La Salle was in France during 1677, where he received letters-patent concerning forts to be built south and west, in which direction "it would seem a passage to Mexico can be discovered," while Father Hennepin, soon to be the great discoverer's companion and mouthpiece, was among the Senecas near the Niagara frontier gaining a useful fund of information for the grand campaign of empire founding that La Salle had planned with Fort Frontenac as his base of supplies.
Chapter VIII
[From La Salle to De Nonville]
Receiving authority to explore the Mississippi to its mouth, as well as a grant made in 1675 of Fort Frontenac and surrounding lands as a seigniory, La Salle returned from France in 1678, and began the wonderful career that will hand his name down through countless years as the greatest explorer in the annals of America. He allied with him Tonty and Father Hennepin, the latter already known, as we have seen, along the Niagara frontier.
La Salle at once advanced to Fort Frontenac, which was to be his point of rendezvous and eastern base of supplies. His first act was to fortify this point strongly as though already foreseeing the recall of the sturdy Frontenac and the consequential uprising of the slumbering Iroquois.
The plan of Fort Frontenac published by Faillon shows that Frontenac's hasty palisades were replaced by La Salle with hewed stone on at least two landward sides, and within were to be found a barrack, bakery, and mill; by 1780 fourteen families replaced the four lone habitans left at the fort in 1677; his improvements had cost La Salle thirty-five thousand francs. In Parkman's graphic words we see La Salle reigning
the autocrat of his lonely little empire, as feudal lord of the forests around him, commander of a garrison raised and paid by himself, founder of the mission, patron of the church. But he had no thought of resting here. He had gained what he sought, a fulcrum for bolder and broader action. His plans were ripened and his time was come. He was no longer a needy adventurer, disinherited of all but his fertile brain and his intrepid heart. He had won place, influence, credit, and potent friends. Now, at length, he might hope to find the long-sought path to China and Japan, and secure for France those boundless regions of the west.[20]
La Salle now pushed his impetuous campaign, showing as much foresight as daring in this conception. To hold the golden West in fee three important projects at once demanded attention: fitting out two ships, one for Lake Ontario and one for the upper Niagara River and the lakes from which its waters came, and the acquiring at some proper rendezvous of the first invoice of furs. A brigantine of ten tons was building simultaneously with Fort Frontenac, and in the fall of the year (1678) was ready for its cargo of material for a sister-ship to be built above the great falls. A party in canoes, carrying some six thousand francs' worth of goods, had gone forward to the further lakes to engage and secure from the Indian tribes provisions for the expedition and a consignment of furs for the homeward voyage.