The Canadian Portrait Gallery Part 6

Rene-Robert Cavelier, better known by his territorial patronymic of La Salle, was born at Rouen, in Normandy, some time in the year 1643. The exact date of his birth is unknown, but his baptism took place on the 22nd of November of that year, at which time it is probable that he was only a few days old. His family had long been wealthy burghers of Rouen, and there were no obstacles in the way of his receiving a liberal education. He early displayed an apt.i.tude for science and mathematics, and, while still young, entered a Jesuit Seminary in his native town. By this act, which const.i.tuted the first step towards taking holy orders, he forfeited the inheritance which would otherwise have descended to him--a forfeiture which does not seem at any time to have weighed very heavily on his mind. He seems to have occupied for a short time the position of a teacher in the Seminary. After profiting for several years by the discipline taught in the establishment he requested and obtained his discharge, obtaining high praise from the directors of the Seminary for the diligence of his studies and the purity of his life. "The cravings of a deep ambition," says Mr. Parkman, "the hunger of an insatiable intellect, the intense longing for active achievement, subdued in him all other pa.s.sions; and among his faults the love of pleasure had no part." His father had died a short time before La Salle quitted the Seminary, and he would then have at once succeeded to a large patrimony but for his connection with the Jesuits. A small sum--amounting to several hundred livres--was handed over to him, and in the spring of 1666 the young adventurer embarked for fame and fortune in New France, towards which the attention of all western Europe was at that time directed. He had already an elder brother in this country--the Abbe Jean Cavelier, a Sulpician priest at Montreal. The Sulpicians had established themselves there a few years before this time, and had already become proprietors and feudal lords of the city and island. They were granting out their lands to settlers on very easy terms, and La Salle obtained a grant of a large tract of land a short distance above the turbulent current now known as the Lachine Rapids. Here he became a feudal proprietor and fur trader on his own account. Such a pursuit, however, was far from satisfying the cravings of his ambition. Like Champlain and all the early explorers, he dreamed of a pa.s.sage to the South Sea, and a new road for commerce to the riches of China and j.a.pan.

Indians often came to his secluded settlement; and on one occasion he was visited by a band of Seneca Iroquois, some of whom spent the winter with him, and told him of a river called the Ohio, rising in their country and flowing into the sea, but at such a distance that its mouth could only be reached after a journey of eight or nine months. Evidently the Ohio and the Mississippi are here merged into one. In accordance with geographical views then prevalent, La Salle conceived that this great river must needs flow into the "Vermilion Sea;" that is, the Gulf of California. If so, it would give him what he sought--a western pa.s.sage to China, while, in any case, the populous Indian tribes said to inhabit its banks might be made a source of great commercial profit. His imagination took fire. His resolution was soon formed; and he descended the St. Lawrence to Quebec, to gain the countenance of the Governor for his intended exploration. Few men were more skilled than he in the art of clear and plausible statement. Both the Governor (Courcelle), and the Intendant (Talon) were readily won over to his plan; for which, however, they seem to have given him no more substantial aid than that of the Governor's letters patent authorizing the enterprise. The cost was to be his own; and he had no money, having spent it all on his seigniory. He therefore proposed that the Seminary, which had given it to him, should buy it back again, with such improvements as he had made. Queylus, the Superior, being favourably disposed towards him, consented, and bought of him the greater part; while La Salle sold the remainder, including the clearings, to one Milot, an ironmonger, for twenty-eight hundred livres. With this he bought four canoes, with the necessary supplies, and hired fourteen men. This being accomplished, he started on his expedition, in the course of which he explored the southern sh.o.r.e of Lake Ontario, and visited the Senecas in Western New York. Continuing his journey, he pa.s.sed the mouth of the Niagara River, where he heard the roar of the mighty cataract, and pa.s.sed on to an Indian encampment near the present site of Hamilton. After much delay he reached a branch of the Ohio, and descended at least as far as the rapids at Louisville, where he was abandoned by his attendants, and was compelled to return, his problem being yet unsolved.

But the time was not far distant when he was to make a much more extended voyage than he had hitherto accomplished, and with somewhat more important results. In 1672 Count Frontenac came over to Canada and succeeded Courcelle as Governor of the colony. A friends.h.i.+p sprang up between him and La Salle, and they began to form schemes of western enterprise. Erelong we find the latter paying a flying visit to France, and receiving from the King, mainly through his patron's influence, a patent of n.o.bility and a grant of Fort Frontenac--which had just before been founded by the new Governor with imposing ceremonies--together with a large tract of the contiguous territory. Then La Salle's serious troubles may be said to have begun. His grant involved the exclusive right of fur-traffic with the Indians on Lake Ontario, and though trade was a secondary object with him, he nevertheless engaged in it as a means of furthering his more ambitious schemes of exploration. The merchants of Canada, envious of his influence and success, leagued themselves against him, and resolved to accomplish his downfall. The Jesuits also placed themselves in opposition to him, for his avowed projects conflicted with theirs. La Salle aimed at the control of the valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi, and the usufruct of half a continent. The Jesuits were no longer supreme in Canada. In other words, Canada was no longer simply a mission. It had become a colony. Temporal interests and the civil power were constantly gaining ground. Therefore the Jesuits looked with redoubled solicitude to their missions in the West. They dreaded fur-traders, partly because they interfered with their teachings and perverted their converts, and partly for other reasons. La Salle was a fur-trader, and moreover aimed at occupation and settlement. In short, he was a stumbling block in their path, and they leagued themselves against him. Many of them engaged in underhand dealings with the Indians, and while they refused absolution to all Europeans who sold brandy to the natives, they turned a good many dishonest pennies by selling it themselves. They laid all kinds of traps for La Salle, and did not escape the suspicion of attempting to poison him. It is certain that an attempt to destroy him in this fas.h.i.+on was made, though he himself exonerates the Jesuits from partic.i.p.ation in the attempt. In the autumn of 1677 he again sailed for France, and while there procured Royal letters patent authorizing him to prosecute his schemes of western discovery, to erect forts at such places as he might deem expedient, and to enjoy the exclusive right of traffic in buffalo skins. With Henri de Tonty, an Italian officer, as his lieutenant, he soon afterwards returned to Fort Frontenac, whence, in the autumn of 1678, he set out for the Great West.

