In 1841 the Tories again came into power under the leadership of Sir Robert Peel. In the Ministry then formed, Lord Stanley, afterwards Earl of Derby (father of the present Earl), held the post of Colonial Secretary. Upon Lord Sydenham's death, in that year, it became necessary to appoint a new Governor-General of British North America. Lord Stanley offered the post to Sir Charles Bagot, who accepted it, and soon afterwards sailed for this country, where public affairs, since Lord Sydenham's death in the preceding month of September, had been under the direction of Sir Richard Jackson, Commander-in-Chief of the Forces. Sir Charles entered upon his official duties on the 10th of January, 1842, and it soon became apparent that he intended to carry out the judicious line of policy inaugurated by his predecessor, Lord Sydenham. He held himself aloof from purely party questions, and formed no definite alliance with either Reformers or Conservatives. This was a grievous disappointment to the latter. His past political career had led the Tory leaders in Canada to suppose that he would espouse their views, and that by his aid their ascendancy would be reëstablished. These expectations were not destined to be realized. Sir Charles spent his time in familiarizing himself with the position and needs of the country at large. In some respects he showed himself to be more liberal than his predecessor, Lord Sydenham, had been. Lord Sydenham had been indisposed to have anything to do with those persons who had abetted the rebellion. Sir Charles, knowing that Responsible Government had been conceded, resolved to govern himself accordingly. Though himself a Tory by predilection and by training, he knew that he had not been sent out to Canada to gratify his own political leanings, but to govern in accordance with the popular will. "He determined," says Mr. Macmullen, "to use whatever party he found capable of supporting a Ministry, and accordingly made overtures to the French Canadians and that section of the Reform Party of Upper Canada led by Mr. Baldwin, who then formed the Opposition in the Assembly. There can be no question that this was the wisest line of policy he could adopt, and that it tended to remove the differences between the two races, and unite them more cordially for the common weal. The French Canadian element was no longer in the ascendant—the English language had decidedly assumed the aggressive, and true wisdom consisted in forgetting the past, and opening the door of preferment to men of talent of French as well as to those of British origin. The necessity of this line of policy was interwoven with the Union Act; and, after that, was the first great step towards the amalgamation of the races. A different policy would have nullified the principle of Responsible Government, and must have proved suicidal to any Ministry seeking to carry it out. Sir Charles Bagot went on the broad principle that the constitutional majority had the right to rule under the Constitution." Finding that the Ministry then in being did not possess the public confidence, he called to his councils Robert Baldwin, Francis Hincks, Lafontaine, Morin, and Aylwin. Upon the opening of the Legislature, in the following September, he made a speech which showed that he understood the situation and requirements of the country, and was sincerely desirous of promoting its welfare. The session, which was a brief one, passed without any specially noteworthy incidents. Soon after the prorogation, which took place on the 8th of October, Sir Charles began to feel the effects of approaching winter in a rigorous climate. His physicians advised him, as he valued his life, to free himself from the cares of office, and betake himself to a milder clime. He sent in his resignation, and prepared to return to England, but the state of his health soon became so serious that he was unfit to endure an ocean voyage in the middle of winter. He was destined never to see his native land again. He lingered until the 19th of May, 1843, when he sank quietly to rest, at Kingston, in the sixty-second year of his age.
LA SALLE.
The publication last year of a revised edition of Mr. Parkman's "Discovery of the Great West" has made the compilation of a sketch of La Salle's life a very easy task. Mr. Parkman has told about everything that is worth telling—indeed, every important fact that is known—with reference to the great explorer; and for the future, any brief account of his life must necessarily be little more than a condensation of Mr. Parkman's book. "It is the glory and the misfortune of France," says M. Guizot, "to always lead the van in the march of civilization, without having the wit to profit by the discoveries and the sagacious boldness of her children. On the unknown roads which she has opened to human enterprise she has too often left the fruits to be gathered by nations less inventive, but more persevering." The life of the ardent explorer whose achievements form the subject of this sketch affords an apt commentary on the text of the eminent French historian above quoted. Long prior to the date of La Salle's discoveries, Samuel de Champlain had dreamed of and fruitlessly sought for a continuous water passage across the American continent, and hoped to thereby establish a profitable commerce with the Indies, China, and Japan. La Salle, following in Champlain's footsteps, and dreaming the same wild dreams, spent a great part of his life in attempting to do what his great predecessor had failed in accomplishing. His discoveries, however, extended over a much broader field. La Salle may practically be said to have discovered the Great West. He crossed the Mississippi, which the Jesuits had been the first to reach, and pushed on to the far south, constructing forts in the midst of the most savage districts, and taking possession of Louisiana in the name of King Louis XIV. Abandoned by many of his comrades, and losing the most faithful of them by death; attacked by savages, betrayed by his own hirelings, thwarted in his projects by his enemies and his rivals, he at last met an inglorious death by assassination, just as he was about to make his way back to New France. He left the field open after him to the innumerable explorers of every nation and every language who have since left their mark on those measureless tracts. If but little benefit accrued to France from his discoveries, the fault was not his. He has left an imperishable record on the page of American history, and as a discoverer his name occupies a place in early Canadian annals second only—if second—to that of Champlain himself.
