Dollier had spent the winter of 1668 in the woods with the Indians at Lake Nipissing, learning an Algonquin dialect from a Nipissing chief named Nitaukyk. This latter had a Shawnee slave who, on a visit to Montreal, so enthused Queylus, that he sent a letter back by the slave, telling M. de Casson of his desire to convert the Shawnee people who seemed to provide special aptitude for Christianity, and offering this mission to the zealous Dollier, who hastened to his superior at once and thence to Quebec.
To raise the money for La Salle's expedition the seigneurs bought back a great part of his land for 1,000 livres, payable in merchandise to arrive by the vessels at Quebec. But he still wished to retain his seigneurial domain of 400 arpents. Indeed on January 11th he received the written titles of these from the seminary.
But on February 9th, following, La Salle, still in need of funds, sold his seigneurial domain for 2,800 livres to Jean Milot—a very good bargain considering that he had been granted it for very little, and that the documents of the transaction reveal that he had only cleared nine or ten arpents; and that, on the other part, the wood had only been felled, and not logged, and buildings had only been commenced. [105] Then he set out to Quebec to interest M. de Courcelles, the governor, in his project and to obtain all the necessary passports and authorizations to range the woods and lakes.
De Courcelles warmly approved of his enthusiasm, seeing glory for his own administration at no cost to himself, and he even allowed soldiers to quit their companies and join La Salle. He also persuaded Dollier de Casson, then in Quebec, consulting de Queylus on the Shawnee mission, to combine with La Salle's expedition, thus giving it a certain governmental éclat and public importance. Dollier de Casson received his letters from Laval on May 15, 1669. On returning to Montreal, preparations were made for departure. La Salle engaged four canoes and fourteen men, among whom was the Sieur Thoulonnier and the surgeon, La Roussillière. To meet additional expenses he had to sell another piece of land above St. Sulpice to Jacques Leber, for 600 livres tournois, on July 6, 1669, the day of departure.
De Casson had three canoes and seven men, and with them M. de Galinée, a Sulpician deacon, an astronomer and mathematician, who joined only three days before the departure. They took a Hollander to interpret the Iroquois language.
Before leaving Montreal the party witnessed the execution of three French soldiers of the Carignan Regiment, who were put to death for the assassination, near Point Claire on Lake St. Louis, of an Iroquois chief of the Senecas (Tsonnontouans). On the eve of this date it was found out, by a confession to La Salle, that three other Frenchmen had committed, near Montreal, on the River Mascouche, a more atrocious assassination of six Oneida Iroquois (Onneiouts), three of whom were a woman and two children. Yet the bodies were never found, so this remains a mystery. Rewards were offered for the capture of the prisoners, but they were never taken. Both of these horrible slaughters had been caused by a desire of seizing the peltry belonging to the Indians. Such treachery was likely to rekindle war with the natives. On this occasion, therefore, M. de Courcelles came up to conciliate the assembled Indians and to assure them, by presents, of the governmental displeasure at these acts. Under these critical and dangerous circumstances, the expedition of seven canoes containing twenty-two Frenchmen and guided by two other canoes of those Tsonnontouans who had lived with La Salle, left Montreal.
They made their way to the great village of Tsonnontouan and stayed there a month, trembling in fear of their lives, for the chief, lately murdered at Montreal, came from this place. Added to this one of those drunken bouts, the results of the liquor traffic, seized the inhabitants and threatened the Europeans' safety. While here Dollier de Casson, worn out by the unaccustomed hardships of the journey, fell into a great fever and was near his end, but happily recovering, the explorers left and arrived at a river whose cataracts marked the descent of the waters of Lake Erie into those of Lake Ontario.
Five days' journey brought them to the other side of Lake Ontario. While here a fever also fell upon La Salle which in a few days imperilled his life. On September 22d, they journeyed again and on the 24th reached a village named Tenaoutoua, where they met the explorer, Joliet, arrived there the evening before. He had previously set out from Montreal with canoes and merchandise, under instructions from M. de Courcelles, to seek the whereabouts of a copper mine said to be situated on Lake Superior. Finding the winter coming on, he had relinquished this project and was about to return to Montreal. He gave a description of the places he had visited and Galinée, the Sulpician geographer, entered them on his map.
La Salle now determined that he also would return to Montreal, urging for excuse the state of his health and the inexperience of his men to stand a winter in the woods, where they were likely to perish of hunger. But the missionary party was firm in its resolution to proceed to the Mississippi Indians. Thus it was that some of La Salle's party arrived the autumn of 1669 in Montreal alone. Whether La Salle returned with them is doubted, for his traces for two years are hard to follow. The failure of his expedition to discover La Chine was commemorated in derision by the wags of Montreal who henceforth dubbed his seigneury of St. Sulpice, as that of "La Chine." Such it soon began to be named, even in the official documents, as for example one of June 10, 1670, "this place La Chine, so called." So La Chine it has remained to this day.
Meanwhile the Montreal missionaries, after leaving Tenaoutoua on October 1, 1669, arrived, the 13th or 14th, on the banks of Lake Erie, which seemed to them like a great sea lashed and tossed by the tempestuous winds. At the mouth of a pleasant river, after three days they built their cabin and there they remained for fifteen days, till the fierce lake winds drove them to a more sheltered place in the woods, about a quarter of a league away, on a bank of a stream. There they reconstructed their cabin, but more strongly, and wintered for five months and eleven days.