LA SALLE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

123

again, and ready to prosecute his explorations. But then he went down the Mississippi to the mouth,* took possession of the territory in the name of Louis XIV., called it after that monarch, Louisiana, and slowly retraced his steps to Quebec, where he arrived towards the end of 1683. The exploration was made at the time when Louis XIV. was indeed "le grand monarque." He was striding over Europe with none to disturb his progress, and his ministers were inflated by the prospect of new dominions in which the nation might spread itself abroad. It was confidently expected that a new empire would speedily arise on the shores of the great river, and a fleet of four vessels was prepared with a colony of two hundred and eighty persons to people the valley. The grand preparation was the precursor of a sad and ignominious end. The voyage was begun August 1, 1684, and the fleet arrived off the mouth of the Mississippi in January; but from a miscalculation, this fact was not known until the mouth of the river had been passed, and the commander was unwilling to return as La Salle desired. La Salle and his colonists were at first landed on the southern shore of Louisiana near the Sabine River, but subsequently taken to Matagorda Bay, where a place still bears the name of La Salle. The store ship had been wrecked on entering the bay, and the fleet soon after deserted the colony, leaving it-two hundred and fifty persons-almost without resources. The heart of the chivalric leader did not quail; he established a fort, and then

*Jesuit missionaries had discovered the great river eight or nine years earlier, and the result of this exploration is still exhibited in a map drawn by Louis Jolliet, in 1674, which is preserved in Paris. It lays down the lakes, and the course of the Mississippi to the sea.

started out November 1, 1685, to find the river. All his excursions proved vain, and he determined to seek the gold mines of New Mexico. In this he was doomed again to disappointment, and in January, 1687, he started to return. His colony had been reduced to thirty-seven, and with sixteen of these he set out for the land of the Illinois and Canada.

On the banks of the Trinity River, Texas, (probably in San Jacinto, formerly Polk County), La Salle was treacherously shot by one of his men who had long shown a mutinous spirit. Thus ended the life of one of the most high-minded, daring and far-seeing of all the adventurers who gave themselves to the work of exploring and peopling the New World. He gave to France her claim to the Mississippi Valley and Texas; a claim that was always respected.

The next French attempt to colonize Louisiana was under the command of Lemoine d'Iberville, who entered the Mississippi March 2, 1699, established a colony at Biloxi (now in the State of Mississippi), and sailed up the Mississippi River as far as Natchez. Though he effected little, he is considered the founder of Louisiana.

Do you know of the dreary land,

If land such region may seem,
Where 'tis neither sea nor strand,
Ocean nor good dry land,

But the nightmare marsh of a dream?
Where the mighty river his death-road takes,

'Mid pools and windings that coil like snakes,
A hundred leagues of bayous and lakes,

To die in the great Gulf Stream?

- Brownell.

CHAPTER VII.

THE DUTCH SETTLERS AND LATER COLONISTS.

TH

HE attempts of the Dutch to colonize the New World were but an episode in its history, for the Dutch supremacy in New Amsterdam lasted only seventy years, and that brief period was interrupted by nine years of English rule. The Dutch claim to any portion of the country rests on the discoveries. made by an English navigator, temporarily in the employ of the Dutch East India Company, Henry Hudson, referred to by Dutch writers as Hendrick Hudson. This discoverer was unknown until 1607, when he was first employed by a company of London merchants to search for the northwest passage to the lands of the Grand Khan, which Columbus also had sought. He made unsuccessful voyages, in 1607 and 1608, and the merchants did not engage his ser vices again. He therefore made his third voyage under the auspices of the Dutch East India Company. intending to find China by the northeast passage which Sebastian Cabot had sought in 1553, about half a century before. The climate proving too severe for Hudson's men, he crossed the Atlantic to the coast of Maine, which he explored, and on the second of September, discovered the mouth of the river that has since borne his name.