"My losses in my enterprises," he continues, "have exceeded forty thousand crowns. I am now going four hundred leagues south-south-west of this place, to induce the Chickasaws to follow the Shawanoes, and other tribes, and settle, like them, at St. Louis. It remained only to settle French colonists here, and this I have already done. I hope you will not detain them as _coureurs de bois_, when they come down to Montreal to make necessary purchases. I am aware that I have no right to trade with the tribes who descend to Montreal, and I shall not permit such trade to my men; nor have I ever issued licenses to that effect, as my enemies say that I have done." [Footnote: _Lettre de la Salle a La Barre, Fort St. Louis, 2 Avril_, 1683, MS. The above is somewhat condensed from passages in the original.] Again, on the fourth of June following, he writes to La Barre, from the Chicago portage, complaining that some of his colonists, going to Montreal for necessary supplies, have been detained by his enemies, and begging that they may be allowed to return, that his enterprise may not be ruined. "The Iroquois," he pursues, "are again invading the country. Last year, the Miamis were so alarmed by them that they abandoned their town and fled; but, at my return, they came back, and have been induced to settle with the Illinois at my fort of St. Louis. The Iroquois have lately murdered some families of their nation, and they are all in terror again. I am afraid they will take night, and so prevent the Missouries and neighboring tribes from coming to settle at St. Louis, as they are about to do.