canoes; and the whole force, scattered and disordered, floated
down the current to Montreal. Nothing had been gained but a thin and
flimsy peace, with new troubles and dangers plainly visible behind it."
("Frontenac," p. 111).
At Montreal, as a consequence of this disease-stricken expedition, the
Hôtel-Dieu was filled with the sick, as was that of Quebec. The end
was humiliating to La Barre; the honour was with the Iroquois and the
Illinois allies had been shamefully abandoned. The treaty of La Famine
was received by the colony with contumely and shortly afterwards the
inefficient governor received his recall, polite, but unmistakable in
its import.
On November 14th, Monseigneur de Laval left for France, sixty-one years
of age, but broken down by his austere duties and unremitting labours.
He attended the Sovereign Council on August 28th, and fought against
the making of the secular clergy into "irremovable curés"--a policy
which has been continued to this day. On November 2d, he established
the Chapter of Quebec Cathedral, consisting of twelve canons and four
chaplains. He came back to Quebec again on August 15, 1688, and took
up his quarters at his beloved seminary founded by him, not any longer
with the burdens and honours of the Episcopate, but as a simple retired
prelate, the father-in-God of his seminarists--till nearly his death on
May 6, 1708. He was a man who was a sign for contradiction to many, yet
always firm, zealous, unbending and of upright principles, which even
his enemies recognized, though they might have quailed before him and
have withstood him.
De Meulles still continued as intendant, not being recalled till 1686.
He was endowed with much initiative and executive ability, which La
Barre wanted, so that he nearly brought the country to ruin. After the
disgraceful treaty with the Iroquois, on September 4th, de Meulles
found that the drain on the exchequer was so great that he was at his
wits' end to pay the soldiers who belonged to "le détachement in French
de la marine"--in spite of the name, purely a land body, supported
by the department "of the marine," there being no colonial office to
France. This detachment was organized in France about the year 1682,
from among the disbanded soldiers who had taken part in the Dutch
or other wars, to protect the inhabitants of New France from the
relentless raids of ever-roving bands of ruthless Iroquois, which had
become so persistent as almost to paralyze the agricultural pursuits as
well as the trade and commerce of the country.
How was the intendant, de Meulles, to pay these soldiers? There was
little or no coin currency. Beaver skins and wheat were legal tender,
but very bulky and very inconvenient for small accounts. The dearth
of currency may be explained as follows: In New France currency
difficulties had always prevailed because any few doles of coin that
came from the home government were returned as remittances by the
importers as the balance of trade was always against the colony and
therefore exchange was necessarily high. In 1670 a special coinage of
15 and 5 _sol_ pieces of silver and _doubles_ in copper were struck at
Paris and sent out with a proviso that they should not be circulated in
the mother country. But notwithstanding this interdiction these also
were sent as remittances. Thus there was little or no coin currency in
the country with which to trade. The ready witted intendant therefore
invented the pioneer paper money, which originally circulated in the
form of a note, on the back of an ordinary playing card signed by de
Meulles, in 1685. It was the beginning of the paper money which is
now so largely used all over the world. De Meulles hit upon the plan
of using whole, or cutting up, ordinary playing cards into halves or
quarters, with the word "_bon_" inserted on each, for a certain sum,
signed and sealed in wax with his own hand and countersigned by the
clerk of the treasury as they were issued. This emergency card money is
claimed by Mr. R. W. McLachlan as the first regular paper money issued
in any Caucasian nation. He claims that the Massachusetts paper money,
issued first five years after that of Canada, for the similar purpose
of paying soldiers, was an imitation.
[Illustration: CARD MONEY]
A new supply of these cards was issued in October, 1711. The old issue
disappeared and there is not one left even for antiquarian collections.
Further issues were made in 1714 and 1717, but in this latter year the
total withdrawal of the old cards was ordered. By 1720 these cards had
all been redeemed by the government.
