to command in the fort, and desired them to obey his orders in his absence; to live in a christian union and charity; to be courageous and firm in their design.' He assured them, 'he would return with all the speed imaginable, and bring with him a fresh supply of meat, ammunition, and rigging for our bark; and that in the mean time he left them arms and other things necessary for a vigorous defence, in case their enemies should attack them before his return.' Then telling me, that he expected that I should depart without further delay,' he embraced me, and gave me a Calumet of Peace, with two men to manage our canoe, Picard and Ako, to whom he gave some commodities to the value of about one thousand livres, [francs] to trade with the savages or make presents. He gave to me in particular, and for my own use, ten knives, twelve shoemaker's awls or bodkins, a small roll of Martinico tobacco, two pounds of rassade, i. e. little pearls or rings of colored glass to make bracelets for the savages, and a small parcel of needles; telling me, he would have given me a greater quantity if it had been in his power.' Thus [on the 29th February] relying on the providence of God, and receiving the blessing of father Gabriel, I embraced all our men, and took my leave of M. La Salle."*

About the 12th of April, 1680, Hennepin and his companions were seized by a party of Indians, and carried northward as far, at least, as the Falls of St. Anthony. The adventurers continued to reside among their captors until the fall of 1680, when the Indians permitted them to return to Canada.

La Salle remained at Fort Crevecœur until the Sth of November, 1680, when, leaving that post under the command of Tonti, he took his departure for Canada, to obtain supplies and reinforcements. On the third day of his journey from Fort Crevecœur, he arrived at the principal village of the Illinois Indians, "where he thought he ought to build a fort, upon a height commanding the whole country, as well to make himself master of all the different tribes, as to serve for a retreat and

Hennepin's Narrative-Transactions and Col. of the Am. Antiq. Soc. vol. 1, p. 61.

rampart for the French people." The height, on which La Salle determined to build a fort is now called Rock Fort. It stands on the left bank of the river Illinois, in La Salle county.. It is a cliff of parallel layers of white sandstone, rising about two hundred and fifty feet high, nearly perpendicular on three sides, and washed at its base by the river. On the fourth side it is connected with the adjacent range of hills by a narrow peninsular ledge, which can only be ascended by a winding path. The summit of Rock Fort, which contains about threefourths of an acre, is covered with a soil of several feet in depth. Having determined to fortify this height, La Salle sent a plan to Tonti, and ordered him "to set to work upon it without delay." Tonti accordingly went and began the building of the fort, which was called Fort St. Louis; but a spirit of insubordination arose among his men, and he soon abandoned the work, and returned to Fort Crevecœur. Here he tarried until the month of September, 1681, when a large number of Iroquois warriors, having made an incursion into the country of the Illinois, appeared suddenly in the neighborhood of the fort. Failing in an attempt to make himself a mediator between the Iroquois and Illinois, Tonti evacuated Fort Crevecœur, about the middle of September, and with five men retired to the shores of Lake Michigan.

In the spring of 1682, La Salle, with a few recruits, again appeared in the country of the Illinois. He placed a small garrison in Fort Crevecœur, renewed his attempt to build Fort St. Louis; and in the month of August again returned to Canada, to collect reinforcements for his voyage down the Mississippi. This voyage was commenced on the Illinois river, in January, 1683. On the 2d of February, La Salle and his exploring party reached the Mississippi; and, continuing their voyage down that river, they arrived at its mouth on the 9th of April, 1683. There, near the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, they built several huts, erected a cross, fastened the arms of

*Tonti.

†Schoolcraft.

I North American Review, No. CII.

France upon a tree, and gave to the country which they had explored the name of Louisiana. Having thus accomplished the object of his expedition, La Salle returned to Canada, passing through the Illinois, and by the way of Michilimackinac. In the month of September, before he left the latter post, he ordered Tonti to go and finish Fort St. Louis. "He charged me," says Tonti, "with the duty to go and finish Fort St. Louis, of which he gave me the government, with a full power to dispose of the lands in the neighborhood, and left all his people under my command, with the exception of six Frenchmen, whom he took with him to accompany him to Quebec. We departed [from Michilimackinac] on the same day, he for Canada, and I for the Illinois."

