that all their hardships were owing to La Salle's headstrong humor, in his disdaining to advise with any one; and some of the most considerable among them proposed returning to France with M. Beaujeu, who was making ready for his voyage. La Salle applied to him for the cannon and bullets, which he had on board; but Beaujeu answered that the season was so far advanced, that he could not spare time, as they were in the bottom of the hold, for putting them ashore. This was not the only mortification La Salle met with at this time; for, though the captain of the Amiable was convicted of running his vessel ashore with design, yet Beaujeu received him and his crew on board, and, setting sail, he left La Salle with no more than ten field pieces ashore, and almost quite destitute of balls and ammunition.

These untoward circumstances were far from

daunting La Salle. He set about erecting a storehouse, which he intrenched and fortified as well as he could, though Hennepin says that the fort was almost finished before Beaujeu sailed. While the fort was building, La Salle gave the charge of it to Joutel and left about one hundred and

twenty persons with him. With the remainder, which did not exceed fifty, he proceeded in his own frigate up the stream, still of opinion that it was either the Mississippi, or a branch of that river. He

had not made great progress, when, hearing some discharges made by Joutel against the savages, who were molesting the store-house, or fort, as it was called, he returned with five or six of his company, and informed Joutel, that, having found a most commodious situation, he had begun to build a fort further up the river. He then took leave of Joutel and returned to his newly founded fort, where he soon perceived that the savages had robbed his workmen of their tools and utensils, and that even when they were supplied with others, they knew not how to use them; so that the work went on slowly.

In the beginning of June, La Salle sent an order to his nephew Moranger, to bring all the people from the old to the new fort, excepting thirty, who were to be left with Joutel and the store-keeper. Scarcely was the main body gone, when two ruffians entered into a conspiracy to murder these two officers, and desert with their spoils. This plot was discovered by a third soldier, whom the conspirators wanted to make an accomplice, and Joutel put them both in irons. On the 14th of July, a fresh order came from La Salle, commanding Joutel to entirely abandon the first fort, and repair to him with all his people, which he accordingly did; but he found La Salle and his new settlement in a wretched condition. The fort was but little ad

vanced; for scarcely any part of it, except a small magazine, was covered over head. They had planted and sowed; but little came up, and even that little had been destroyed by wild animals. Several of the most considerable adventurers were dead, and maladies were every day increasing among the living. All these mortifying circumstances greatly affected La Salle; but he dissembled his chagrin and continued to behave with incredible spirit and industry. No sooner were his people reunited, than he set them the example of working at the fort with his own hands, which would have had an excellent effect by raising an emulation among the men, had he not destroyed it by his excessive cruelty and severity. He gave them no respite from labor; he could not bestow on any one a civil expression; he punished every fault with the utmost rigor; and misery, which commonly renders other men sociable, seemed only to exasperate him into inhumanity. At the same time, despair and want of wholesome food threw his men into a kind of languor, which carried off numbers. To crown those misfortunes, the imprudence of some of his people had rendered the inhabitants of the place irreconcilable enemies to the new settlement.

The natives were called Clamcoets, a cruel, perfidious people, but remarkable for covering their

revenge and deceit under the appearances of buffoonery and gayety. They had strong liquors of their own making, and were extremely addicted to drinking.

At last La Salle finished his fort which he called St. Lewis, and he gave the same name to the bay of St. Bernard, into which he still believed the Mississippi discharged itself, and therefore he resolved to make an accurate survey of it in his frigate. He covered the roof of his fort with green turf, to prevent its being set on fire by the arrows, which the savages used to discharge with lighted matches tied to them. It happened luckily for La Salle and his adventurers, that those barbarians were cowardly to a ridiculous degree, and two or three Frenchmen often put as many dozen of them to flight; but they never failed to destroy the French, when they could do it by stealth. La Salle, finding he could not reclaim, endeavored to subdue them, and he had many skirmishes with them, in which he was always conqueror; yet he never could bring them to give him information concerning the country or lend him their peraguas, which were so necessary for him in his intended voyage. So far, however, he prevailed, that, being intimidated, they removed to a convenient distance from the fort, and gave the new settlers time for cultivating their lands, and raising their stock. These meas

ures they took with amazing success, and even found time to build canoes, which proved of the greatest utility in the undertaking. At last, in the month of October, La Salle, with the bulk of his people, went on board his frigate, leaving Joutel, with thirty-four persons under his command, at Fort Lewis, and strictly enjoining him, that he should admit none of those who attended him into the fort, without a particular order signed by himself. About the middle of January, 1686, Duhaut, one of the adventurers, whose younger brother, Dominique, had been left in the fort, came back to it alone in a canoe, and Joutel thought he had so little to apprehend from him, that he received him into the fort without a particular order for admission from La Salle. This man reported that La Salle's pilot had orders to sound the mouth of the river; but that, going ashore with five men, they were all murdered, while they were asleep, by the savages; and La Salle next morning found the remains of their bodies, which had been devoured by the wild beasts. Although the death of this pilot was an irreparable loss to La Salle, he ordered the frigate to advance up the bay, while he himself crossed it with two canoes, then proceeded by land, attended by twenty persons, till he reached the banks of a fine river, where Duhaut pretended he accidentally lost them, and that, in searching for