Réné-Robert Cavelier, better known by his territorial patronymic of La Salle, was born at Rouen, in Normandy, some time in the year 1643. The exact date of his birth is unknown, but his baptism took place on the 22nd of November of that year, at which time it is probable that he was only a few days old. His family had long been wealthy burghers of Rouen, and there were no obstacles in the way of his receiving a liberal education. He early displayed an aptitude for science and mathematics, and, while still young, entered a Jesuit Seminary in his native town. By this act, which constituted the first step towards taking holy orders, he forfeited the inheritance which would otherwise have descended to him—a forfeiture which does not seem at any time to have weighed very heavily on his mind. He seems to have occupied for a short time the position of a teacher in the Seminary. After profiting for several years by the discipline taught in the establishment he requested and obtained his discharge, obtaining high praise from the directors of the Seminary for the diligence of his studies and the purity of his life. "The cravings of a deep ambition," says Mr. Parkman, "the hunger of an insatiable intellect, the intense longing for active achievement, subdued in him all other passions; and among his faults the love of pleasure had no part." His father had died a short time before La Salle quitted the Seminary, and he would then have at once succeeded to a large patrimony but for his connection with the Jesuits. A small sum—amounting to several hundred livres—was handed over to him, and in the spring of 1666 the young adventurer embarked for fame and fortune in New France, towards which the attention of all western Europe was at that time directed. He had already an elder brother in this country—the Abbé Jean Cavelier, a Sulpician priest at Montreal. The Sulpicians had established themselves there a few years before this time, and had already become proprietors and feudal lords of the city and island. They were granting out their lands to settlers on very easy terms, and La Salle obtained a grant of a large tract of land a short distance above the turbulent current now known as the Lachine Rapids. Here he became a feudal proprietor and fur trader on his own account. Such a pursuit, however, was far from satisfying the cravings of his ambition. Like Champlain and all the early explorers, he dreamed of a passage to the South Sea, and a new road for commerce to the riches of China and Japan. Indians often came to his secluded settlement; and on one occasion he was visited by a band of Seneca Iroquois, some of whom spent the winter with him, and told him of a river called the Ohio, rising in their country and flowing into the sea, but at such a distance that its mouth could only be reached after a journey of eight or nine months. Evidently the Ohio and the Mississippi are here merged into one. In accordance with geographical views then prevalent, La Salle conceived that this great river must needs flow into the "Vermilion Sea;" that is, the Gulf of California. If so, it would give him what he sought—a western passage to China, while, in any case, the populous Indian tribes said to inhabit its banks might be made a source of great commercial profit. His imagination took fire. His resolution was soon formed; and he descended the St. Lawrence to Quebec, to gain the countenance of the Governor for his intended exploration. Few men were more skilled than he in the art of clear and plausible statement. Both the Governor (Courcelle), and the Intendant (Talon) were readily won over to his plan; for which, however, they seem to have given him no more substantial aid than that of the Governor's letters patent authorizing the enterprise. The cost was to be his own; and he had no money, having spent it all on his seigniory. He therefore proposed that the Seminary, which had given it to him, should buy it back again, with such improvements as he had made. Queylus, the Superior, being favourably disposed towards him, consented, and bought of him the greater part; while La Salle sold the remainder, including the clearings, to one Milot, an ironmonger, for twenty-eight hundred livres. With this he bought four canoes, with the necessary supplies, and hired fourteen men. This being accomplished, he started on his expedition, in the course of which he explored the southern shore of Lake Ontario, and visited the Senecas in Western New York. Continuing his journey, he passed the mouth of the Niagara River, where he heard the roar of the mighty cataract, and passed on to an Indian encampment near the present site of Hamilton. After much delay he reached a branch of the Ohio, and descended at least as far as the rapids at Louisville, where he was abandoned by his attendants, and was compelled to return, his problem being yet unsolved.
