France and England in North America, Part III: The Discovery of the Great West (1870)Parkman, Francis
History
France and England in North America, Part III: The Discovery of the Great West (1870)
Parkman, Francis
Canada -- History -- To 1763 (New France)
For a time, they bore on prosperously. Then the wind died to a calm, then
freshened to a gale, then rose to a furious tempest; and the vessel tossed
wildly among the short, steep, perilous waves of the raging lake. Even La
Salle called on his followers to commend themselves to Heaven. All fell to
their prayers but the godless pilot, who was loud in complaint against his
commander for having brought him, after the honor he had won on the ocean,
to drown at last ignominiously in fresh water. The rest clamored to the
saints. St. Anthony of Padua was promised a chapel to be built in his
honor, if he would but save them from their jeopardy; while in the same
breath La Salle and the friars declared him patron of their great
enterprise. [Footnote: Hennepin (1683), 58.] The saint heard their
prayers. The obedient winds were tamed; and the "Griffin" plunged on her
way through foaming surges that still grew calmer as she advanced. Now the
sun shone forth on woody islands, Bois Blanc and Mackinaw and the distant
Manitoulins,--on the forest wastes of Michigan and the vast blue bosom of
the angry lake; and now her port was won, and she found her rest behind
the point of St. Ignace of Michillimackinac, floating in that tranquil
cove where crystal waters cover but cannot hide the pebbly depths beneath.
Before her rose the house and chapel of the Jesuits, enclosed with
palisades; on the right, the Huron village, with its bark cabins and its
fence of tall pickets; on the left, the square compact houses of the
French traders; and, not far off, the clustered wigwams of an Ottawa
village. [Footnote: There is a rude plan of the establishment in La
Hontan, though, in several editions, its value is destroyed by the
reversal of the plate.] Here was a centre of the Jesuit missions, and a
centre of the Indian trade; and here, under the shadow of the cross, was
much sharp practice in the service of Mammon. Keen traders, with or
without a license; and lawless _coureurs de bois_, whom a few years of
forest life had weaned from civilization, made St. Ignace their resort;
and here there were many of them when the "Griffin" came. They and their
employers hated and feared La Salle, who, sustained as he was by the
Governor, might set at nought the prohibition of the king, debarring him
from traffic with these tribes. Yet, while plotting against him, they took
pains to allay his distrust by a show of welcome.
The "Griffin" fired her cannon, and the Indians yelped in wonder and
amazement. The adventurers landed in state, and marched, under arms, to
the bark chapel of the Ottawa village, where they heard mass. La Salle
knelt before the altar, in a mantle of scarlet, bordered with gold.
Soldiers, sailors, and artisans knelt around him,--black Jesuits, gray
Recollets, swarthy _voyageurs_ and painted savages; a devout but motley
concourse.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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