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It appears from a letter of the Governor, La Barre, that Franquelin was at Quebec in 1683, engaged on a map which was probably that of which the title is given above, though, had La Barre known that it was to be called a map of the journeys of his victim La Salle, he would have been more sparing of his praises. Colonial Documents of New York, ix. 205.
With the utmost precipitation, the Frenchmen paddled back to their companions. La Salle then sent another canoe, with four Indians, bearing the calumet. They advanced with great caution, and met with the same hostile reception. He then directed the canoes to press as near the opposite bank as possible, to ply their paddles with all energy, and thus hurry by the point of peril.
The order had been given to Sir Francis Letchmere's valet that he was to bring over to the Salle de Jeux any telegram or 'phone message that might arrive. Larssen was keenly interested in the throng of smart men and women clustered around the tables. Here was the raw material of his craft human nature. Moths around a candle well, he himself had lit many candles.
He accordingly asked Frontenac for trading privileges at Cataraqui, the site of modern Kingston, where stood the fortified post named after the governor. Upon Frontenac's recommendation La Salle received in 1674 not only the exclusive right to trade but also a grant of land at Fort Frontenac on condition that he would rebuild the defenses with stone and supply a garrison.
On the 6th February, 1682, they left the junction of the Illinois and the Mississippi to trace that great river to its outlet in the sea. La Salle reached the delta on the 6th April, 1682, having on the way taken possession of the country in the name of the King of France. Accault and Father Hennepin had meantime paddled up the Northern Mississippi as far as its junction with the Wisconsin.
He rode through the territory which La Salle had so appealingly described to Louis XIV, now yellow with ripe wheat. The fertile soil had given Illinois five million bushels of wheat, and it was too much. It was more than the sickle and the scythe could cut. Men toiled and sweltered to save the yellow affluence from destruction. They worked by day and by night; and their wives and children worked.
Enough has been said of Frontenac's tastes to show that he was a spendthrift; and there can be no doubt that as governor of Canada he hoped to supplement his salary by private trading. Soon after his arrival at Quebec in the preceding year he had formed an alliance with La Salle.
Cautiously feeling their way, they held a northerly course, till, on the twenty-eighth of December, a sailor at the mast-head of the "Aimable" saw land. La Salle and all the pilots had been led to form an exaggerated idea of the force of the easterly currents; and they therefore supposed themselves near the Bay of Appalache, when, in fact, they were much farther westward.
The Indians, men, women and children, received La Salle and his party even affectionately. They took the strangers into their warm cabins, spread bear-skin couches for them, to sleep with their feet toward the fire, and fed them with their daintiest bits of game. White-fish were taken in great abundance at that place, and were deemed in flavor equal to the golden brook-trout.
As they could probably bring many hundred warriors into the conflict, and could make the attack not only from their capacious periaguas, but also from the shelter of the trees on the bank, the situation of the French seemed quite desperate. La Salle, in this emergence, drew his canoes to the shore, a little below the village, and on the opposite bank.
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