Canada, Sir John George Bourinot [best time to read books .TXT] 📗

were subsequently captured not far from Cataraqui, and severely punished.

In the meantime, three Frenchmen, Father Hennepin, Michel Accaut, and one Du Gay, in obedience to La Salle's orders, had ventured to the upper waters of the Mississippi, and were made prisoners by a wandering tribe of Sioux. Not far from the falls of St. Anthony Father Hennepin met with the famous forest ranger, Duluth, who was better acquainted with the Sioux country than any other living Frenchman, and was forming ambitious designs to explore the whole western region beyond Lake Superior. Father Hennepin, who had been adopted by an aged Sioux chief, was free to follow Duluth back to the French post at the Straits of Mackinac. This adventure of Father Hennepin is famous in history, not on account of any discoveries he actually made, but on account of the claim he attempted to establish some years after his journey, of having followed the Mississippi to the Gulf. In the first edition of his book, printed in 1683--_Description de la Louisiane_--no such claim was ever suggested, and it was only in 1697 that the same work appeared in an enlarged form,--_La Nouvelle Decouverte_--crediting Hennepin with having descended the great river to its outlet. It is not necessary here to puncture a falsehood which was long ago exposed by historical writers. His history of having reached the Gulf of Mexico is as visionary as the traveller's tales of Norumbega. Indeed, he could not even claim a gift of fertile invention in this case, as the very account of his alleged discovery was obviously plagiarised from Father Membre's narrative of La Salle's voyage of 1682, which appears in Le Clercq's _Premier Etablissement de la Foy_.

When La Salle was again able to venture into the west he found the villages of the Illinois only blackened heaps of ruins--sure evidence of the Iroquois having been on the warpath. During the winter of 1681 he remained at a post he had built on the banks of the St. Joseph in the Miami country, and heard no news of his faithful Tonty. It was not until the spring, whilst on his way to Canada for men and supplies, that he discovered his friend at Mackinac, after having passed through some critical experiences among the Iroquois, who, in conjunction with the Miamis, had destroyed the villages of the Illinois, and killed a number of those Indians with their customary ferocity. Tonty had finally found rest and security in a village of the Pottawattomies at the head of Green Bay.

On the 6th of February, 1682, La Salle passed down the swift current of the Mississippi on that memorable voyage which led him to the Gulf of Mexico. He was accompanied by Tonty, and Father Membre, one of the Recollet order, whom he always preferred to the Jesuits. The Indians of the expedition were Abenakis and Mohegans, who had left the far-off Atlantic coast and Acadian rivers, and wandered into the great west after the unsuccessful war in New England, which was waged by the Sachem Metacomet, better known as King Philip, and only ended with his death in 1676, and the destruction of many settlements in the colony of Plymouth.

They met with a kindly reception from the Indians encamped by the side of the river, and, for the first time, saw the villages of the Taensas and {189} Natchez, who were worshippers of the sun. At last on the 6th of April, La Salle, Tonty, and Dautray, went separately in canoes through the three channels of the Mississippi, and emerged on the bosom of the great Gulf. Not far from the mouth of the river where the ground was relatively high and dry, a column was raised with the inscription:


"_Louis le Grand, roy de France et de Navarre,
regne; le neuviesme Avril, 1682._"


And La Salle took possession of the country with just such ceremonies as had distinguished a similar proceeding at Sault Ste. Marie eleven years before. It can be said that Frenchmen had at least fairly laid a basis for future empire from the Lakes to the Gulf. It was for France to show her appreciation of the enterprise of her sons and make good her claim to such a vast imperial domain. The future was to show that she was unequal to the task.