In 1721 a copper currency was struck for the colony at the mint of
La Rochelle and Rouen of nine denier pieces. Though issued with a
proclamation throughout New France they were never acceptable to the
Canadians and were at last withdrawn. There was then after the issue
of the cards of 1717 a lull of about ten years, when in 1729 recourse
was again had to the convenient paper money, but the playing card was
superseded by a plain white card with clipped edges and with various
other changes in stamps and signatures. This system was continued until
Intendant Bigot's time and the fall of New France. The inventory of
Jacques LeBer of Montreal, dated June 7, 1735, showing coins to the
value of 84 _livres_ 8 _sols_ 3 _deniers_, and card money to the value
of 2833.3.0, indicates the early predominance of card money. About 1750
Bigot introduced, as a new currency, an unauthorized note called an
"ordonnance," which, unlike the card issue, did not seek the governor's
approval by seal or signature. They were more than twice as large, on
forms printed in France on ordinary writing paper, with blank spaces
for filling in the amount, the date, and number in writing. These
"ordonnances" were orders on the treasury of Quebec or, in the case
of the fall of the capital, of Montreal, which could pass as cash and
were redeemable in bulk, either in card money, or by drafts on the
treasurer of the marine in France. This method afforded ample scope for
peculation both from the government and the people. At first Bigot's
issue of "ordonnances" was slight but by the end of the French régime,
it exceeded 80,000,000 _livres_ or nearly $14,000,000. This was a large
sum for an impoverished country to refund. It was years after it was
redeemed and some never so by the French Government, after the fall of
the French régime in Canada. The cards and "ordonnances" were a drug
on the market for many years pending redemption, so that the original
holders gained very little. The introduction of specie did much to
reconcile the French to the British régime.[131]
1685
La Barre's successor was the Marquis of Denonville, a pious colonel
of dragoons, who had seen much active service, and who could act when
occasion required with firmness and vigour. In the same boat with him
and his wife there arrived at Quebec in the beginning of August, 1685,
Laval's successor, the bishop-elect, the young, impetuous, zealous and
rigid Monseigneur de Saint-Vallier--and a lasting friendship was then
cemented. Denonville's instructions ordered him to uphold the allies
of France, to humiliate the Iroquois and to establish peace on a solid
basis. He was to spare no effort to maintain a good understanding
with the English but should they and the Iroquois be allied in their
battles, they were to be treated as enemies. On the 6th of August he
presided at the Sovereign Council. After staying a short time at Quebec
he went to Montreal and there set up the Chevalier de Callières, a
former captain of the Navarre Regiment, as the governor in place of M.
Perrot, who had been sent to Acadia (being appointed in 1684), where as
governor he pursued the same tactics as at Montreal and was replaced in
1687. Denonville's reign with the English and the Iroquois was stormy,
but he was singularly peaceful in his relations with the bishop, the
intendant and the governor of Montreal.
[Illustration: MGR. J. B. DE LA CROIX CHEVRIERES DE SAINT-VALLIER]
[Illustration: MARQUIS JACQUES-RENE DE BRISAY DENONVILLE]
A gloomy picture of Canadian life, which applies equally to Montreal,
was sent by Denonville to France in his letters of August 20, September
3 and November 12, 1685. "The youths," he says, "are so badly trained
that the moment they are able to shoulder a gun their fathers dare not
speak reprovingly to them. They do not take kindly to labour, having
no occupation but hunting; they prefer the life of the _coureur de
bois_, where there is no curé or father to restrain them, and in which
they adopt the life of the Indian even to going about naked. The life
has great attractions for them, for on carnival days and other days of
feasting and debauchery they imitate the Indian in all things, their
company being frequently lawless and unruly. The noblesse of Canada
is in a condition of extreme poverty. To increase their number is to
multiply a class of lounging idlers. The sons of the councillors are
not more industrious than the other youths. The men are tall, well
made, well set up, robust, active, accustomed to live on little.
They are wayward, lightminded and inclined to debauchery but have
intelligence and veracity; the women and girls, pretty, but idle from
want of occupation in the minor work of the sex.
"Nothing," says Denonville, "can be finer or better conceived than the
regulations formed for the government of this country; but nothing,
I assure you, is so ill-observed as regards both the fur trade and
the general discipline of the colony. One great evil is the infinite
number of drinking shops, which makes it almost impossible to remedy
the disorders resulting from them. All the rascals and idlers of the
country are attracted to this business of tavern keeping. They never
dream of tilling the soil, but on the contrary they deter the other
inhabitants from it, and end with ruining them. I know seignories
where there are but twenty houses, and more than half of them dram
shops. At Three Rivers there are twenty-five houses and liquor may be
had at eighteen or twenty of them. Ville Marie (Montreal) and Quebec
are on the same footing. The villages governed by the Jesuits and
Sulpicians are models. Drunkenness there is not seen. But it is sad to
see the ignorance of the population at a distance from the abodes of
the _curés_, who are put to the greatest trouble to remedy the evils,
traveling from place to place through the parishes in their charges."
