In 1677 La Salle was despatched to France to procure royal authority for following up the explorations of Joliet and Marquette. He also applied for a patent of nobility; and as this request was strongly supported by Frontenac, he was made seigneur over a large tract of land, including the fort of Cataraqui,[12] and was empowered to build and occupy other forts in furtherance of exploration. The opening sentences of this instrument show the King's anxiety to extend his vast dominions in the New World: "Louis, by the grace of God, King of France and Navarre, to our dear and well-beloved Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle, greeting. We have received with favour the very humble petition made us in your name, to permit you to labour at the discovery of the western parts of New France; and we have the more willingly entertained this proposal since we have nothing more at heart than the exploration of this country, through which, to all appearances, a way may be found to Mexico...." [Footnote 12: Later called Fort Frontenac, and the site of the present city of Kingston.] To La Salle the commission was full of promise, for his ardent mind was filled with bold designs. He foresaw a time when French enterprise, leaving the rugged civilisation on the banks of the St. Lawrence, would seize upon the rich valley of the Mississippi; a fortified post at the mouth of the Father of Waters would hold the interior of the continent against the Spaniards; and the peltries and buffalo hides of the great West would fill his forts with gold. With Henri de Tonty, La Motte de Lussière, Father Hennepin, and thirty men, La Salle hastened to Quebec in the summer of 1678, and without loss of time he organised his first expedition to the distant Mississippi. The story of that enterprise is a tale of disaster which has few parallels in history. A perilous passage over Lake Ontario in a ten-ton vessel brought them to Niagara. Above the falls they built _The Griffin_, a schooner of forty-five tons, to carry the necessities of the Mississippi settlement westward by way of the Great Lakes. This vessel was lost by some obscure calamity, and the conjecture is that she foundered in Lake Michigan. La Salle now found himself at the head of a mutinous company stranded at Fort Crèvecoeur on the Illinois, facing a winter with practically no provisions. Six of his men deserted, and on two occasions treachery all but deprived him of his life.