book 3, chapter 3 (volume l).

_F. Parkman, The Old Regime in Canada, chapters 10-17._

CANADA: A. D. 1669-1687. La Salle and the acquisition of Louisiana.

"Second only to Champlain among the heroes of Canadian history stands Robert Cavelier de la Salle--a man of iron if ever there was one--a man austere and cold in manner, and endowed with such indomitable pluck and perseverance as have never been surpassed in this world. He did more than any other man to extend the dominion of France in the New World. As Champlain had founded the colony of Canada and opened the way to the great lakes, so La Salle completed the discovery of the Mississippi, and added to the French possessions the vast province of Louisiana. ... In 1669 La Salle made his first journey to the west, hoping to find a northwest passage to China, but very little is known about this expedition, except that the Ohio river was discovered, and perhaps also the Illinois. La Salle's feudal domain of St. Sulpice, some eight miles from Montreal, bears to-day the name of La Chine, or China, which is said to have been applied to it in derision of this fruitless expedition. In 1673 the priest Marquette and the fur-trader Joliet actually reached the Mississippi by way of the Wisconsin, and sailed down the great river as far as the mouth of the Arkansas; and now the life-work of La Salle began in earnest. He formed a grand project for exploring the Mississippi to its mouth, and determining whether it, flowed into the Gulf of California or the Gulf of Mexico. The advance of Spain on the side of Mexico was to be checked forever, the English were to be confined to the east of the Alleghanies, and such military posts were to be established as would effectually confirm the authority of Louis XIV. throughout the centre of this continent. La Salle had but little ready money, and was surrounded by rivals and enemies; but he had a powerful friend in Count Frontenac, the Viceroy of Canada. ... At length, after surmounting innumerable difficulties, a vessel [the Griffon or Griffin] was built and launched on the Niagara river [1679], a small party of 30 or 40 men were gathered together, and La Salle, having just recovered from a treacherous dose of poison, embarked on his great enterprise. His departure was clouded by the news that his impatient creditors had laid hands upon his Canadian estates; but, nothing daunted, he pushed on through Lakes Erie and Huron, and after many disasters reached the southern extremity of Lake Michigan. The vessel was now sent back, with half the party, to Niagara, carrying furs to appease the creditors and purchase additional supplies for the remainder of the journey, while La Salle with his diminished company pushed on to the Illinois, where a fort was built, and appropriately named Fort Crèvecœur, or, as we might translate it, the 'fort of the breaking heart.' Here, amid perils of famine, mutiny, and Indian attack, and exposed to death from the wintry cold, they waited until it became evident to all that their vessel must have perished. She never was heard from again, and most likely had foundered on her perilous voyage. To add to the trouble, La Salle was again poisoned; but his iron constitution, aided by some lucky antidote, again carried him safely through the ordeal, and about the 1st of March, 1680, he started on foot for Montreal. Leaving Fort Crèveœur and its tiny garrison under command of his faithful lieutenant, Tonty, he set out with four Frenchmen and one Mohegan guide. ... They made their way for a thousand miles across Michigan and Western Canada to Niagara, and so on to Montreal. ... At Niagara La Salle learned that a ship from France, freighted for him with a cargo worth more than 20,000 livres, had been wrecked in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and nothing had been saved. In spite of this dreadful blow he contrived to get together supplies and reenforcements at Montreal, and had returned to Fort Frontenac, at the lower end of Lake Ontario, when still more woful tidings were received. Here, toward the end of July, a message came from the fortress so well named Crèvecœur. The garrison had mutinied and destroyed the fort, and made their way back through Michigan." The indomitable La Salle promptly hunted down the deserters, and sent them in chains to Quebec. He then "proceeded again to the Illinois to reconstruct his fort, and rescue, if possible, his lieutenant Tonty and the few faithful followers who had survived the mutiny. This little party, abandoned in the wilderness, had found shelter among the Illinois Indians; but during the summer of 1680 the great village or town of the Illinois was destroyed by the Iroquois, and the hard-pressed Frenchmen retreated up the western shore of Lake Michigan to Green Bay.- {366} On arriving at the Illinois, therefore, La Salle found nothing but the terrible traces of fire and massacre and cannibal orgies; but he spent the following winter to good purpose in securing the friendship of the western Indians, and in making an alliance with them against the Iroquois. Then, in May, 1681, he set out again for Canada, to look after his creditors and obtain new resources. On the way home, at the outlet of Lake Michigan, he met his friend Tonty, and together they paddled their canoes a thousand miles and came to Fort Frontenac. So, after all this hardship and disaster, the work was to be begun anew; and the enemies of the great explorer were exulting in what they imagined must be his despair. But that was a word of which La Salle knew not the meaning, and now his fortunes began to change. In Mr. Parkman's words, 'Fate at length seemed tired of the conflict with so stubborn an adversary.' At this third venture everything went smoothly. The little fleet passed up the great lakes, from the outlet of Ontario to the head of Michigan, and gained the Chicago River. Crossing the narrow portage, they descended the Illinois and the Mississippi, till they came out upon the Gulf of Mexico; and on the 9th of April, 1682, the fleurs-de-lis were planted at the mouth of the great river, and all the country drained by its tributaries, from the Alleghanies to the Rocky Mountains, was formally declared to be the property of the king of France, and named after him Louisiana. Returning up the river after his triumph, La Salle founded a station or small colony on the Illinois, which he called St. Louis, and leaving Tonty in command, kept on to Canada, and crossed to France for means to circumvent his enemies and complete his far-reaching schemes. A colony was to be founded at the mouth of the Mississippi, and military stations were to connect this with the French settlements in Canada. At the French court La Salle was treated like a hero, and a fine expedition was soon fitted out, but everything was ruined by jealousy and ill-will between La Salle and the naval commander, Beaujeu. The fleet sailed beyond the mouth of the Mississippi, the colony was thrown upon the coast of Texas, some of the vessels were wrecked, and Beaujeu--though apparently without sinister design--sailed away with the rest, and two years of terrible suffering followed. At last, in March, 1687, La Salle started to find the Mississippi, hoping to ascend it to Tonty's fort on the Illinois, and obtain relief for his followers. But he had scarcely set out on this desperate enterprise when two or three mutinous wretches of his party laid an ambush for him in the forest, and shot him dead. Thus, at the early age of forty-three, perished this extraordinary man, with his life-work but half accomplished. Yet his labors had done much towards building up the imposing dominion with which New France confronted New England in the following century."

