Page:Joutel's journal of La Salle's last voyage, 1684-7 (IA joutelsjournalof00jout).pdf/41

 to pasture on the growing crops. The position of La Salle became intolerable, cut off from his supplies, for which he entreated Governor La Barre in vain, threatened with an onslaught of the Iroquois, and unable to afford his own Indian allies the help which he had promised them, he had no other resource than to leave his wilderness colony in faithful Tonti's care, and cross the ocean again to face his enemies before the Court and King.

La Salle's third return visit to France. So, early in the autumn of 1683, he again turned his face homeward. Quite to his surprise, as we may well imagine, La Salle found that the time of his return was fortuitous. His old friends rallied around him; his enemies seemed, for the moment, to have lost their influence against him. Best of all, both the King and his Ministers were in better humor with him than, from the tone of recent home correspondence, he had reason to expect. The country was now at war with Spain, and the trend of official opinion chimed in very happily with the proposals which he had to offer for the consideration of King and Ministry.

These proposals were (1) to establish a fortified post upon the Gulf of Mexico, within one year after his arrival there; (2) to fortify on the Mississippi, about fifty leagues above its mouth, and there collect an army of over 15,000 Indians; thus commanding the whole river valley, and forming a base for military operations against the Spaniards in the most northern province of Mexico. His plan also embraced the adding (on his way) 50 buccaneers at St. Domingo, and 4,000 Indian warriors from his Fort St. Louis on the Illinois. For this design, he asked for a vessel of 30 guns, a few cannon for the forts, and 200 men, to be raised in France, armed, paid, and maintained at the King's expense. If, by peace with Spain, he was prevented for more than three years from the full execution of this contract, he bound himself to refund to the Crown all the costs of the enterprise, or forfeit the government of the posts thus established. The scheme which he thus outlined to the French monarch and his Minister Seignelay,