The historian of this expedition was a mendacious Recollet friar, Father Louis Hennepin, a name which has attained some notoriety in early Canadian annals. Father Hennepin had come out to Canada three years before the date at which we have arrived. Upon landing at Quebec he was at once sent up to Fort Frontenac, as a missionary. He found that wild spot in the western wilderness very much to his liking. He had not been there long before he erected a gigantic cross, and superintended the building of a chapel for himself and his colleague, Father Luke Buisset.

He seems to have discharged his duties with a reasonable amount of zeal.

He for some time gave himself up to instructing and endeavouring to convert the Indians of the neighbourhood. Later on he visited other Indian settlements, and made a noteworthy journey into the interior of what is now the State of New York, where he preached the Gospel to various tribes of the Five Nations, with indifferent success.

Upon receiving intelligence of La Salle's projected western journey, in 1678, Father Hennepin felt and expressed great eagerness to accompany the expedition. Permission to do so having been obtained from his Provincial, as well as from La Salle, he set out in advance of the latter from Fort Frontenac, early in November, accompanied by the Sieur De La Motte and a crew of sixteen sailors, embarked in a brigantine of ten tons. They skirted the northern sh.o.r.e of Lake Ontario, and in due time arrived at the Indian village of Taiaiagon, situated at the mouth of a river near the present city of Toronto. The river was probably the Humber, and the village was doubtless a collection of wigwams which have left no trace behind them. From this point the explorers crossed the lake to the mouth of the Niagara River, which they entered on the morning of the 6th of December. They landed on the eastern side of the stream, where the old fort of Niagara now stands. The site was then occupied by a small village inhabited by Seneca Indians, many of whom probably then beheld for the first time those wondrous pale-faces, the fame of whose exploits had preceded them into the wilderness. As the vessel rounded the opposite point the entire crew burst forth into sacred song, and chanted "Te Deum Laudamus" until the anchor was cast into the river. Later in the day they ascended several miles farther up the stream, until they reached the present site of Lewiston, where they built a rude dwelling of palisades. After remaining for some time, waiting for La Salle to join them, they set off on an expedition into the interior of New York, to pay a visit to a village of the Senecas.

In the meantime La Salle and Tonty had started from Fort Frontenac, with a band of men and a goodly store of supplies for the expedition. After encountering rough weather and being nearly wrecked off the Bay of Quinte, they crossed the lake and landed at the mouth of the Genesee River. Here they disembarked, and after a brief delay, started on a visit to the same Indian village which had just been visited by Hennepin and La Motte, and which was a short distance south-east of the present site of the city of Rochester. La Salle called a council of the natives, and did his utmost to conciliate them, for they looked upon his proceedings with no friendly eye, and were not slow in expressing their disapproval. They were wise enough to know that European exploration would be but the forerunner of European settlement, and that European settlement must be the "sullen presage of their own decay." La Salle, however, had a great deal of personal magnetism and force of character, and contrived to gain the good-will of several of the chiefs. After much argument and cajoling, he succeeded in gaining their consent to the conveyance of his arms and ammunition by way of the portage at Niagara.

They also acquiesced in his proposal to establish a fortified warehouse at the mouth of the river, and to build a vessel above the falls in which to prosecute his researches in the west. Having accomplished so much--and considering the jealousy of the Indians, it is surprising that he should have obtained such concessions--he set out to join Hennepin and La Motte in the Niagara River, which had been appointed as their place of meeting.

Father Hennepin and La Motte had not long taken up their quarters on the banks of the Niagara River before they ascended the stream to regale themselves with a view of the mighty cataract of which they had so often heard with awe and astonishment. To the skill of the mendacious priest we are indebted for the first verbal description of the falls by an eye-witness, as well as for the first artistic delineation of them. The friar had a keen eye for the beauties and grandeur of natural scenery; but, like other travellers before and since his time, he was much given to dealing in the marvellous. His view is drawn in direct violation of the laws of perspective, and the proportions are not correctly preserved. It must be remembered, however, that during the two hundred years which have elapsed since the sketch was made, nature has been steadily at work, and that the external appearance of the falls has undergone many changes in that time. It is probable, too, that the cross-fall depicted in his sketch as pouring over what has since been called "Table Rock" really existed in 1678. Upon the whole, there is no reason for doubting that in its general outlines the sketch made by Father Hennepin pourtrayed the scene more faithfully than did his written description, of which the following is a literal translation: "Betwixt the Lake Ontario and the Lake Erie there is a vast and prodigious cadence of water, which falls down after a surprising and astonis.h.i.+ng manner, insomuch that the universe does not afford its parallel. This wonderful downfall is about six hundred feet, and is composed of two great cross-streams of water, and two falls, with an island sloping across the middle of it. The waters which fall from this horrible precipice do foam and boil after the most hideous manner imaginable, making an outrageous noise, more terrible than that of thunder; for when the wind blows out of the south their dismal roaring may be heard more than fifteen leagues off."

Hennepin and La Motte were soon afterwards joined by La Salle and Tonty, accompanied by a party consisting of mechanics, labourers and voyageurs, who arrived in a small schooner. After a short exploration of the country thereabouts La Salle set about the construction of a large vessel of forty-five tons, for the prosecution of his western voyage.