The few remaining years of La Salle's life were crowded with misfortunes. Duchesneau, the intendant, who had succeeded Talon, was an enemy of both Frontenac and the explorer. The distinguished governor was recalled by his royal master, who was tired of the constant complaints of his enemies against him, and misled by their accusations. La Barre, the incompetent governor who followed Frontenac, took possession of Fort St. Louis, which La Salle had succeeded, after his return from the Gulf of Mexico, in erecting at Starved Rock on the banks of the Illinois not far from the present city of Ottawa, where a large number of Indians had {190} returned to their favourite home. In France, however, the importance of his discovery was fully recognised, and when he visited his native country in 1683-4 he met with a very cordial reception from the King, and Seignelay, who had succeeded his father, Colbert, when he resigned. The King ordered that La Salle's forts be restored to him, and gave him a commission to found colonies in Louisiana, as the new country through which the Mississippi flowed had been called since 1682. By a strange irony of Fate, the expedition of 1684 passed the mouth of the Mississippi, and La Salle made the first French settlement on the Gulf somewhere in the vicinity of Matagorda Bay, in the present State of Texas. Misery was the lot of the little colony from the very first moment it landed on that lonely shore. When his misfortunes were most grievous, La Salle decided to make an effort to reach the Illinois country, but he was assassinated by two of his own men---Duhaut and Liotot--near a branch of the Trinity River. His nephew Moranget, Nika, a faithful Shawnee who had been by his side for years, and Sayet, his own servant, suffered the same fate. The leader of the murderers was killed soon afterwards by one of his accomplices, and the others found a refuge among the Indians; but of their subsequent fate we know nothing positively, except that they were never brought to justice, if any one of them returned to Canada or France. The few Frenchmen remaining in Texas were either killed or captured by unfriendly Indians, before the Spaniards could reach the place to expel these intruders on their domain. La Salle {191} himself never found a burial place, for his body was left to wolves and birds of prey. His name has not been perpetuated in Louisiana, though it has been given to a county of Texas as well as to a city and county of Illinois, which was originally included in French Louisiana. The most noteworthy tribute to his memory has been paid by the historian Parkman, who has elevated him almost to the dignity of a hero. La Salle's indomitable energy, his remarkable courage in the face of disaster, his inflexibility of purpose under the most adverse circumstances, must be always fully recognised, but at the same time one may think that more tact and skill in managing men, more readiness to bend and conciliate, might have spared him much bitterness and trouble, and even saved his life at the end. That he did good service for France all will admit, though his achievement in reaching the Mississippi was rendered relatively easy after the preliminary expedition of Jolliet and Marquette.



[1] Mr. W. Wilfrid Campbell, F.R.S.C., a well-known English-Canadian poet, has translated for "The Story of Canada" these verses of his French contemporary Frechette.



XIV.


CANADA AND ACADIA: FROM FRONTENAC TO THE TREATY OF UTRECHT.

(1672-1713.)

In the previous chapter I have shown the important part that the Count de Frontenac took in stimulating the enterprise of La Salle and other explorers, and it now remains for me to review those other features of the administration of that great governor, which more or less influenced the fortunes of the province committed to his charge.

A brave and bold soldier, a man of infinite resources in times of difficulty, as bold to conceive as he was quick to carry out a design, dignified and fascinating in his manner when it pleased him, arrogant and obstinate when others thwarted him, having a keen appreciation of the Indian character, selfish where his personal gain was concerned, and yet never losing sight of the substantial interests of France in America, the Count de Frontenac was able, for nineteen years, to administer the affairs of New France with remarkable ability, despite his {194} personal weaknesses, to stimulate and concentrate her energies and resources, and to make her when he died a power in America far beyond what her population or actual strength seemed to justify. The Iroquois learned at last to tremble at his name, and the Indian allies of Canada, from the Abenakis of Acadia to the Illinois of the West, could trust in his desire and ability to assist them against their ferocious enemy. As is the case with all great men, his faults and virtues have been equally exaggerated. The Recollets, whom he always favoured, could never speak too well of him, whilst the Jesuits, whom he distrusted, did all they could to tarnish his reputation.

It is not profitable or necessary in this story of Canada to dwell on the details of Frontenac's administration of public affairs during the first years of his regime (1672-1682), which were chiefly noted for the display of his faults of character--especially his obstinacy and impatience of all opposition. He was constantly at conflict with the bishop, who was always asserting the supremacy of his Church, with the intendant Duchesneau, who was simply a spy on his actions, with the Jesuits, whom he disliked and accused of even being interested in the sale of brandy, and with traders like Governor Perrot of Montreal who eventually found himself in the Bastile for a few days for having defied the edict of the King against the _coureurs de bois_ who were under his influence and helped him in the fur trade.

The complaints against Frontenac from influential people in Canada at last became so numerous that {195} he was recalled to France in 1682. His successor, La Barre, proved himself thoroughly incapable. The interests of the province were seriously threatened at that time by the intention of the Iroquois to destroy the Illinois and divert the western traffic to the Dutch and English, whose carriers they wished to become. La Barre was well aware how much depended on the protection of the Illinois and the fidelity of the Indians on the lakes. La Hontan, a talkative but not always veracious writer, who was in Canada at this time, gives us an insight into the weakness of the governor, whose efforts to awe the Iroquois ended in an abortive expedition which was attacked by disease and did not get beyond La Famine, now Salmon River, in the Iroquois country. The famous "La Grande Gueule," or Big Mouth,--so called on account of his eloquence,--made a mockery of the French efforts to deceive him by a pretence of strength, and openly declared the intention of the Iroquois to destroy the Illinois, while La Barre dared not utter a defiant word in behalf of his allies. This incapable governor was