The recall of Frontenac had great influence on La Salle's career, for the new governor, de La Barre, an aged man wanting in firmness and decision, intended to enrich himself [130] and had accordingly connected himself with a clique of merchants in the colony, intent on the monopoly of the western fur trade. He believed in their representations that by acting with them, he would be enabled to obtain large profits. The principals in this arrangement were Aubert de la Chesnaye, Jacques Leber and Charles Le Moyne, the latter two of Montreal.
Accordingly, when on April 3, 1683, after hearing that his protector, Frontenac, had sailed for France, La Salle wrote the new governor, telling of his success in the expedition to the mouth of the Mississippi, and dwelling on the necessity of establishing colonists along the route which he had opened, and asked that such of his men as were sent to Montreal for supplies should not be arrested, he little knew how poorly his exploration was valued by the governor. In a second letter he speaks of the threatened rising of the Iroquois in the Michillimackinac district, and of the danger he was in, at his Fort St. Louis, on the River Illinois, on the top of "Starved Rock" (as it was afterwards called after Pontiac's war in 1764), with but twenty men, and only 100 pounds of powder. He asks that his men should not be detained, as he was in need of reinforcements; likewise, that no seizure of his property in Montreal should be permitted as he was in want of munitions and supplies.
No supplies were sent him and his men were made prisoners in Montreal as transgressors of the law. Moreover, on pretense that the conditions, on which his fort at Frontenac had been granted, had not been carried out, the governor sent Leber and de la Chesnaye to seize it in the royal name. La Salle determined to appeal in person to the minister in France and coming down the lakes he met the Chevalier de Baugis, who had been sent by de La Barre to seize his Fort St. Louis. In the next year, 1684, the king wrote to the governor and the intendant, de Moules, commanding them to make restitution to La Salle for the injury done him at Fort Frontenac and Fort St. Louis.
Hardly had La Barre arrived in Canada than he learned of the declaration of war by the Iroquois against the Illinois, the allies of the French. A deliberation of the highest in the land resulted in a request to the king for help to restrain the Iroquois, which brought the promise of a convoy of 200 soldiers to be sent without delay from France! Wishing, however, to compromise with the Iroquois and to make peace rather than war which would damage his personal trade relations at Cataracqui, the governor sent Charles Le Moyne as envoy to Onondaga to invite a deputation of their chiefs to visit Montreal. This was fixed for June, but it was not till August that a meagre delegation from but five cantons arrived, and the grand council was held in the newly built church of Montreal.
Parkman tells the story thus: "Presents were given to the deputies (forty-three Iroquois chiefs) to the value of more than two thousand crowns. Soothing speeches were made them and they were urged not to attack the tribes of the lakes, nor to plunder French traders, without permission. They assented and La Barre then asked, timidly, why they made war on the Illinois. 'Because they deserve to die,' haughtily returned the Iroquois orator. La Barre dared not answer. They complained that La Salle had given guns, powder and lead to the Illinois; or in other words, that he had helped the allies of the colony to defend themselves. La Barre, who hated La Salle and his monopolies, assured them that he should be punished. It is affirmed on good authority that he said more than this, and told them that they were welcome to plunder and kill him. The rapacious old man was playing with a two-edged sword." ("Frontenac," p. 84).
Montreal that summer witnessed the preparations of La Barre and his 200 men, who left Quebec on July 10th ostensibly to fight the Iroquois around Fort Frontenac; among them was de la Chesnaye. The new intendant, Jacques de Meulles, Sieur de la Source, grieving no doubt that he had to finance this new war, has the lowest opinion of this enterprise and writes to the minister (July 8-11): "In a word, Monseigneur, this war has been decided upon in the cabinet of monsieur, the general (La Barre) along with six of the chief merchants of the country," and in a postscript he added, "I will finish this letter, Monseigneur, by telling you that he set out yesterday, July 10th, with a detachment of 200 men. All Quebec was filled with grief to see him embark on an expedition of war, tête à tête with the man La Chesnaye. Everybody says that the war is a sham, that these two will arrange everything between them and in a word do whatever will help their trade. The whole country is in despair to see how matters are managed." (Quoted by Parkman, "Frontenac," p. 103.)
After a long stay at Montreal the little army of 130 regular soldiers, 700 Canadians and 200 savages, principally Iroquois from Caughnawaga and Hurons from Lorette near Quebec, embarked at Lachine. The party from Montreal landed under the palisades of Fort Frontenac or Cataracqui, on a low, damp plain and became the victims of a malarial fever of which the men sickened. On the 3d of September Le Moyne was sent to La Famine at the mouth of the Salmon River, bringing with him the wily and astute orator of the Iroquois, Big Mouth, Latinized by La Hontan, who was present, as "Grangula." At the council which followed at La Famine, whither La Barre with such of his men who were well enough to move, had crossed to meet the Iroquois in their own territory, Big Mouth had all the honours and the ending was humiliating for the French. He declared the Iroquois could fight the Illinois to the death, and La Barre dared not utter a word in behalf of his allies. "He promised to decamp," says Parkman, "and set out for home on the following morning, being satisfied with the promise that the Iroquois would repair the damage done the French traders in the war against the Illinois—a promise never realized. La Barre embarked and hastened home in advance of his men. His camp was again full of the sick. Their comrades placed them, shivering with ague fits, on board the flatboats and canoes; and the whole force, scattered and disordered, floated down the current to Montreal. Nothing had been gained but a thin and flimsy peace, with new troubles and dangers plainly visible behind it." ("Frontenac," p. 111).
At Montreal, as a consequence of this disease-stricken expedition, the Hôtel-Dieu was filled with the sick, as was that of Quebec. The end was humiliating to La Barre; the honour was with the Iroquois and the Illinois allies had been shamefully abandoned. The treaty of La Famine was received by the colony with contumely and shortly afterwards the inefficient governor received his recall, polite, but unmistakable in its import.
On November 14th, Monseigneur de Laval left for France, sixty-one years of age, but broken down by his austere duties and unremitting labours. He attended the Sovereign Council on August 28th, and fought against the making of the secular clergy into "irremovable curés"—a policy which has been continued to this day. On November 2d, he established the Chapter of Quebec Cathedral, consisting of twelve canons and four chaplains. He came back to Quebec again on August 15, 1688, and took up his quarters at his beloved seminary founded by him, not any longer with the burdens and honours of the Episcopate, but as a simple retired prelate, the father-in-God of his seminarists—till nearly his death on May 6, 1708. He was a man who was a sign for contradiction to many, yet always firm, zealous, unbending and of upright principles, which even his enemies recognized, though they might have quailed before him and have withstood him.