(Denonville au ministre, Parkman, "Old Régime," pp. 375-6-7; vide,
résumé of Kingsford, I, 65.)
The clergy, however, did their work manfully and unflinchingly and
it was their devotion to their work of upbuilding the morality and
character of the French Canadians that assured them the prestige
which is enjoyed by them to this day. Bishop St. Vallier confirms
Denonville, La Barre, Duchesneau and other contemporary writers when
he says that, "the Canadian youths are for the most part demoralized,"
and although previously, in 1688, he had written very favourably on
the religious state of Canada, in a pastoral mandate of October 31,
1690, he says: "Before we first knew our flock we thought that the
English and the Iroquois were the only wolves we had to fear; but God
having opened our eyes to the disorders of this diocese and made us
feel more and more the weight of our charge, we are forced to confess
that our most dangerous foes are drunkenness, impurity, and slander."
The Canadian drank hard and many a man was old at forty. "But," says
Parkman ("Old Régime," p. 378), "nevertheless the race did not die out.
The prevalence of early marriages and the birth of numerous offspring
before the vigour of the father had been wasted ensured the strength
and hardihood which characterized the Canadians." Bishop St. Vallier
soon visited Montreal and his description of the mountain settlement we
have already given.
Here we may add a scathing picture which occurs in the ordinance of
Monseigneur Jean Baptiste de Saint-Vallier, dated October 22, 1686,
touching modesty and the want of veneration in the churches. It may
justly apply to the Montreal ladies of the period, since it complains,
"of the luxury and the vanity reigning, throughout _the whole country_
among the girls and grown-up women, with more licence and scandal than
ever. They are not content to have on them habits, the price and style
of which are much above the means or the condition of life of those
wearing them, but they affect moreover immodest head-dresses within
and without their homes, and often even in the churches, leaving heads
uncovered or only decked with a transparent veil and with an assemblage
of ribbons, lace work, curls and other vanities. But what is still more
to be deplored, and what pierces our soul with sorrow, is that they
have no difficulty in rendering themselves the instruments of the demon
and in cooperating with the loss of souls, bought by the blood of
Jesus Christ, by uncovering the _nudités_ of their neck and shoulders,
the sight of which makes an infinite number of persons to fall." The
good bishop might be similarly shocked if he visited Montreal today.[132]
In the spring of 1685, M. de Callières, the governor of Montreal,
employed 600 men under the direction of M. du Luth, royal engineer,
to erect a palisade around the town.[133] It was made of wood stakes
furnished by the citizens and had to be constantly repaired. This
palisade, with curtains and bastions, was 13 feet in height and there
were five gates, those of Lachine, the Recollects, the Port, St. Martin
and St. Lawrence; and five posterns, de Maricourt, the barracks, the
General Hospital, the Hôtel-Dieu and de Callières.
About this time there was apparently laxity in the retention of
arms. For one cause or another many households were very scantily
accommodated, through sale or truck, or on account of seizure for debt.
Accordingly a notice of the supreme council was affixed to the door of
the parish church of Montreal by the sergeant, Quesneville, on February
18, 1686. After emphasizing the importance of the obligation which the
Marquis de Denonville had laid upon every house-holder in the colony of
being well armed, the council forbade all persons of whatever quality
or condition to deprive themselves of their arms by sale or otherwise,
unless they had weapons beyond what was necessary, to arm each father
of the family, and his children and domestics, who shall have attained
to the age of fourteen years; it forbade all "huissiers and sergeants
of justice to seize these arms, all tavern keepers and others to buy
them, or truck them, under penalties named."
With Denonville's advent as the representative of Louis XIV, the
struggle for supremacy between Canada and the English, under Thomas
Dongan, the Irish Catholic governor of New York representing James II,
of England, began to assume warlike proportions. The English of New
York were laying claim to the whole country south of the Great Lakes
and were anxious to control the great western fur trade. The northern
fur trade was being bid for by the Hudson's Bay Company, and the
fisheries of New Acadia were being seized upon by the New Englanders.
