La Salle and the discovery of the great West - North Central ...

:;1678.] LA SALLE'S MEMOIR. 107parts: the first, called "Mdmoire sur Mr. de laSalle," is devoted to the state of affairs in Canada,and chiefly to the Jesuits; the second, entitled"Histoire de Mr. de la Salle," is an account of thediscoverer's life, or as much of it as the writer hadlearned from him. 1Both parts bear throughout theinternal evidence of being what they profess to bebut they embody the statements of a man of intense?partisan feeling, transmitted through the mind ofanother person in sympathy with him, and evidentlysharinghis prepossessions.In one respect, however,the paper is of unquestionable historical value ; for itgives us a vivid and not an exaggerated picture ofthe bitter strife of parties which then raged inCanada, and which was destined to tax to the utmostthe vast energy and fortitude of La Salle. At times,the memoir is fully sustained by contemporary evidence;but often, again, it rests on its own unsupportedauthority.as I find them.I give an abstract of its statementsThe following is the writer's account of La Salle" All those among my friends who have seen him findhim a man of great intelligence and sense.He rarelyspeaks of any subject except when questioned aboutit, and his words are very few and very precise. Hedistinguishes perfectly between that which he knowswith certainty and that which he knows with somemingling of doubt. When he does not know, he does1Extracts from this have already been given in connection withLa Salle's supposed discovery of the Mississippi. Ante, p. 29.