The s.h.i.+p-yard was located six miles above the Falls, near the mouth of Cayuga Creek, where the work of s.h.i.+pbuilding was carried on throughout the winter, spring, and early summer. At last the new vessel--the ill-fated _Griffin_ (the first European craft that ever navigated the waters of the upper lakes)--was completed, and on the 7th of August, 1679, the adventurers embarked and sailed into Lake Erie--"where sail was never seen before." They pa.s.sed on to the westward end of the lake, and up between the green islands of the stream now known as the Detroit River; crossed Lake St. Clair, and entered Lake Huron. In due course, after encountering a furious tempest, they reached Michillimackinac, where was a Jesuit Mission and centre of the fur trade. Pa.s.sing on into Lake Michigan, La Salle and his company cast anchor in Green Bay. The _Griffin_ was forthwith laden with rich furs, and sent back to Niagara, with orders to turn over the cargo to La Salle's creditors, and return immediately. This is the last item respecting her which history affords.

Whether she foundered or was captured by the Jesuits or Indians remains an open question to this day, and no certain tidings of her, subsequent to her departure eastward from Green Bay, ever reached the ears of her commander.

Meanwhile, his creditors, from whom he had purchased his supplies, and with whom he was heavily involved, were selling his effects at Montreal.

He himself, with his company in scattered groups, repaired in bark canoes to the head of Lake Michigan; and at the mouth of the St. Joseph he constructed a trading-house with palisades, known as the Fort of the Miamis. Of his vessel, on which his fortunes so much depended, no tidings came. Weary of delay, he resolved to penetrate Illinois; and leaving ten men to guard the Fort of the Miamis, La Salle himself, with Hennepin, Tonty, and about thirty followers, ascended the St. Joseph, and by a short portage over bogs and swamps made dangerous by a snow storm, entered the Kankakee. Descending this narrow stream, before the end of December, 1679, the little company had reached the site of an Indian village on the Illinois, probably not far from Ottoway, in La Salle county. The tribe was absent, pa.s.sing the winter in the chase. On the banks of Lake Peoria Indians appeared, who, desirous to obtain axes and firearms, offered the calumet of peace, and agreed to an alliance.

They described the course of the Mississippi, and they were willing to guide the strangers to its mouth. The spirit and prudence of La Salle, who was the life of the enterprise, won the friends.h.i.+p of the natives.

But clouds lowered over his path. The _Griffin_, it seemed certain, was wrecked, thus delaying his discoveries as well as impairing his fortunes. His men began to despond. He toiled to revive their courage, and a.s.sured them that there could be no safety but in union. "None," he added, "shall stay after the spring, unless from choice." But fear and discontent pervaded the company; and when La Salle, thwarted by destiny, and almost despairing, planned and began to build a fort on the banks of the Illinois, four days' journey below Lake Peoria, he named it Crevecoeur (Heart-break). Yet even here the immense power of his will appeared. Dependent on himself, fifteen hundred miles from the nearest French settlement, impoverished, hara.s.sed by enemies at Quebec and in the wilderness, he inspired his men with resolution to saw trees into plank and prepare a barque. He despatched Hennepin to explore the Upper Mississippi; he questioned the Illinois and the captives on the course of that river; he formed conjectures respecting the course of the Tennessee. Then, as new recruits and sails and cordage for the barque were needed, in the month of March, with a musket and pouch of powder and shot, with a blanket for his protection and skins of which to make moccasins, he, with three companions, set off on foot for Fort Frontenac, to trudge through thickets and forests, to wade through marshes and melting snows; without drink, except water from the running brooks; without food, except such precarious supplies as could be provided by his gun. After enduring dangers and hards.h.i.+ps which would have effectually damped the ardour of any one but a French adventurer of that time; after narrowly escaping a plot to poison him; after being deserted by some of his followers, and threatened with all sorts of unknown penalties by the savages, he finally, after sixty-five days'

journeying, arrived at Fort Frontenac on the 6th of May, 1680. But "man and nature seemed in arms against him." He found that during his absence his agents had plundered him, that his creditors had seized his property, and that several of his canoes, richly laden, had been lost in the rapids of the St. Lawrence. Another vessel which had been despatched with supplies for him from France had also been s.h.i.+pwrecked. Instead of sitting down to mourn over these mishaps, however, they seemed to inspire him with fresh vigour. Descending to Montreal, he in less than a week procured what supplies he needed, and returned to Fort Frontenac.

Just as he was about to embark for Illinois, messengers arrived with intelligence that Tonty had been abandoned by his companions, and had been compelled to take shelter with a band of Pottawatomie Indians.

Undiscouraged by the manifold disasters which had befallen him, La Salle once more set out from Fort Frontenac for the regions of the Great West.

Instead of following the route by Lake Erie and the Detroit and St.

Clair Rivers, as he had previously done, he crossed over to the Georgian Bay by way of the River Humber, which was on the line of one of the three great westward routes in those times. He was accompanied by twenty-five a.s.sistants, including his lieutenant, one La Forest, and a surgeon. In due course they reached Michillimackinac, which was then the great north-western depot of the fur trade. Here he found that his old enemies the Jesuits had been busy poisoning the minds of the natives against him, insomuch that it was only with difficulty that he could induce the latter to sell him provisions. After a brief delay he resumed his journey, pa.s.sing numerous camps of the terrible Iroquois, who, tired of devastating the more eastern districts, were now spreading desolation through these western regions. Upon reaching Fort Crevecoeur he found it deserted, and neither here nor elsewhere, for many days to come, was he able to gain any intelligence of his trusty ally, Tonty, who had been left behind on the former expedition, as already narrated. He continued his course southward, and erelong found himself on the banks of the Mississippi--the mighty Father of Waters, "the object of his day dreams, the destined avenue of his ambition and his hopes." Finding no traces of Tonty, he determined to look for him further northward, and retraced his footsteps to Fort Miami, on the St. Joseph, near Lake Michigan, where he spent the winter. "Here," says Mr. Parkman, "he might have brooded on the redoubled ruin that had befallen him; the desponding friends, the exulting foes; the wasted energies, the crus.h.i.+ng load of debt, the stormy past, the black and lowering future. But his mind was of a different temper. He had no thought but to grapple with adversity, and out of the fragments of his ruin to build up the fabric of success. He would not recoil; but he modified his plans to meet the new contingency.

