None the less am I ruined. My returns for this year were only half collected, and a thousand subsequent difficulties make the disaster complete; with credit gone in relation both to my father and to myself, I am in debt for over twenty thousand francs; I remain without funds and without patrimony. Moreover, I am a simple ensign of the second grade; my elder brother has only the same rank as myself, while my younger brother is only a junior cadet.
Such is the net result of all that my father, my brothers, and I have done. The one who was murdered some years ago was not the most unfortunate of us. His blood does not count in our behalf. Unless Monsieur de Saint-Pierre becomes imbued with better sentiments and communicates them to the Marquis de la Jonquière, all my father's toils and ours fail to serve us, and we must abandon what has cost us so much. We certainly should not have been and should not be useless to Monsieur de Saint-Pierre. I explained to him fully how I believed I could serve him; clever as he may be, and inspired with the best intentions, I venture to say that by keeping us away he is in danger of making many mistakes and of getting often on the wrong track. It is something gained to have gone astray, but to have found out your error; we think that now we should be sure of the right road to reach the goal, whatever it may be. It is our greatest cause of distress to find ourselves thus snatched away from a sphere of action in which we were proposing to use every effort to reach a definite result.
Deign therefore, Monseigneur, to judge the cause of three orphans. Our misfortune is great, but is it without remedy? There are in the hands of your Lordship resources of compensation and of consolation, and I venture to hope for some benefit from them. To find ourselves thus excluded from the West would be to find ourselves robbed in the most cruel manner of our heritage. We should have had all that was bitter and others all that was sweet.
This eloquent appeal of François fell upon unheeding ears; the appointment of his rival was confirmed. The only grace he could obtain was leave to take to the West a small portion of the supplies for which he and his brothers had already paid, and to return with the furs his men had collected and brought down to Michilimackinac. Thus ended, sadly enough, the devoted efforts of this remarkable family of explorers to complete the long search for a route overland to the Pacific ocean. The brothers La Vérendrye, ruined in purse and denied opportunity, fell into obscurity and were forgotten.
It remains only to tell briefly of the attempts of Saint-Pierre and his men to carry out the same great project. In obedience to the governor's instructions, Saint-Pierre left Montreal in the spring of 1750. He paddled up the Ottawa, and then through Lake Nipissing, and down the French river to Georgian Bay. He crossed Lake Huron to Michilimackinac, where he remained for a short time to give his men a rest. Then he pushed on to Grand Portage, where he spent some time in talking to the Indians. In spite of his ungenerous treatment of the sons of La Vérendrye, Saint-Pierre was a brave and capable soldier; but he knew very little of the hardships of western exploration, or of the patience needed in dealing with Indians. He grumbled bitterly about the difficulties and hardships of the portages, which La Vérendrye had taken as a matter of course; and, instead of treating the Indians with patience and forbearance, he lost no opportunity to harangue and scold them. We need not wonder, therefore, that the natives, who had looked up to La Vérendrye as a superior being, soon learned to dislike the overbearing Saint-Pierre, and would do nothing to help him in his attempts at exploration.
Saint-Pierre visited Fort St Charles; he spent the winter at Fort Maurepas; in the spring of 1751 he went on to Fort La Reine. Meanwhile he had sent Niverville, a young officer of his party, to the Saskatchewan river, with instructions to push his discoveries westward beyond the farthest point reached by La Vérendrye. Winter had set in before Niverville set out on his long journey, and he travelled over the snow and ice with snowshoes, dragging his provisions on toboggans. He knew nothing of the Indian method of harnessing dogs to their toboggans, and he and his men dragged the toboggans themselves. He travelled slowly across Lake Winnipeg, over rough ice and through deep snowdrifts, with no protection from the bitter winds. So great were the hardships that, in the end, he was compelled to abandon some of the heavier supplies and provisions. Before he and his men reached Fort Paskoyac they were at the point of starvation. During the last few days they had nothing to eat but a few small fish caught through holes in the ice.
Niverville was taken seriously ill, and had to remain at Fort Paskoyac, while some of his men in the spring of 1751 ascended the Saskatchewan in canoes. These men, we are told, paddled up the river to the foot of the Rocky Mountains, where they built a fort, named Fort La Jonquière, in honour of the governor. Later in the year Niverville followed his men up the river. At Fort La Jonquière he met a party of Western Indians, who told him that in the course of a war expedition they had encountered a number of Indians of a strange tribe carrying loads of beaver skins. These strange Indians told the Frenchmen that they were on their way over the Rocky Mountains to trade their furs with white men on the sea-coast. For some reason, either through lack of supplies or because he did not possess the courage and enthusiasm which had carried the La Vérendryes through so many difficulties, Niverville made no effort to cross the mountains. This attempt to reach the Western Sea ended, so far as French explorers were concerned, at Fort La Jonquière. All the toils and hardships of the French explorers ended in failure to achieve the great end at which they aimed. Members of another race reaped the coveted reward. Many years later a Scottish-Canadian explorer, Alexander Mackenzie, realized La Vérendrye's dream by successfully crossing the Rocky Mountains and forcing his way through the difficult country that lay beyond, until at last he stood upon the shores of the Pacific ocean.
Meanwhile Saint-Pierre had remained at Fort La Reine, leaving the work of exploration to his young lieutenant, Niverville. One incident of his life there remains to be described before we close this story of the search for the Western Sea. It cannot be better told than in Saint-Pierre's own narrative:
On February 22, 1752 [he says], about nine o'clock in the morning, I was at this post with five Frenchmen. I had sent the rest of my people, consisting of fourteen persons, to look for provisions, of which I had been in need for several days. I was sitting quietly in my room, when two hundred Assiniboines entered the fort, all of them armed. These Indians scattered immediately all through the place; several of them even entered my room, but unarmed; others remained in adjacent parts of the fort. My people came to warn me of the behaviour of these Indians. I ran to them and told them sharply that they were very impudent to come in a crowd to my house, and armed. One of them answered in the Cree language that they came to smoke. I told them that they were not behaving properly, and that they must leave the fort at once. I believe that the firmness with which I spoke somewhat frightened them, especially as I put four of the most resolute out of the door, without their saying a word.
I went at once to my room. At that very moment, however, a soldier came to tell me that the guard-house was full of Indians, who had taken possession of the arms. I ran to the guard-house and demanded, through a Cree interpreter, what they meant by such behaviour. During all this time I was preparing to fight them with my weak force. My interpreter, who proved a traitor, said that these Indians had no bad intentions. Yet, a moment before, an Assiniboine orator, who had been constantly making fine speeches to me, had told the interpreter that, in spite of him, the Indians would kill and rob me.