But the time was not far distant when he was to make a much more extended voyage than he had hitherto accomplished, and with somewhat more important results. In 1672 Count Frontenac came over to Canada and succeeded Courcelle as Governor of the colony. A friendship sprang up between him and La Salle, and they began to form schemes of western enterprise. Erelong we find the latter paying a flying visit to France, and receiving from the King, mainly through his patron's influence, a patent of nobility and a grant of Fort Frontenac—which had just before been founded by the new Governor with imposing ceremonies—together with a large tract of the contiguous territory. Then La Salle's serious troubles may be said to have begun. His grant involved the exclusive right of fur-traffic with the Indians on Lake Ontario, and though trade was a secondary object with him, he nevertheless engaged in it as a means of furthering his more ambitious schemes of exploration. The merchants of Canada, envious of his influence and success, leagued themselves against him, and resolved to accomplish his downfall. The Jesuits also placed themselves in opposition to him, for his avowed projects conflicted with theirs. La Salle aimed at the control of the valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi, and the usufruct of half a continent. The Jesuits were no longer supreme in Canada. In other words, Canada was no longer simply a mission. It had become a colony. Temporal interests and the civil power were constantly gaining ground. Therefore the Jesuits looked with redoubled solicitude to their missions in the West. They dreaded fur-traders, partly because they interfered with their teachings and perverted their converts, and partly for other reasons. La Salle was a fur-trader, and moreover aimed at occupation and settlement. In short, he was a stumbling block in their path, and they leagued themselves against him. Many of them engaged in underhand dealings with the Indians, and while they refused absolution to all Europeans who sold brandy to the natives, they turned a good many dishonest pennies by selling it themselves. They laid all kinds of traps for La Salle, and did not escape the suspicion of attempting to poison him. It is certain that an attempt to destroy him in this fashion was made, though he himself exonerates the Jesuits from participation in the attempt. In the autumn of 1677 he again sailed for France, and while there procured Royal letters patent authorizing him to prosecute his schemes of western discovery, to erect forts at such places as he might deem expedient, and to enjoy the exclusive right of traffic in buffalo skins. With Henri de Tonty, an Italian officer, as his lieutenant, he soon afterwards returned to Fort Frontenac, whence, in the autumn of 1678, he set out for the Great West.
The historian of this expedition was a mendacious Recollet friar, Father Louis Hennepin, a name which has attained some notoriety in early Canadian annals. Father Hennepin had come out to Canada three years before the date at which we have arrived. Upon landing at Quebec he was at once sent up to Fort Frontenac, as a missionary. He found that wild spot in the western wilderness very much to his liking. He had not been there long before he erected a gigantic cross, and superintended the building of a chapel for himself and his colleague, Father Luke Buisset. He seems to have discharged his duties with a reasonable amount of zeal. He for some time gave himself up to instructing and endeavouring to convert the Indians of the neighbourhood. Later on he visited other Indian settlements, and made a noteworthy journey into the interior of what is now the State of New York, where he preached the Gospel to various tribes of the Five Nations, with indifferent success.
Upon receiving intelligence of La Salle's projected western journey, in 1678, Father Hennepin felt and expressed great eagerness to accompany the expedition. Permission to do so having been obtained from his Provincial, as well as from La Salle, he set out in advance of the latter from Fort Frontenac, early in November, accompanied by the Sieur De La Motte and a crew of sixteen sailors, embarked in a brigantine of ten tons. They skirted the northern shore of Lake Ontario, and in due time arrived at the Indian village of Taiaiagon, situated at the mouth of a river near the present city of Toronto. The river was probably the Humber, and the village was doubtless a collection of wigwams which have left no trace behind them. From this point the explorers crossed the lake to the mouth of the Niagara River, which they entered on the morning of the 6th of December. They landed on the eastern side of the stream, where the old fort of Niagara now stands. The site was then occupied by a small village inhabited by Seneca Indians, many of whom probably then beheld for the first time those wondrous pale-faces, the fame of whose exploits had preceded them into the wilderness. As the vessel rounded the opposite point the entire crew burst forth into sacred song, and chanted "Te Deum Laudamus" until the anchor was cast into the river. Later in the day they ascended several miles farther up the stream, until they reached the present site of Lewiston, where they built a rude dwelling of palisades. After remaining for some time, waiting for La Salle to join them, they set off on an expedition into the interior of New York, to pay a visit to a village of the Senecas.