His white enemies had found--or rather, perhaps, had made--a savage ally in the Iroquois. Their incursions must be stopped, or his enterprise would come to naught; and he thought he saw the means by which this new danger could be converted into a source of strength. The tribes of the west, threatened by the common enemy, might be taught to forget their mutual animosities and join in a defensive league, with La Salle at its head. They might be colonized around his fort in the valley of the Illinois, where, in the shadow of the French flag, and with the aid of French allies they could hold the Iroquois in check, and acquire in some measure the arts of a settled life. The Franciscan friars could teach them the Faith; La Salle and his a.s.sociates could supply them with goods, in exchange for the vast harvest of furs which their hunters could gather in these boundless wilds. Meanwhile, he could seek out the mouth of the Mississippi; and the furs gathered at his colony in the Illinois would then find a ready pa.s.sage to the markets of the world.

Thus might this ancient slaughter-field of warring savages be redeemed to civilization and Christianity, and a stable settlement, half feudal, half commercial, grow up in the heart of the western wilderness. This plan was but a part of the original scheme of his enterprise, adapted to new and unexpected circ.u.mstances; and he now set himself to its execution with his usual vigour, joined to an address that, when dealing with Indians, never failed him."

In pursuance of this scheme he called a council of all the Indian chiefs for leagues round, and entered into a formal covenant with them. His new project was hopefully begun. It remained to achieve the enterprise, twice defeated, of the discovery of the mouth of the Mississippi. To this end, he must return to Canada, appease his creditors, and collect his scattered resources. Towards the end of May he set out in canoes from Fort Miami, and, after a prosperous voyage, reached Michillimackinac. Here, to his great joy, he found Tonty and one Zen.o.be Membre, who had lately arrived from Green Bay. Without loss of time, they embarked together for Fort Frontenac, paddled their canoes a thousand miles, and safely reached their destination. Here, in this third beginning of his enterprise, La Salle found himself beset with embarra.s.sments. Not only was he burdened with the fruitless cost of his two former efforts, but the heavy debts which he had incurred in building and maintaining Fort Frontenac had not been wholly paid. The fort and the seigniory were already deeply mortgaged; yet, through the influence of the Count de Frontenac, and the support of a wealthy relative, he found means to appease his creditors, and even to gain fresh advances. He mustered his men, and once more set forth, resolved to trust no more to agents, but to lead on his followers in a united body under his own personal command.

Returning westward, he once more reached Fort Miami, whence, on the 26th of December, 1682, he set out for the mouth of the Mississippi, whither he arrived during the month of April following. "As he drifted down the turbid current, between the low and marshy sh.o.r.es, the brackish water changed to brine, and the breeze grew fresh with the salt breath of the sea. Then the broad bosom of the great Gulf opened on his sight, tossing its restless billows, limitless, voiceless, lonely as when born of chaos, without a sail, without a sign of life." La Salle, in a canoe, coasted the marshy borders of the sea; and then a.s.sembled his companions on a spot of dry ground, a short distance above the mouth of the river.

In this wild spot, on the ninth of the month, which was the month of April, 1682, he planted a column bearing the arms of France and an inscription to Louis Le Grand. "On that day," says the writer already quoted from, "the realm of France received on parchment a stupendous accession. The fertile plains of Texas; the vast basin of the Mississippi, from its frozen northern springs to the sultry borders of the Gulf, from the woody ridges of the Rocky Mountains--a region of savannahs and forests, sun-cracked deserts and gra.s.sy prairies, inhabited by innumerable warlike tribes--pa.s.sed beneath the sceptre of the Sultan of Versailles; and all by virtue of a feeble human voice, inaudible at half a mile." Louisiana was the name bestowed by La Salle on this new domain of the French crown, which stretched from the Alleghanies to the Rocky Mountains; from the Rio Grande and the Gulf to the farthest springs of the Missouri.

Retracing his steps, he founded on the banks of the Illinois River a colony of French and Indians, to answer the double purpose of a bulwark against the Iroquois and a place of storage for the furs of all the western tribes; and he hoped in the following year to secure an outlet for this colony, and for all the trade of the valley of the Mississippi, by occupying the mouth of that river with a fort and another colony. The site of the colony was near the spot now occupied by the village of Utica, in the State of Illinois. Early in the following autumn he placed Tonty in charge of it, and made the best of his way to Quebec, whence he soon afterwards sailed for France. He had an interview with the King, to whom he unfolded his schemes. Louis, notwithstanding the machinations of La Salle's enemies, took a favourable view of the latter's enterprises, and in the month of July, 1684, we find him setting sail from Roch.e.l.le with a fleet of four vessels and a small army of recruits, composed of soldiers, gentlemen, artisans and labourers. Their destination was not Canada, but the Gulf of Mexico; La Salle having obtained the royal authority for a vast scheme of trade and colonization on the Mississippi, to which was tacked on a wild and impracticable scheme of conquest of the Spanish settlements in Mexico. One of the vessels, laden with provisions and other necessaries for the projected colony, was captured by buccaneers. The other three, after calling at St. Domingo, entered the Mexican Gulf. La Salle, when at the mouth of the Mississippi nearly three years before, had taken the lat.i.tude, but for some reason or other had no clue to the longitude, and the consequence was that he now sailed more than four hundred miles too far west. He landed on the coast of Texas, and spent some time in exploration before he became convinced of his error. Meanwhile he was constantly quarrelling with Beaujeu, his naval commander, as well as with other members of the expedition. Add to this that he was repeatedly prostrated by attacks of fever, and in constant expectation of being attacked by the savages of the neighbourhood; and it will be confessed that his situation was not a very enviable one. To add to his perplexities, one of his vessels went aground, and a great part of the cargo was lost. About this time Beaujeu set out to return to France. He had accomplished his mission, and landed his pa.s.sengers at what La Salle a.s.sured him to be one of the mouths of the Mississippi. His s.h.i.+p was in danger on this exposed and perilous coast, and he was anxious to find shelter. After some delay, La Salle erected a fort on Lavaca River, in which he placed the women and children and most of the men who formed part of the expedition, and with the rest of the men set out to renew his search for the mouth of the Mississippi. He set out from the fort--which he called Fort St.