_J. Fiske, The Romance of the Spanish and French Explorers (Harper's Mag., volume 64, pages 446-448.)_

ALSO IN: _F. Parkman, La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West._

_Chevalier Tonti, Account of M. de la Salle's last Expedition (New York Historical Society Collections, volume 2)._

_J. G. Shea, Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley._

_C. Le Clercq, First Establishment of the Faith in New France, translated by Shea, chapter 21-25 (volume 2)._

CANADA: A. D. 1689-1690. The first Inter-Colonial War (King William's War): The Schenectady Massacre. Montreal threatened, Quebec attacked, and Port Royal taken by the English.

The Revolution of 1688, in England, which drove James II. from the throne, and called to it his daughter Mary with her able husband, William of Orange, produced war between England and France (see FRANCE: A. D. 1689-1690). The French and English colonies in America were soon involved in the contest, and so far as it troubled American history, it bears in New England annals 'the name of King William's War. "If the issue had depended on the condition of the colonies, it could hardly have seemed doubtful. The French census for the North American continent, in 1688, showed but 11,249 persons, scarcely a tenth part of the English population on its frontiers; about a twentieth part of English North America. West of Montreal, the principal French posts, and those but inconsiderable ones, were at Frontenac, at Mackinaw, and on the Illinois. At, Niagara, there was a wavering purpose of maintaining a post, but no permanent occupation. So weak were the garrisons that English traders, with an escort of Indians, had ventured even to Mackinaw. ... France, bounding its territory next New England by the Kennebec, claimed the whole eastern coast, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, Newfoundland, Labrador, and Hudson's Bay; and to assert and defend this boundless region, Acadia and its dependencies counted but 900 French inhabitants. The missionaries, swaying the minds of the Abenakis, were the sole source of hope. On the declaration of war by France against England, Count Frontenac, once more governor of Canada, was charged to recover Hudson's Bay; to protect Acadia; and, by a descent from Canada, to assist a fleet from France in making conquest of New York. Of that province De Callieres was, in advance, appointed governor; the English Catholics were to be permitted to remain,--other inhabitants to be sent into Pennsylvania or New England. ... In the east, blood was first shed at Cocheco, where, thirteen years before, an unsuspecting party of 350 Indians had been taken prisoners and shipped for Boston, to be sold into foreign slavery. The memory of the treachery was indelible, and the Indian emissaries of Castin easily excited the tribe of Penacook to revenge. On the evening of the 27th of June [1689] two squaws repaired to the house of Richard Waldron, and the octogenarian magistrate bade them lodge on the floor. At night, they rise, unbar the gates, and summon their companions," who tortured the aged Waldron until he died. "The Indians, burning his house and others that stood near it, having killed three-and-twenty, returned to the wilderness with 29 captives." In August, the stockade at Pemaquid was taken by 100 Indians from the French mission on the Penobscot. "Other inroads were made by the Penobscot and St. John Indians, so that the settlements east of Falmouth were deserted. In September, commissioners from New England held a conference with the Mohawks at Albany, soliciting an alliance. 'We have burned Montreal,' said they; 'we are the allies of the English; we will keep the chain unbroken.' {367} But they refused to invade the Abenakis. ... Frontenac ... now used every effort to win the Five Nations [the Iroquois] to neutrality or to friendship. To recover esteem in their eyes; to secure to Durantaye, the commander at Mackinaw, the means of treating with the Hurons and the Ottawas; it was resolved by Frontenac to make a triple descent into the English provinces. From Montreal, a party of 110, composed of French and of the Christian Iroquois,--having De Mantet and Sainte Helene as leaders ... --for two and twenty