The result was that La Salle's rivals in Canada were discomfited, and peremptory orders were sent to La Barre to restore his Seigniory at Fort Frontenac and his station on the Illinois; while an expedition, destined for the Gulf of Mexico, was fitted out at La Rochelle, and eventually sailed on July 24, 1684.
| La Salle's motives. |
What was in La Salle's mind in suggesting this southern adventure can only be conjectured. Was it the last desperate stake of a ruined gambler? Or was it an over-sanguine attempt to realize the great object of his life, to master the far West by moving up instead of down its waterways, by entering not through Canada, where every step would be dogged by jealousy and intrigue, but through the mouths of the Mississippi, where climate and natives would be less formidable foes than the Governor of Canada and his unscrupulous clique of confederates? If, as it is reasonable to suppose, he still clung with the determination of his character to the western enterprise, in which he had already achieved so much, he added to it a highly-coloured picture of conquest in Mexico; and he drew his map of Mexico as adjoining the lands on the Mississippi, omitting in ignorance most of the wide area of intervening territory, now included in the State of Texas.
| The expedition sails. It reaches the West Indies and the Gulf of Mexico. Landing on the shores of Texas. |
Four vessels set sail, freighted with all things necessary to found a colony, carrying soldiers, artisans, married women, and young girls. They were a doomed company; from first to last all went wrong. There was divided command, and Beaujeu, the admiral of the ships, a Norman like La Salle, had with some reason little confidence in the expedition or its leader. They made in the first instance for St. Domingo, but one of the four ships which was carrying the stores was cut off by Spanish buccaneers before reaching the island. At St. Domingo, La Salle was laid low with fever; and, while he was between life and death, his followers rioted and sickened on shore. After a delay of two months, the expedition started again, weakened by desertion and disease. The ships entered the Gulf of Mexico, passed—without knowing it—the mouths of the Mississippi, and on New Year's Day, 1685, anchored off the coast of Texas. Somewhere on this coast, in the vicinity either of Matagorda Bay or of Galveston Bay, La Salle effected a landing, where a series of lagoons that lined the shore concealed, as he thought, the main outlet of the Mississippi. Disaster still attended the enterprise: one of the ships was wrecked on the reefs, the natives of the land proved unfriendly; and when Beaujeu, the admiral, having given what help he could, sailed away in the middle of March, he left behind on desolate shores a despondent band of French men and women groping for a river which could not be found, in present trouble and without clear guidance for the future.
| Founding of Fort St. Louis. Distress of the settlement. Attempt to reach Canada. |
Skirting the sea-line, the would-be colonists had reached a large bay, into the head of which a river ran; and on the banks of this stream La Salle formed a settlement, to which, as to his colony on the Illinois, he gave the name of Fort St. Louis. Gathered within palisades, the settlers worked and waited, dwindling in numbers, while their leader explored, but explored in vain. Setting out at the end of October, 1685, La Salle returned in the following March, having accomplished nothing and having lost his last vessel, a small frigate, the Belle. Again in a month's time, towards the end of April, 1686, he set out to make his way to Canada; once more, in October, he returned to the fort, baffled and disappointed. His followers were sadly reduced in numbers: of some 180, no more than forty-five were left; and of them he could trust but few. Return to France was cut off, and from France time had shown that no help was forthcoming. There was no alternative but to make one more attempt to reach Canada, and thence to bring rescue to the fort in Texas.
| Death of La Salle. |
It was a forlorn hope at best, but the attempt was made. Half of the company remained at the fort. The others, including La Salle's brother, the Abbé Cavelier, and two young nephews, followed La Salle himself on his northward journey. It was on January 7, 1687, that the party set out to make their way painfully over prairies, across rivers, through forest, thicket, and scrub. On March 19, near the Trinity river, La Salle fell dead, ambushed and shot by his own men. No career ever had a more squalid or pitiable ending. It ended in commonplace mutiny and murder. Three or four scoundrels, discontented and badly handled, nursed their personal grudges against a severe and domineering leader, until, in an outbreak of irritation, they killed three of his immediate following and the leader himself.
| Fate of his company. |