Louis--with fifty men, on the 31st of October, 1685, to find the mouth of "the fatal river"--by which name it had come to be known among the band of adventurers. Five months were spent in wanderings through the wilds of that region, during which the hards.h.i.+ps and sufferings were such as to baffle description, but the object of their quest still seemed as remote as ever. At last, weary and dispirited, the survivors returned to Fort St. Louis, where La Salle fell dangerously ill, and for some time his life was despaired of. No sooner had he recovered than he determined to make his way by the Mississippi and the Illinois to Canada, whence he might bring succour to the colonists, and send a report of their condition to France. The attempt was beset with uncertainties and dangers. The Mississippi was first to be found, then followed through all the perilous monotony of its interminable windings to a goal which was to be but the starting point of a new and not less arduous journey. Twenty men, including La Salle's brother, the Abbe Cavelier, and Moranget, his nephew, were detailed to accompany him. On the 22nd of April, 1686, after ma.s.s and prayers in the chapel, they issued from the gate, each bearing his pack and his weapons, some with kettles slung at their backs, some with axes, some with gifts for Indians. In this guise they held their way in silence across the prairie. They travelled north-easterly, and encountered a due share of adventures with wild beasts and Indian savages. They traversed a large extent of country, but the attempt to discover the mouth of the Mississippi proved wholly ineffectual. After several months La Salle and eight of his twenty men returned to Fort St. Louis. Of the rest, four had deserted, one had been lost, one had been devoured by an alligator; and the rest, giving out on the march, had probably perished in attempting to regain the fort.

The journey to Canada, however, was clearly the only hope of the colonists, and on the 6th of January, 1687, the attempt to make it was renewed. The band of adventurers this time consisted of eighteen persons. At their head was La Salle himself. His brother and nephew, already mentioned, were also of the party. Of the others the only ones necessary to specify are Joutel, La Salle's trusty henchman, the second in command; Hiens, a German, formerly a pirate of the Spanish Main; Duhaut, a man of respectable birth and education, but a cruel and remorseless villain; and l'Archeveque, his servant; Liotot, the surgeon of the expedition; Teissier, a pilot; Douay, a friar; and Nika, a Shawnee Indian, who was a devoted friend of La Salle's. They proceeded northward. The members of the party were incongruous, and did not agree one with another. Duhaut and Liotot were disappointed at the ruinous result of their enterprise. They had a quarrel with young Moranget.

Already at Fort St. Louis Duhaut had intrigued against La Salle, against whom Liotot had also secretly sworn vengeance. On the 15th of March they encamped within a few miles of a spot which La Salle had pa.s.sed on his preceding journey, and where he had left a quant.i.ty of Indian corn and beans in a _cache_. As provisions were falling short he sent a party from the camp to find it. These men were Duhaut, Liotot, Hiens the buccaneer, Teissier, l'Archeveque, Nika the hunter, and La Salle's servant, Saget. They opened the _cache_, and found the contents spoiled; but as they returned they saw buffalo, and Nika shot two of them. They now encamped on the spot, and sent the servant to inform La Salle, in order that he might send horses to bring in the meat. Accordingly, on the next day he directed Moranget and another, with the necessary horses, to go with Saget to the hunters' camp. When they arrived they found that Duhaut and his companions had already cut up the meat, and laid it upon scaffolds for smoking, and had also put by for themselves certain portions to which, by woodland custom, they had a perfect right.

Moranget fell into an unreasonable fit of rage, and seized the whole of the meat. This added fuel to the fire of Duhaut's old grudge against Moranget and his uncle. The surgeon also bore hatred against Moranget.

The two took counsel apart with Hiens, Teissier, and l'Archeveque, and it was resolved to kill Moranget, Nika and Saget. All the five were of one mind, except the pilot Teissier, who neither aided nor opposed the scheme. When night came on, the order of the guard was arranged; and the first hour was a.s.signed to Moranget, the second to Saget, and the third to Nika. Gun in hand, each stood watch in turn. Duhaut and Hiens stood with their guns c.o.c.ked, ready to shoot down any one of the victims who should resist. Saget, Nika and Moranget were ruthlessly butchered, and then it was resolved that La Salle should share their fate. La Salle was still at his camp, six miles distant. Next morning, having heard nothing of Moranget or the others, he set out to find them, accompanied by his Indian guide, and by Douay, the friar. "All the way," writes the friar, "he spoke to me of nothing but matters of piety, grace, and predestination; enlarging on the debt he owed to G.o.d, who had saved him from so many perils during more than twenty years of travel in America.

Suddenly, I saw him overwhelmed with a profound sadness, for which he himself could not account. He was so much moved that I scarcely knew him." He soon recovered his usual calmness, and they walked on till they approached the camp of Duhaut, on the farther side of a small river.

Looking about him, La Salle saw two eagles circling in the air, as if attracted by the carca.s.ses of beasts or men. He fired his gun and his pistol as a summons. The shots reached the ears of the conspirators, who fired from their place of concealment, and La Salle, shot through the brain, sank lifeless on the ground. Douay stood terror-stricken. Duhaut called out to him that he had nothing to fear. The murderers came forward and gathered about their victim. "There thou liest, great Bashaw! There thou liest!" exclaimed the surgeon Liotot, in base exultation over the unconscious corpse. With mockery and insult, they stripped it naked, dragged it into the bushes, and left it there a prey to the buzzards and the wolves. It is sad to think that such was the fate of the veritable Discoverer of the Great West.