In the regions of Michillimackinac the English were striving to
alienate the Hurons, Ottawas and other like tribes; they had already
on their side, the Iroquois, whose arrogance to the French, especially
that of the Senecas, was so galling that it seemed necessary for French
prestige to humble them. Such were de Denonville's instructions. This
was one of the reasons why he wished to build his fort at Niagara
as early as May, 1685--a project highly displeasing to Dongan--to
counteract the English desire for the same purpose, namely to obtain
supremacy over the tribes in that direction and to be masters of the
trade, for that was what most mattered.[134]
This was de Denonville's motive also for his projected forts at
Toronto, or Lake Erie, and that at Détroit, for which latter enterprise
he commissioned du Luth of Montreal. The intense rivalry showed itself
in 1686 in the organized attempt of the French to dispute the supremacy
claimed by the Hudson's Bay Company, then in its infancy, on the
western shore of that dreary inland sea. As so many Montrealers joined
in this effort, it may be recorded more fully than could otherwise be
permitted.
Let us, then, turn to the rivalry existing between the English and
French in Hudson's Bay, represented by the great company of that name
and the Canadian rival body, "La Compagnie du Nord." The English firm
had discovered the bay under Hudson and, with the help of the two
renegade Frenchmen, Médard Chouart des Groseilliers and Pierre Esprit
de Radisson,[135] both well known at Montreal, as bold and unscrupulous
_coureurs de bois_ and fur traders, had formed a company with English
capital from London and had established Fort Nelson near the mouth of
the Nelson River, and then other forts, Albany, Rupert and Monsipi or
Monsoni (Fort Hayes) on the southern end of the bay. But the French had
a grant of the fur industry from Louis XIV and had done some trading
there before the advent of the English. It had been taken possession
of, in 1672, in the name of Louis XIV by the Jesuit Albanel (one of the
early Montreal missionaries) and M. de St. Simon, and the French had
built Fort Thérèse, which, on being taken from them by the English, was
named Fort Nelson.
The French merchants desiring to oust their competitors appealed to
Denonville and he commissioned the Chevalier de Troyes, a captain of
infantry, to chase the English from the bay and retake their own. With
him went the young d'Iberville (then twenty-four years of age) and
his brothers Maricourt and St. Hélène, seventy Canadians and thirty
soldiers, "all," says Ferland, "accustomed to long marches, able to
manage canoes, to withstand the most piercing colds and well versed in
'la petite guerre.'" Their chaplain was the Jesuit Silvy. The party
left Montreal in the month of March, 1686, when the rivers were still
frozen and the snow was on the ground. They mounted the rivers and
lakes on their snowshoes, dragging their provisions, arms and materials
for canoe construction on their sleds, reaching the River Monsipi,
near Fort Hayes, the first English fort, in June or so, which shortly
afterwards fell with Forts Rupert and Albany, largely on account of the
brilliant exploits of d'Iberville, whose reputation was established on
this occasion. The whole expedition lasted only two months.
This brave buccaneering angered the English. A treaty of neutrality
intervening between the two powers of France and England left them
helpless for the moment, but in 1693 the Hudson's Bay Company were
again in possession. In 1697, as we shall see, d'Iberville will again
be in their waters and attacking these forts.
The year 1687 marks the tragic death of La Salle. In 1684 his last
expedition had sailed from La Rochelle directly for the Mississippi,
carrying three priests at least, his brother, the Sulpician, Jean
Cavelier, and the Recollects, Zendbre Membre and Anastase Douay; twelve
gentlemen of France and also soldiers, artisans and labourers, in all
to the number of 144 persons, with a full supply of provisions and
implements. There were four vessels, Le Joly, a frigate of thirty-six
cannons; La Belle, six cannons; St. François, a transport; and
l'Aimable, a fluke of 300 tons. M. de Beaujean, sailing in Le Joly, was
commander of the squadron and La Salle led the land forces.
Disaster after disaster befell the expedition. M. de Beaujean passed
the mouth of the Mississippi without noticing it, it being reserved for
Le Moyne d'Iberville in 1699 to be the first white man to descend it by
the sea. One vessel ran aground, another was captured by the Spaniards,
with those that carried the greater part of the ammunition, implements
and provisions. Beaujean in consequence of serious disagreements with
La Salle returned to France with Le Joly and the luckless explorer
found himself reduced, by these losses and by sickness, to the number
of thirty-six despairing colonists. In this plight La Salle conceived
the plan of reaching Canada on foot. Sixteen of his party consented
to follow him, among them his brother Jean, his nephew Moranget,
the faithful Joutel, du Hault and his servant Larchevêque, Hiens of
Wurtembourg a buccaneer, Ruter Liotot or Lanquetot, the surgeon of the
expedition, Sager and Nika, and the faithful Recollect, Père Douay, who
accompanied La Salle to his last hour.
