"His joy," says Joutel, "was short." Beaujeu's lieutenant, Aire, came on board to charge him with having caused the separation, and La Salle retorted by throwing the blame on Beaujeu. Then came a debate as to their position. The priest Esmanville was present, and reports that La Salle seemed greatly perplexed. He had more cause for perplexity than he knew; for in his ignorance of the longitude of the Mississippi, he had sailed more than four hundred miles beyond it.
Of this he had not the faintest suspicion. In full sight from his ship lay a reach of those vast lagoons which, separated from the sea by narrow strips of land, line this coast with little interruption from Galveston Bay to the Rio Grande. The idea took possession of him that the Mississippi discharged itself into these lagoons, and thence made its way to the sea through the various openings he had seen along the coast, chief among which was that he had discovered on the sixth, about fifty leagues from the place where he now was.[290]
PERPLEXITY OF LA SALLE.
Yet he was full of doubt as to what he should do. Four days after rejoining Beaujeu, he wrote him the strange request to land the troops, that he "might fulfil his commission;" that is, that he might set out against the Spaniards.[291] More than a week passed, a gale had set in, and nothing was done. Then La Salle wrote again, intimating some doubt as to whether he was really at one of the mouths of the Mississippi, and saying that, being sure that he had passed the principal mouth, he was determined to go back to look for it.[292] Meanwhile, Beaujeu was in a state of great irritation. The weather was stormy, and the coast was dangerous. Supplies were scanty; and La Salle's soldiers, still crowded in the "Joly," were consuming the provisions of the ship. Beaujeu gave vent to his annoyance, and La Salle retorted in the same strain.
According to Joutel, he urged the naval commander to sail back in search of the river; and Beaujeu refused, unless La Salle should give the soldiers provisions. La Salle, he adds, offered to supply them with rations for fifteen days; and Beaujeu declared this insufficient. There is reason, however, to believe that the request was neither made by the one nor refused by the other so positively as here appears.
FOOTNOTES:
[ [278] Lettre (sans nom d'auteur) écrite de St. Domingue, 14 Nov., 1684 (Margry, ii. 492); Mémoire autographe de l'Abbé Jean Cavelier sur le Voyage de 1684. Compare Joutel.
[ [279] Mémoire de MM. de Saint-Laurens et Bégon (Margry, ii. 499); Joutel, Journal Historique, 28.
[ [280] Relation de Henri Joutel (Margry, iii. 98).
[ [281] Lettre (sans nom d'auteur), 14 Nov., 1684 (Margry, ii. 496).