In a memoir to the king, dated Quebec, October 10, 1670, (New York Colonial Documents, page 64) Talon writes: “Since my arrival I have despatched persons of resolution, who promise to penetrate farther than has ever been done to the west and northwest of Canada, and others to the southwest and south.” These parties were instructed to keep journals, reply to instructions, take possession of the country formally, and were expected to be absent without news for about two years. After all these precautions, a distressing fatality overtook most of their letters, field notes, reports and maps. Joliet was nearly in sight of Montreal on his return in 1674 from the Mississippi River, when his canoe was capsized in the rapids, he was nearly drowned, and every paper was lost. Of La Salle’s memoranda, covering the years 1669 to 1673, nothing has been recovered.
In 1686 Governor DeNonville, writing from Quebec under date of November 8th, to Seignelay, Minister of Marine, says: “I annex to this letter a memoir of our right to the whole of that country (Ohio), of which our registers ought to be full, but no memorials of them are to be found. I am told that M. Talon has the original of the entries in his possession of a great many discoveries that were made in this country, with which our registers ought to be full. Doubtless he has given them to my late Lord, your father.”—Colonial Documents, vol. 9, page 297.
“The River Ohio, otherwise called the Beautiful River, and its tributaries, belong indisputably to France, by virtue of its discovery, by the Sieur de la Salle, and of the trading posts the French have had there since. * * * It is only within a few years that the English have undertaken to trade there.”—Instructions to M. DuQuesne, Paris, 1752, (Colonial Documents, N. Y., vol. 10, page 243).
“It is only since the last war that the English have set up claims to the territory on the Beautiful River, the possession whereof has never been disputed to the French, who have always resorted to that river ever since it was discovered by Sieur de la Salle.”—Instructions to Vaudreuil, Versailles, April, 1755, (Colonial Documents, vol. 10, page 293).
As the Jesuits in Canada were personally hostile to La Salle, they never mention his name in their relations, or the discoveries made by him. They were jealous of him as a discoverer and a trader, despised him as a friend of the Sulpitians, and an apostate from the Society of Jesus, an order at that time so powerful in Canada that the governor-general was obliged to compliment them in his open dispatches, while he spoke severely of them in cypher.
Louis XIV. was not required to expend more money in wars than other French monarchs, but his civil projects were ample and his pleasures very expensive. He was habitually straitened for funds, and required the strictest economy in the expenses of all his officers.
In Canada parsimony in public affairs was even more rigid than in France. The governor-general was unable to live on his salary. Intendants, ecclesiastics and local governors were in a still worse predicament. It was expected that all of them would make up this deficiency by traffic in furs. Many of the dispatches from Versailles are laden with warnings against incurring expenses, which amounted to commands. Many of those sent in reply contain passages congratulating the king on acquisitions of territory and glory, which cost him nothing. Three-quarters of a century later, as related above, in negotiations with England, the Ohio country was claimed by the French, on the sole ground of the discoveries of La Salle.
The personal interest which public officers had in the Indian trade, of necessity brought about discord between them. La Salle, having no fortune, was obliged to sustain himself in the same way, which brought him in direct antagonism with officers, priests and traders. This reference is necessary to explain the difficulties under which he labored.
According to the Abbé Galinée, Governor Courcelles requested himself and Dollier DeCasson, another Sulpitian, to join La Salle in a voyage he had long contemplated, toward a great river which he conceived, from the accounts of the Iroquois, to flow westward, beyond which, after seven or eight months of travel, in their way of stating it, the river and country were lost in the sea.
By this river, called by them the Ohio, Olighiny-sipu, or Beautiful River, and by others, Mescha-zebe, or Mississippi, M. de la Salle hoped to find the long sought passage to the Red, Vermillion, or South Sea, and acquire the glory of that enterprise. He also hoped to find plenty of beavers wherewith to meet the expense of the journey.