On March 17, 1687, two months after the departure from the Bay of
Matagorda, on the coast of Texas, which the expedition had reached at
the end of January, the surgeon, Liotot, slew with his axe Moranget,
Sager and Nika. He was but the cowardly executor of the order of a band
of assassins of the rest of the party, consisting of Hiens, Larchevêque
and their leader du Hault. Fearing the vengeance of La Salle, two days
later, the mutineers determined to make away with him, and on March
19th, between the rivers, San Jacinto and La Trinité, Robert René de
Cavelier, at the age of forty-three years and four months, fell a
victim to the musket of the treacherous du Hault.[136]
Joutel, who accompanied the expedition and whom Charlevoix met in Rouen
in 1713 and described as a very honest man and one of the few of his
troop that La Salle could count on, says of his friend in the "_Journal
historique du dernier voyage que feu M. de la Salle fit dans le Golfe
du Mexique, Paris, 1713_," written on the notes taken from 1684-1687:
"Thus unhappily ended the life of M. de la Salle, at the time when he
had all to hope for from his great labours. He had the intelligence
and talent to crown his enterprise with success--firmness, courage, a
great knowledge of sciences and arts, which rendered him capable of
anything, and an indefatigable perseverance which made him surmount
every obstacle. These fine qualities were balanced by too haughty
manners, which made him sometimes unsupportable, and by a harshness
towards those who were under him, which drew upon him their implacable
hatred and was the cause of his death." Ferland (Cours d'Histoire t.
II, p. 172) has a similar judgment. We have different writings on the
death of La Salle: first, the story of Father Douay, the eye witness of
the assassination; he gave the details to Joutel, who was not present
at the moment of the crime; second, "La Relation of the death of Sieur
de la Salle, following the report of one named Couture." This Couture
of Rouen, who had remained with Tonti, had learned the circumstances
of the assassination of La Salle from a Frenchman. This description
shows animosity to La Salle; third, the "Mémoire" of Henry Tonti. The
"Relation" of Abbé Cavelier stops before the death of his brother.
All the assassins perished miserably. Liotot and du Hault died at the
hands of Ruter, a Breton sailor. Hiens and Ruter were also slain by one
of their accomplices. (Parkman, Great West, p. 461.) Larchevêque was
discovered in Texas by the Spaniards and was sent to Mexico to work in
the mines as a galley slave. Père Douay, l'Abbé Cavelier, Joutel and
others finished by arriving at Arkansas and from there they went to
Fort St. Louis on the Illinois.
Thus ended the career of one of the most remarkable men of this
continent. The lights and shades of this man's story are fascinating
but we cannot pursue them. For Montrealers he is interesting in that
he, one of their predecessors, it was who discovered by land the Ohio
and the mouth of the Mississippi, and the vast district of Louisiana,
of which he had taken solemn possession on April 9, 1682, in the name
of Louis XIV. It remained for another Montrealer, Le Moyne d'Iberville,
to build a stockade fort at Biloxi in 1699 to hold the country for the
king, thus laying the first foundations of Louisiana in Mississippi,
which soon saw also the forts of Mobile Bay and Dauphin Island. The
first governors of Louisiana the brothers d'Iberville and de Bienville,
are also proudly remembered as of Montreal origin. It is foreign to
the scope of this history to settle the dispute as to how far La Salle
discovered the Mississippi.[137] But granting that Father Marquette and
Louis Joliet commenced the discovery in 1673, of the upper inland
reaches, its completion to the mouth by land must be conceded to La
Salle, its discovery from the sea having been made a century before by
de Soto.
In many ways La Salle differed very much from the type of men exploring
North America at this time. He had little of the traditional gayety
and insouciance of the leader of _coureurs de bois_; he did not seek,
primarily, wealth or glory; nor is his life marked with any of the
excesses of a scandalous time. This silent and uncommunicative man,
of a hardy and uncommon physiognomy, active in body and restless in
mind, with those powerful and tyrannical instincts, ever latent, which
push strong and energetic natures to the arduous search after the
unknown and the vague was one of those characters that feel the need
of fleeing from society to go out of themselves and to lose themselves
in movement and action. Repose is to them irksome and wearisome. Such
men are the victims of the perpetual tempests agitating them and it is
no wonder that sometimes they break forth impetuously into anger or
brutality against friend or foe alike. Such a one was La Salle; and the
above psychological explanation of his career, it seems, is the key of
understanding to this original personality.