"Thus," says Mr. Parkman, "in the vigour of his manhood, at the age of forty-three, died Robert Cavelier de la Salle, 'one of the greatest men,' writes Tonty, 'of this age;' without question one of the most remarkable explorers whose names live in history. The enthusiasm of the disinterested and chivalrous Champlain was not the enthusiasm of La Salle; nor had he any part in the self-devoted zeal of the early Jesuit explorers. He belonged not to the age of the knight-errant and the saint, but to the modern world of practical study and action. He was the hero, not of a principle nor of a faith, but simply of a fixed idea and a determined purpose. It is easy to reckon up his defects, but it is not easy to hide from sight the Roman virtues that redeemed them. Beset by a throng of enemies, he stands, like the King of Israel, head and shoulders above them all. He was a tower of adamant, against whose impregnable front hards.h.i.+p and danger, the rage of man and of the elements, the southern sun, the northern blast, fatigue, famine and disease, delay, disappointment and deferred hope, emptied their quivers in vain. Never under the impenetrable mail of paladin or crusader beat a heart of more intrepid mettle than within the stoic panoply that armed the breast of La Salle. To estimate aright the marvels of his patient fort.i.tude, one must follow on his track through the vast scene of his interminable journeyings, those thousands of weary miles of forest, marsh and river, where again and again, in the bitterness of baffled striving, the untiring pilgrim pushed onwards towards the goal which he was never to attain. America owes him an enduring memory; for in this masculine figure she sees the pioneer who guided her to the possession of her richest heritage."

THE RIGHT REV. JAMES W. WILLIAMS, D.D.,

_BISHOP OF QUEBEC._

Bishop Williams is a son of the late Rev. David Williams, who was for many years Rector of Banghurst, Hamps.h.i.+re, England. He was born at the town of Overton, Hamps.h.i.+re, in 1825, and his childhood was chiefly pa.s.sed in that neighbourhood. He was intended for holy orders from his earliest years. In his boyhood he attended for some time at an educational establishment at Crewkerne, a town in the south-eastern part of Somersets.h.i.+re, whence he pa.s.sed to Pembroke College, Oxford. His collegiate course was not specially noteworthy, but was marked by considerable diligence. He graduated as B.A. in 1851, taking honours in cla.s.sics. He in due course obtained his degrees of M.A. and D.D. He was admitted to Deacon's Orders by the Lord Bishop of Oxford, and (in 1856) to Priest's Orders by the Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells. He for a short time held curacies respectively in Buckinghams.h.i.+re and Somersets.h.i.+re.

His cla.s.sical attainments were of more than average excellence, and seeing no prospect of immediate advancement in England, he in 1857 came over to Canada to a.s.sist in organizing a school in connection with Bishop's College, Lennoxville. Within a short time after his arrival he was appointed Rector of the College Grammar School, and soon afterwards succeeded to the Cla.s.sical Professors.h.i.+p of the College, a position which he retained until his elevation to the Episcopacy.

Upon the death of the late Right Rev. George Jehoshaphat Mountain, Bishop of Quebec, in 1863, the subject of this sketch was appointed his successor by the Synod; and on the 11th of June of that year he was consecrated at Quebec by the Most Reverend the Metropolitan, a.s.sisted by the Bishops of Toronto, Ontario, Huron and Vermont. His first Episcopal act was to advance three Deacons to the Priesthood.

The See over which his jurisdiction extends was const.i.tuted in the year 1793, and formerly comprised the whole of Upper and Lower Canada. Its extent has since been from time to time curtailed, and it is now confined to that part of the Province of Quebec extending from Three Rivers to the Straits of Belleisle and New Brunswick, on the sh.o.r.es of the St. Lawrence and all east of a line drawn from Three Rivers to Lake Memphremagog.

Bishop Williams is a plain and unaffected preacher, and a man of scholarly tastes. He makes no pretence to showy or splendid gifts of pulpit oratory, but is known as an energetic and industrious ecclesiastic, careful for the spiritual welfare of his diocese and clergy. Several of his lectures and sermons have been published, and have been highly commended by the religious press of Canada and the United States. Among them may be mentioned his Charge delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of Quebec, at the Visitation held in Bishop's College, Lennoxville, in 1864; and a lecture on Self-Education, published at Quebec in 1865.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CASIMIR STANISLAUS GZOWSKI, signed as C. S. GZOWSKI]

LIEUT.-COL. CASIMIR STANISLAUS GZOWSKI,

_AIDE-DE-CAMP TO HER MAJESTY QUEEN VICTORIA._

In compiling the various sketches which have appeared in the present series, the editor has frequently been compelled to encounter the difficulty of constructing a readable narrative out of very spa.r.s.e and prosaic materials. A collection of this kind must necessarily include the lives of many professional and scientific men; and eminence in literature, in science, and in the learned professions, is commonly attained by means which--however interesting to those most immediately concerned--seem wonderfully commonplace to the general public, when reduced to plain, matter-of-fact narration. As a rule, stirring and romantic incidents are incompatible with a successful professional career, and in recounting the life of a learned divine, Chief Justice, or man of science, it is rarely necessary to deal with thrilling incidents or dramatic situations. The lives of such men are usually pa.s.sed within a narrow and restricted groove, and the salient points may easily be comprised within a few lines. In the life of Colonel Gzowski, on the other hand, we have an instance of a remarkably successful professional career, combined with a chapter of vicissitude and adventure which, in the hands of a writer familiar with all the details, might very well form the groundwork of a sensation novel. His elasticity of spirits, strength of will, and vigour of const.i.tution have supported him through an amount of labour, fatigue and suffering to which a more feeble mind and a more delicately-constructed frame must inevitably have succ.u.mbed long ago. Such a life as his commonly leaves very perceptible traces behind it. In his case no such traces are discernible. Neither in his visage, his gait, nor his manner, can the most observant eye detect any sign that his pathway has not always been strewn with roses. No one remarking his erect and firmly-knit figure, his jauntiness of step, and his keenness of glance, as he perambulates our streets, would readily believe that he is rapidly approaching his sixty-eighth birthday. Still less would it be supposed that he has pa.s.sed through adventures enough for a knight-errant; that he has fought and bled in the fierce struggle for a nation's existence; that he has had his full share of the horrors of war; that he has languished in a patriot's prison; and that some of the best years of his life were pa.s.sed in a hard struggle for existence in a foreign land. As we pa.s.s in review the alternating phases of his chequered career we seem to be contemplating a s.h.i.+fting panorama of the novelist's fancy, rather than a veracious chronicle of facts. The story of his life can be adequately narrated by no other pen than his own, and for many years past he has found more profitable employment for his talents than the inditing of autobiographical memoirs. In the absence of any such memoirs, be it ours to place on record such of the more salient points of his life as are readily ascertainable.

