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 hardship 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. That very pride, which, Coriolanus-like, declared itself most sternly in the thickest press of foes, has in it something to challenge admiration. 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 fortitude, 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 onward towards the goal which he was never to attain. America owes him an enduring memory; for in this masculine figure, cast in iron, she sees the heroic pioneer who guided her to the possession of her richest heritage. [Footnote: On the assassination of La Salle, the evidence is fourfold: 1st, The narrative of Douay, who was with him at the time. 2d, That of Joutel, who learned the facts immediately after they took place, from Douay and others, and who parted from La Salle an hour or more before his death. 3d, A document preserved in the Archives de la Marine, entitled _"Relation de la Mort du Sr. de la Salle suivant le rapport d'un nomine Couture a qui M. Cavelier l'apprit en passant au pays des Akansa, avec toutes les circonstances que le dit Couture a apprises d'un Francais que M. Cavelier avoit laisse aux dits pays des Akansa, crainte qu'il ne gardat pas le secret,"_ 4th, The authentic memoir of Tonty, of which a copy from the original is before me, and which has recently been printed by Margry.