FOOTNOTES:
[130] Kingsford, History of Canada, II, p. 3.
[131] See R. W. McLachlan, The Canadian Card Money, Montreal, 1911.
[132] To the student of morals and to social reformers, we draw
attention to a "mémoire" of the King on March 30, 1687, to Denonville
and Champigny, the new Intendant, in which His Majesty does not approve
of their proposition to send back to France the women of evil life;
that, he says, would not be a punishment great enough. "It would be
better to employ them by force on the public works, to draw water, saw
wood and serve the masons."
[133] The citadel was also built in 1685. The wooden fortifications
were demolished in 1722.
[134] Speaking of the Hurons of Michillimackinac, Denonville wrote to
the minister on June 12, 1686: "They like the manners of the French
but they like the cheap goods of the English better." In a letter to
Dongan in October he expostulated with him for furnishing the Indians
with rum: "Certainly," replied Dongan on December 1st, "our rum does
as little hurt as your brandy and in the opinion of Christians is much
more wholesome."
[135] Radisson was in Montreal as early as July, 1657, and frequently
afterwards started his wanderings from Montreal. Other early
references are found in documents of 1658, 1660 and 1661. Chouart des
Groseilliers, was here in 1658. In 1660 he entered into a partnership
with Charles Le Moyne. (Cf. See Massicotte "Les Colons de Montreal," p.
27.)
[136] On August 20, 1688, Père Douay related to the Marquis de
Seignelay the details of the unhappy expedition of the discoverer.
[137] According to a recent writer, Pierre d'Esprit Radisson, and
Médard Chouart, Sieur de Groseilliers, of Three Rivers, but both
well known at Montreal, whence they drew members of their party, had
in their wide wanderings traversed the Ottawa, the St. Lawrence,
the Great Lakes, Labrador, the return west of the Mississippi, the
great northwest and the overland route to Hudson's Bay, the west, the
northwest and the west. In 1659 it is stated Radisson and Groseilliers
discovered the upper Mississippi and the lands of the great northwest
ten years before Marquette Joliet, twenty years before La Salle, a
hundred years before La Vérendrye. Radisson's manuscripts being rescued
from oblivion in 1885 are alleged to prove their claims. The course
of the first exploration of Radisson seems to have circled over the
territory now known as Wisconsin, perhaps eastern Iowa and Nebraska,
South Dakotas, Montana and back over North Dakota and Minnesota to the
north shore of Lake Superior. This was the southwest. On his return he
passed by the scene of Dollard's exploit at the Long Sault. At Quebec
they were feted but when afterwards it had leaked out that they had
heard of the famous sea of the north and they had asked to continue
their explorations, the French governor refused except on condition of
receiving half the profits. On this the adventurers with two Indian
guides for the upper country, who chanced to be in Montreal and whom
they had taken to Three Rivers, stole out thence to the north country
and in 1662 discovered Hudson's Bay by the overland route with the aid
of friendly Crees. By the spring of 1663 they were back to the Lake
of the Woods region, accompanied by 700 Indians of the upper country.
Eventually they made their way to Quebec and were received with salvos
of canon. Their fortune of pelts was valued in modern money at $30,000,
of which the governor claimed for the revenue so much that but $20,000
worth was left. They then turned their allegiance elsewhere. The
stories of their various changes of allegiance to and fro, from the
French both in the New and Old France to the English, does not concern
us. This has blackened their name but does not gainsay their claims to
a share in the great discoveries mentioned. At the same time as they
never appear to have made a formal claim or took a formal "prise de
possession" for France, it is not to be wondered that historians will
continue to give the credit to the already accredited discoverers.
The five writers who according to the author we are noticing, have
attempted to redeem Radisson's memory from ignominy are: Dr. N. G.
Dionne, of the Parliament Library of Quebec; Mr. Justice Prud'homme,
of St. Boniface, Manitoba; Dr. George Bryce, of Winnipeg; Mr. Benjamin
Sulte, of Ottawa, and Judge J. Z. Brower, of St. Paul. (Vide the
"Pathfinders of the West," Toronto, 1904, by A. C. Laut.)