He is descended from an ancient Polish family which was enn.o.bled in the sixteenth century, and which for more than two hundred years thereafter continued to exercise an influence upon the national affairs. His father, Stanislaus, Count (Hrabia) Gzowski, was an officer of the Imperial Guard. He himself was born on the 5th of March, 1813, at St.

Petersburg, the Russian capital, where his parents were then temporarily sojourning. His childhood was spent as the childhood of most Polish children of his station in life was pa.s.sed in those days--viz., in preparation for a military career. At nine years of age he entered a military engineering college at Kremenetz, in the Province of Volhynia, where he remained until 1830, when he graduated as an engineer, received a commission, and entered the army of Russia.

The Russian Empire was at this time on the verge of one of those periodical insurrections to which she had long been subject, more especially since the final part.i.tion and absorption of Poland, and the annihilation of the Polish monarchy. In 1825, Nicholas I. succeeded his elder brother Alexander on the throne of Russia. He had not long been installed there before he gave evidence of that aggressive policy which he pursued through life, and which nearly thirty years later involved him in the Crimean War. Some years before his accession, his elder brother Constantine, the heir-apparent to the throne, had been entrusted with the military government of Poland, and in 1822 had resigned his right to the Russian throne in Nicholas's favour. Upon the latter's accession he continued his elder brother in his sovereignty of Poland.

Constantine's administration of affairs in that unhappy country was arbitrary and despotic in the extreme, and little calculated to mollify the heartburnings of the inhabitants. His oppressions were not confined to the serfs, but extended to the n.o.bility. The result of his tyranny was the formation of secret societies with a view to striking one more blow for Polish liberty. A widespread insurrection, wherein most of the Polish officers in the Imperial army were involved, finally broke out in 1830--the year in which the subject of this sketch received his commission. The success of the concurrent revolution in France, and the forced abdication of Charles X., inspired the insurgents with high hopes. In November of the year last mentioned the Grand Duke Constantine and his Russian adherents were driven out of Warsaw, the Polish capital.

If the insurrectionary forces had been thoroughly organized, and if they had not been subjected to extraneous interference, there is reason for believing that their country might have been freed from the hateful domination of the Czar. Notwithstanding all the manifold disabilities under which they carried on the contest, they achieved a temporary success. After the expulsion of Constantine, a provisional government was formed under the presidency of Prince Czartoryski, and a series of desperate engagements was fought in which the patriots had in almost every instance a decided advantage. Their desperate courage and self-devotion, however, were of no permanent avail, for Prussia and Austria both lent their a.s.sistance to crush them, and towards the close of 1831 Warsaw was recaptured by the allied forces under Count Paskevitch, who was forthwith installed as viceroy of Poland. The crus.h.i.+ng of the insurrection was of course marked by merciless severity and cruelty. In 1832 Poland was declared to be an integral part of the Russian Empire, and all the important prisoners were either put to death, banished to Siberia, or compelled to endure the horrors of a Russian prison.

Throughout the whole of this fruitless insurrection Casimir Stanislaus Gzowski played a conspicuous part. He cast in his lot with his compatriots from the beginning; was present at the expulsion of Constantine from Warsaw, in November, 1830, and was actively engaged in numerous important conflicts that ensued. He was wounded, and several times narrowly escaped capture. We have no means of closely following him through the hazardous exploits of that dark and sanguinary period.

Persons who are familiar with the history of Polish insurrections will be at no loss to conjecture the "hair-breadth 'scapes, and moving accidents by flood and field," which he encountered in that desperate struggle for a nation's freedom. After the battle of Boremel, General Dwernicki's division, to which he was attached, retreated into Austrian territory, where the troops laid down their arms and became prisoners.

The rank and file were permitted to depart whithersoever they would, but the officers, to the number of about six hundred, were placed in durance, and quartered in several fortified stations. There they languished for several months, when, by an arrangement entered into between the governments of Russia and Austria, they were s.h.i.+pped off as exiles to the United States.

When Mr. Gzowski, with his fellow-exiles, landed at New York in the summer of 1833, he had no knowledge whatever of the English language.

When the pilot came on board at Sandy Hook, and saluted the captain of the vessel, he heard that language spoken for the first time. Like most members of the Polish and Russian aristocracy, he was an accomplished linguist, and was familiar with many of the continental languages; but it was a part of the Russian policy in those days to exclude English books from the public schools, and to prevent by every conceivable means the spread of English ideas among the people. During his course of study at the military college at Kremenetz, one of the Professors had exhibited an English book to him as a sort of outlandish curiosity. He now found himself in a strange land, without means, without any friends except his fellow-exiles--who were as helpless in that respect as himself--and without any prospect of obtaining employment. He possessed qualifications, however, which, as the event proved, were of more value than mere worldly wealth. He had been a diligent student, and had acquired what must have been, for a youth of twenty years, a thorough knowledge of engineering. He was, as has been remarked, a good linguist, and had not merely a grammatical, but a practical knowledge of the French, German and Italian languages. Better than all these, he was endowed with an iron const.i.tution, which even the rigours of an Austrian prison had not been able to injure, and a strength of will which would not admit the possibility of failure. Some idea of his resolution may be formed from the fact that, when he found that his want of knowledge of English prevented him from following the engineering profession with advantage, he determined to study law as a means of acquiring a mastery of the English tongue. After subsisting for some months in New York by giving lessons in French and German, he betook himself to Pittsfield, Ma.s.sachusetts, where he entered the office of the late Mr. Parker L.

