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

1680] HENNEPIN'S RESOLUTION. 243instructionsgiven him, without the smallest intimationthat he did more. 1 Fourteen years after, whenLa Salle was dead, he published another edition ofhis travels, 2 in which he advanced a new and surprisingpretension.Reasons connected with his personalsafety, he declares, before compelled him toremain silent ;but a time at length had come whenthe truth must be revealed. And he proceeds toaffirm, that, before ascending the Mississippi, he,with his two men, explored its whole course from theIllinois to the sea, — thusanticipating the discoverywhich forms the crowning laurel of La Salle."I am resolved," he says, "to make known hereto the whole world the mystery of this discovery,which I have hitherto concealed, that I might notoffend the Sieur de la Salle, who wished to keep allthe glory and all the knowledge of it to himself. Itis for this that he sacrificed many persons whose liveshe exposed, to prevent them from making knownwhat they had seen, and thereby crossing hissecretplans. ... I was certain that if I went down theMississippi, he would not fail to traduce me to mysuperiors for not taking the northern route, which Iwas to have followed in accordance with his desireand the plan we had made together. But I sawmyself on the point of dying of hunger, and knewnot what to do; because the two men who were with1 Description de la Louisiane, nouvellement dScouverte, Paris, 1683.2 Nouvelle Decouverte d'un tres grand Pays situe dans VAmirique,Utrecht, 1697.