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

1679.] SUFFERING AND DISCONTENT. 147to be drunk, attacked the blacksmith and tried tokill him ; but the Frenchman, brandishing a red-hotbar of iron, held him at bay till Hennepin ran to therescue, when, as he declares, the severity of hisrebuke caused the savage to desist. 1 The work ofthe ship-builders advanced rapidly; and when theIndian visitors beheld the vast ribs of the woodenmonster, their jealousy was redoubled. A squawtold the French that they meant to burn the vessel onthe stocks. All now stood anxiously on the watch.Cold, hunger, and discontent found imperfect antidotesin Tonty's energy and Hennepin's sermons.La Salle was absent, and his lieutenant commandedin his place.Hennepin says that Tonty was jealousbecause he, the friar, kept a journal, and that hewas forced to use all manner of just precautions toprevent the Italian from seizing it. The men, beinghalf-starved, in consequence of the loss of their provisionson Lake Ontario, were restless and moody;and their discontent was fomented by one of theirnumber, who had very probably been tampered withby La Salle's enemies. 2 The Senecas refused to1Hennepin (1704), 97. On a paper drawn up at the instance ofthe Intendant Duchesneau, the names of the greater number of LaSalle's men are preserved. These agree with those given by Hennepin: thus, the master-carpenter, whom he calls Mattre Moyse,appears as Moise Hillaret ; and the blacksmith, whom he calls LaForge, is mentioned as — (illegible) dit la Forge.2 " This bad man," says Hennepin, " would infallibly have debauchedour workmen, if I had not reassured them by the exhortationswhich I made them on ffite-days and Sundays, after divineservice " (1704), 98.