Hall, an eminent lawyer of that town, and a gentleman of high social position. The facility displayed by the natives of Poland and Russia in acquiring a knowledge of foreign languages is well known, but the achievements of Mr. Gzowski at this time seem almost phenomenal. It must be borne in mind that while he was studying law in a tongue which was foreign to him, he was compelled to support himself by outside employment. He obtained his livelihood by teaching modern languages, drawing, and fencing, in two of the local academies. He worked early and late, and was at first obliged to study the commentaries of Blackstone and Kent through the medium of a dictionary. In nothing did he appear to greater advantage than in his invariable readiness to adapt his mind, without useless repining, to the circ.u.mstances in which he found himself. His indomitable industry, natural ability, and fine social qualities, combined with his misfortunes to make him a marked man in Pittsfield society. He gained many warm friends, but was always wise enough to remember that his success in life must mainly depend upon his own exertions. In the month of February, 1837, when he had been studying his profession about three years, he pa.s.sed a successful examination, and was only prevented from being admitted to practice by his not having become a naturalized citizen of the United States. A knowledge of the legal profession, however, was with him merely a means to an end. He had no intention of permanently devoting himself to legal practice, and had always contemplated returning to his profession of an engineer. He had by this time acquired a competent knowledge of the English language, and had begun to look about him for some suitable field for his exertions.

The development of the coal regions of Pennsylvania was attracting a good deal of attention at this time, and it occurred to him that he might not improbably find employment there. A visit to that State tended to confirm his views, and in November Term, 1837, having submitted the necessary proofs, and taken the oath of allegiance, he was duly admitted as a citizen of the United States, before the Prothonotary of the Court of Common Pleas, in Beaver County, Pennsylvania. He had brought with him from Pittsfield numerous letters of introduction to persons of high social position and influence, all bearing testimony to his unimpeachable character and wide attainments. The only obstacle to his admission to practice having been removed, he was enrolled as an advocate at the Bar of the Supreme Court, and for a short time acted as an advocate in Pennsylvania. This, however, was not the line of action for which he considered himself best qualified, nor did the prospect held out to him satisfy his ambition. He soon obtained employment as an engineer in connection with the great ca.n.a.ls and public works, and abandoned the law as a profession. He became interested in several contracts, which were faithfully and skilfully carried out; and wherever he went he won the reputation of a delightful companion and a thoroughly honourable man.

Early in 1841 the project of widening and deepening the Welland Ca.n.a.l began to be discussed with some vehemence in Upper Canada. With a view to securing a contract, Mr. Gzowski came over from Erie, Pennsylvania (where he then resided), to Toronto, and for the first time was brought into contact with some of the leading public men of Canada. The Government was then administered by Sir Charles Bagot, a gentleman whose infirm state of health did not prevent him from taking a warm interest in the public improvements of the country. Sir Charles formed a high opinion of Mr. Gzowski's talents, and sanctioned his appointment to an office in connection with the Department of Public Works. This appointment having been accepted by Mr. Gzowski, he bade adieu to his many friends in the United States, and took up his abode in Upper Canada.

During the next six years Mr. Gzowski's life was entirely occupied by his duties in connection with the Department of Public Works. It is manifestly out of the question to give even an epitome of the numberless important enterprises conducted by him during this, the busiest period of his active life. His reports of the works in connection with harbours, bridges and highways alone occupy a considerable portion of a large folio volume. It will be sufficient to say that every important provincial improvement came under his supervision, and that nearly every county in Upper Canada bears upon its surface the impress of his great industry and engineering skill. In 1846 he obtained naturalization and became a British subject. Soon after the accession to power of the Baldwin-Lafontaine Government, in 1848, his services in an official capacity were brought to a close, and he began to enter upon large engineering enterprises on his own account. Towards the end of the year 1848 he published a report on the mines of the Upper Canada Mining Company on Lake Huron. But his mind was occupied by more important schemes. The railway era set in. The Railroad Guarantee Act, authorizing Government grants to private companies undertaking the construction of railways, having been pa.s.sed in 1849, the public began to hear of various railway projects of greater or lesser importance. The first great enterprise of this sort with which Mr. Gzowski connected himself was the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad Company, from Montreal to Island Pond, which has since been amalgamated with the Grand Trunk. Mr.

Gzowski was appointed Chief Engineer of this undertaking, made a survey of the greater portion of the line, and superintended the actual construction. When the line became merged in the Grand Trunk he resigned his position of Chief Engineer, and received the most gratifying written testimonials from the Board of Directors as to his able administration of the important duties which had fallen to his share. Having formed a partners.h.i.+p with the present Sir Alexander T. Galt, the late Hon. Luther H. Holton, and the Hon. D. L. Macpherson, Mr. Gzowski for some years devoted himself entirely to the work of railway construction. On the 24th of March, 1853, the firm of Gzowski & Co. obtained the contract for the construction of the line from Toronto westward to Sarnia. This great work was prosecuted to a successful conclusion, and was attended with most gratifying pecuniary results to the contractors. The firm was then dissolved, and has since consisted of Messrs. Gzowski and Macpherson only, who continued to carry on large operations in the way of railway construction. Among other railway works constructed by the firm were the line from Port Huron to Detroit, in the State of Michigan, and the line from London to St. Mary's, in this Province. In connection with their own enterprises, and for the purpose of supplying railway companies with iron rails and materials used in the construction of railways, Messrs.