In 1686 Governor DeNonville, writing from Quebec under date of November 8th, to Seignelay, Minister of Marine, says: “I annex to this letter a memoir of our right to the whole of that country (Ohio), of which our registers ought to be full, but no memorials of them are to be found. I am told that M. Talon has the original of the entries in his possession of a great many discoveries that were made in this country, with which our registers ought to be full. Doubtless he has given them to my late Lord, your father.”—Colonial Documents, vol. 9, page 297. “The River Ohio, otherwise called the Beautiful River, and its tributaries, belong indisputably to France, by virtue of its discovery, by the _Sieur de la Salle_, and of the trading posts the French have had there since. * * * It is only within a few years that the English have undertaken to trade there.”—Instructions to M. DuQuesne, Paris, 1752, (Colonial Documents, N. Y., vol. 10, page 243). “It is only since the last war that the English have set up claims to the territory on the Beautiful River, the possession whereof has never been disputed to the French, who have always resorted to that river ever since it was discovered by Sieur de la Salle.”—Instructions to Vaudreuil, Versailles, April, 1755, (Colonial Documents, vol. 10, page 293). As the Jesuits in Canada were personally hostile to La Salle, they never mention his name in their relations, or the discoveries made by him. They were jealous of him as a discoverer and a trader, despised him as a friend of the Sulpitians, and an apostate from the Society of Jesus, an order at that time so powerful in Canada that the governor-general was obliged to compliment them in his open dispatches, while he spoke severely of them in cypher. Louis XIV. was not required to expend more money in wars than other French monarchs, but his civil projects were ample and his pleasures very expensive. He was habitually straitened for funds, and required the strictest economy in the expenses of all his officers. In Canada parsimony in public affairs was even more rigid than in France. The governor-general was unable to live on his salary. Intendants, ecclesiastics and local governors were in a still worse predicament. It was expected that all of them would make up this deficiency by traffic in furs. Many of the dispatches from Versailles are laden with warnings against incurring expenses, which amounted to commands. Many of those sent in reply contain passages congratulating the king on acquisitions of territory and glory, which cost him nothing. Three-quarters of a century later, as related above, in negotiations with England, the Ohio country was claimed by the French, on the sole ground of the discoveries of La Salle.