days waded through snows and morasses, through forests and across rivers, to Schenectady. The village had given itself calmly to slumber: through open and unguarded gates the invaders entered silently [February 8, 1690], and having, just before midnight, reached its heart, the war-whoop was raised (dreadful sound to the mothers of that place and their children!), and the dwellings set on fire. Of the inhabitants, some, half clad, fled through the snows to Albany; 60 were massacred, of whom 17 were children and 10 were Africans. ... The party from Three Rivers, led by Hertel, and consisting of but 52 persons ... surprised the settlement at Salmon Falls, on the Piscataqua, and, after a bloody engagement, burned houses, barns, and cattle in the stalls, and took 54 prisoners, chiefly women and children. ... Returning from this expedition, Hertel met the war party, under Portneuf, from Quebec, and, with them and a reenforcement from Castin, made a successful attack on the fort and settlement in Casco Bay. Meantime, danger taught the colonies the necessity of union, and, on the 1st day of May, 1690, New York beheld the momentous example of an American congress [see UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1690]. ... At that congress it was resolved to attempt the conquest of Canada by marching an army, by way of Lake Champlain, against Montreal, while Massachusetts should, with a fleet, attack Quebec."

_G. Bancroft, History of the U. S., chapter 21 (volume 3), (pt. 3, chapter 11, volume 2, in the "Author's last Revision")_.

Before the end of the month in which the congress was held, Port Royal and the whole of Acadia had already been conquered, having surrendered to an expedition sent out by Massachusetts, in eight small vessels, under Sir William Phips. The larger fleet (consisting of 32 ships and carrying 2,000 men) directed against Quebec, sailed in August from Nastasket, and was, likewise, commanded by Phips. "The plan of the campaign contemplated a diversion to be made by an assault on Montreal, by a force composed of English from Connecticut and New York, and of Iroquois Indians, at the same time with the attack on Quebec by the fleet. And a second expedition into Maine under Captain Church was to threaten the Eastern tribes whose incursions had, during the last summer, been so disastrous. ... As is so apt to happen when a plan involves the simultaneous action of distant parties, the condition of success failed. The movement of Church, who had with him but 300 men, proved ineffective as to any contribution to the descent upon Canada. ... It was not till after a voyage of more than six weeks that the fleet from Boston cast anchor within the mouth of the river St. Lawrence, and meanwhile the overland expedition against Montreal had miscarried. The commanders respectively of the Connecticut and the New York troops had disagreed, and could not act effectively together. ... The supply, both of boats and of provisions, was found to be insufficient. The disastrous result was that a retreat was ordered, without so much as an embarkation of the troops on Lake Champlain. Frontenac was at Montreal, whither he had gone to superintend the defence, when the intelligence, so unexpected, reached him from Quebec; and presently after came the tidings of Phips's fleet being in the St. Lawrence. Nothing could have been more opportune than this coincidence, which gave the Governor liberty to hasten down to direct his little force of 200 soldiers at the capital. The French historian says that, if he had been three days later, or if the English fleet had not been delayed by contrary winds, or had had better pilots in the river, where it was nearly a fortnight more in making its slow way, Frontenac would have come down from the upper country only to find the English commander in his citadel. As it was, there ensued a crushing mortification and sorrow to Massachusetts. New France was made much more formidable than ever." The fleet arrived before Quebec Oct. 6, and retreated on the 11th, after considerable cannonading and an assault which the French repelled. It suffered storms and disasters on the return voyage, and lost altogether some 200 men.

_J. G. Palfrey, History of New England,