Now came the climax of the harangue, introduced by a farther present of six guns.
"He who is my master, and the master of all this country, is a mighty chief, feared by the whole world; but he loves peace, and the words of his lips are for good alone. He is called the King of France, and he is the mightiest among the chiefs beyond the great water. His goodness reaches even to your dead, and his subjects come among you to raise them up to life. But it is his will to preserve the life he has given: it is his will that you should obey his laws, and make no war without the leave of Onontio, who commands in his name at Quebec, and who loves all the nations alike, because such is the will of the Great King. You ought, then, to live at peace with your neighbors, and above all with the Illinois. You have had causes of quarrel with them; but their defeat has avenged you. Though they are still strong, they wish to make peace with you. Be content with the glory of having obliged them to ask for it. You have an interest in preserving them; since, if the Iroquois destroy them, they will next destroy you. Let us all obey the Great King, and live together in peace, under his protection. Be of my mind, and use these guns that I have given you, not to make war, but only to hunt and to defend yourselves." [Footnote: Translated from the Relation, where these councils are reported at great length.]
So saying, he gave two belts of wampum to confirm his words; and the assembly dissolved. On the following day, the chiefs again convoked it, and made their reply in form. It was all that La Salle could have wished. "The Illinois is our brother, because he is the son of our Father, the Great King." "We make you the master of our beaver and our lands, of our minds and our bodies." "We cannot wonder that our brothers from the East wish to live with you. We should have wished so too, if we had known what a blessing it is to be the children of the Great King." The rest of this auspicious day was passed in feasts and dances, in which La Salle and his Frenchmen all bore part. His new scheme was hopefully begun; the ground was broken, and the seed sown. It remained to achieve the enterprise, twice defeated, of the discovery of the mouth of the Mississippi, that vital condition of his triumph, without which all other successes were meaningless and vain.
To this end he must return to Canada, appease his creditors, and collect his scattered resources. Towards the end of May, he set out in canoes from Fort Miami, and reached Michillimackinac after a prosperous voyage. Here, to his great joy, he found Tonty and Zenobe Membré, who had lately arrived from Green Bay. The meeting was one at which even his stoic nature must have melted. Each had for the other a tale of disaster; but, when La Salle recounted the long succession of his reverses, it was with the tranquil tone and cheerful look of one who relates the incidents of an ordinary journey. Membré looked on him with admiration. "Any one else," he says, "would have thrown up his hand, and abandoned the enterprise; but, far from this, with a firmness and constancy that never had its equal, I saw him more resolved than ever to continue his work and push forward his discovery." [Footnote: Membré, in Le Clercq, ii. 208. Tonty, in his unpublished memoir, speaks of the joy of La Salle at the meeting. The Relation, usually very accurate, says erroneously, that Tonty had gone to Fort Frontenac. La Forest had gone thither not long before La Salle's arrival.]
Without loss of time, they embarked together for Fort Frontenac, paddled their canoes a thousand miles, and safely reached their destination. Here, in this third beginning of his disastrous enterprise, La Salle found himself beset with embarrassments. Not only was he burdened with the fruitless costs of his two former efforts, but the heavy debts which he had incurred in building and maintaining Fort Frontenac had not been wholly paid. The fort and the seigniory were already deeply mortgaged; yet, through the influence of Count Frontenac, the assistance of his secretary, Barrois, a consummate man of business, and the support of a wealthy relative, he found means to appease his creditors and even to gain fresh advances. To this end, however, he was forced to part with a portion of his monopolies. Having first made his will at Montreal, in favor of a cousin who had befriended him, [Footnote: Copie du testament du deffunt Sr. de la Salle, 11 Août, 1681, MS. The relative was François Plet, M.D., of Paris.] he mustered his men, and once more set forth, resolved to trust no more to agents, but to lead on his followers, in a united body, under his own personal command. [Footnote: "On apprendra à la fin de cette année, 1682, le suceès de la découverte qu'il étoit résolu d'achever, au plus tard le printemps dernier, ou de périr en y travaillant. Tant de traverses et de malheurs toujours arrivés en son absence l'ont fait résoudre à ne se fier plus à personne et à conduire lui-même tout son monde, tout son équipage, et toute son entreprise, de laquelle il espéroit une heureuse conclusion."
The above is a part of the closing paragraph of the Relation des Déscouvertes, so often cited, and of the excellent guidance of which we are henceforth deprived. It is a compilation made up from material supplied by the various members of La Salle's party, on their return to Canada, in 1681; and the greater portion is substantially the work of La Salle himself. It is a document of great interest and undoubted authority.]
The summer was spent when he reached Lake Huron. Day after day, and week after week, the heavy-laden canoes crept on along the lonely wilderness shores, by the monotonous ranks of bristling moss-bearded firs; lake and forest, forest and lake; a dreary scene haunted with yet more dreary memories,—disasters, sorrows, and deferred hopes; time, strength, and wealth spent in vain; a ruinous past and a doubtful future; slander, obloquy, and hate. With unmoved heart, the patient voyager held his course, and drew up his canoes at last on the beach at Fort Miami.
CHAPTER XXI. 1681-1682. SUCCESS OF LA SALLE.
HIS FOLLOWERS.—THE CHICAGO PORTAGE.—DESCENT OP THE MISSISSIPPI. —THE LOST HUNTER.—THE ARKANSAS.—THE TAENSAS.—THE NATCHEZ. —HOSTILITY.—THE MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI.—LOUIS XIV. PROCLAIMED SOVEREIGN OF THE GREAT WEST.
The season was far advanced. On the bare limbs of the forest hung a few withered remnants of its gay autumnal livery; and the smoke crept upward through the sullen November air from the squalid wigwams of La Salle's Abenaki and Mohegan allies. These, his new friends, were savages, whose midnight yells had startled the border hamlets of New England; who had danced around Puritan scalps, and whom Puritan imaginations painted as incarnate fiends. La Salle chose eighteen of them, "all well inured to war," as his companion Membré writes, and added them to the twenty-three Frenchmen who composed his party. They insisted on taking their women with them, to cook for them, and do other camp work. These were ten in number, besides three children; and thus the expedition included fifty-four persons, of whom some were useless, and others a burden.