When La Salle arrived at Quebec, "he informed the whole city of his great discoveries, and of the voluntary submission of many different Indian nations to the power of the king of France. A Te Deum was celebrated as a thanksgiving for this happy accession to the glory of the crown. The eagerness of M. de La Salle to go and make known to the king and his ministers the success of his travels, obliged him to hasten his departure. He left Canada in the early part of the month of October, 1683."* On his arrival in France he was received with many marks of distinction by Louis XIV. and his ministers; and the accounts which he gave to his monarch, concerning the country of Louisiana, induced the king to favor its colonization. A squadron of four vessels was fitted out, and about two hundred persons embarked in these vessels for the purpose of making a settlement at the mouth of the river Mississippi. One of the ships was a royal frigate, of forty guns, commanded by M. de Beaujeu. La Salle and his principal followers embarked on this vessel; and the small squadron sailed from Rochelle, on the 24th of July, 1684. On the 20th of September, it arrived at the island of St. Domingo, where, by the force of various adverse circumstances, it was detained until the 25th of November. After leaving that island, the adventurers descried the coast of Florida on the 28th of De

Tonti.

cember, 1684; and La Salle, having heard much about the current that set in to the eastward in the Gulf of Mexico, supposed that the squadron was far to the eastward of the mouth of the river Mississippi. He, therefore, bore away westwardly, and, probably, about the 10th of January, 1685, passed the mouth of the Mississippi, without perceiving it. About the middle of February, the colonists landed at the head of the Bay of St. Bernard, and began to make a settlement on the western bank of the Colorado, in Texas, at a point distant more than one hundred leagues from the mouth of the Mississippi. Beaujeu, with his vessel, returned to France. Of the other ships, one was captured by the Spaniards, and two went to pieces on the coast, near the Bay of St. Bernard. A plain, impartial, and interesting account of the tragical close of the adventurous career of La Salle, is here given in the words of Bossu:-"The colonists immediately began erecting a fort. As soon as the work was somewhat advanced, M. de La Salle gave Joutel orders to finish it; left him the command of it, and about one hundred men; he took the rest of his people, and embarked on the river, with the resolution of going up as high as he could. Joutel stayed but a short time after him in the fort which had been begun; every night the savages were roving in the neighborhood; the French defended themselves against them, but with losses that weakened them. On the 14th of July Joutel received an order from M. de La Salle to join him with all his people. Many good stout men had been killed or taken by the Indians; others were dead with fatigue, and the number of sick increased every day: in a word nothing could be more unhappy than M. de La Salle's situation. He was devoured with grief; but he dissimulated it pretty well; by which means his dissimulation degenerated. into a morose obstinacy. As soon as he saw all his people together, he began in good earnest to think of making a settlement and fortifying it. He was the engineer of his own fort; and being always the first to put his hand to work, every body worked as well as he could to follow his example. Nothing was wanting but to encourage this good will of the people;

but M. de La Salle had not sufficient command of his temper. At the very time when his people spent their force with working, and had but just as much as was absolutely necessary to live upon, he could not prevail on himself to relax his severity a little, or alter his inflexible temper, which is never seasonable, and less so in a new settlement. It is not sufficient to have courage, health, and watchfulness, to make any undertaking succeed. Many other talents are requisite. Moderation, patience, and disinterestedness are equally necessary. M. de La Salle punished the least faults with severity, and seldom any word of comfort came from his mouth to those who suf fered with the greatest constancy. He had, of course, the misfortune to see all his people fall into a state of languor and despondency, which was more the effect of despair, than of excess of labor or scantiness of good nourishment. Having given his last orders at his fort, he resolved to advance into the country, and began to march on the 12th of January, 1687, with M. de Cavelier his brother, Moranget and the young Cavelier his nephews, Father Anastasius, a Franciscan friar, Joutel, Duhaut, L'Archeveque, de Marne, a German whose name was Hiens, a surgeon named Lietot, the pilot Tessier, Saget, and an Indian who was a good huntsman. As they advanced further into the country they found it inhabited; and when they were but forty leagues from the nation of the Cenis, they heard that there was a Frenchman among those Indians. It was a sailor from Lower Bretany, who had lost himself when M. de La Salle first came down the Mississippi. Joutel went to fetch him from among those Indians. He only quitted them to be witness of a crime.

*

"The 17th [of March, 1687,] Moranget being on a hunting party, and having, as it is said, abused with words Duhaut,

*In undertaking this third expedition from his settlement on the Colorado, it was the intention of La Salle "to seek the Mississippi, and go onward to Canada, and thence to France, to get new recruits and supplies: — [N. A. Rev. vol. xlviii, p. 92:] Nevertheless some Spanish writers have regarded this last expedition of La Salle as "a project of penetrating into the interior of the country, to see if he could discover the fabulous mines of Santa Barbara."- [Letter from the Spanish Minister, Don Luis de Onis, to John Q. Adams, in Am. State Papers, vol. xii, p. 30.