The personal interest which public officers had in the Indian trade, of necessity brought about discord between them. La Salle, having no fortune, was obliged to sustain himself in the same way, which brought him in direct antagonism with officers, priests and traders. This reference is necessary to explain the difficulties under which he labored. According to the Abbé Galinée, Governor Courcelles requested himself and Dollier DeCasson, another Sulpitian, to join La Salle in a voyage he had long contemplated, toward a great river which he conceived, from the accounts of the Iroquois, to flow westward, beyond which, after seven or eight months of travel, in their way of stating it, the river and country were lost in the sea. By this river, called by them the Ohio, Olighiny-sipu, or Beautiful River, and by others, Mescha-zebe, or Mississippi, M. de la Salle hoped to find the long sought passage to the Red, Vermillion, or South Sea, and acquire the glory of that enterprise. He also hoped to find plenty of beavers wherewith to meet the expense of the journey. We must not forget the nature of the French Government when contemplating the history of Canada. The king was absolute, not only in public but in private affairs. When he said: “I am the State,” he expressed a fact, and not a fiction or a boast. The men and women of the kingdom were subject to the will of one man, even in their personal relations and occupations. In Canada nothing escaped the supervision of his officers, who were equally absolute, which explains why permission was necessary to engage in any enterprise. The two parties left Montreal in July, 1669, La Salle having four canoes and fourteen men, the Sulpitians three canoes and eight men. They reached Ironduquoit Bay, in New York, on the 10th of August, making a portage to the Genesee valley and some Indian towns near Victor Station and Boughton Hill, sixteen miles southeasterly from Rochester. The savages told La Salle that the Ohio had its rise three days’ journey from “Sonnontouan,” or the country of the Senecas. After a month’s travel they would reach the _Hon-ni-as-ant-ke-rons_, and the Chouanons (Shawnees); after passing them and a great fall or chute, there were the Outagamies (Pottawatomies), and the country of the _Is-konsan-gos_, with plenty of deer, buffaloes, thick woods, and an immense population.