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

;246 THE ADVENTURES OF HENNEPIN. [1680.his voyage to the mouth of the river and back.Looking further, we findon thethat having left the Illinoistwenty-fourth he paddled his canoe two hundredleagues northward, and was then captured bythe Sioux on the twelfth of the same month. Inshort, he ensnares himself in a hopeless confusion ofdates. 1Here, one would think, is sufficient reason forrejecting his story ; and yet the general truth of thedescriptions, and a certain verisimilitude which marksit,might easily deceive a careless reader and perplexa critical one.These, however, are easily explained.Six years before Hennepin published his pretendeddiscovery, his brother friar, Father Chretien LeClerc, published an account of the Rdcollet missionsamong the Indians, under the title of " Etablissementde la Foi." This book, offensive to the Jesuits, issaid to have been suppressed by order of governmentbut a few copies fortunately survive. 2 One of theseis now before me. It contains the journal of FatherZenobe Membre*, on his descent of the Mississippi in1 Hennepin here falls into gratuitous inconsistencies. In theedition of 1697, in order to gain a little time, he says that he leftthe Illinois on his voyage southward on the eighth of March, 1680and yet in the preceding chapter he repeats the statement of thefirst edition, that he was detained at the Illinois by floating ice tillthe twelfth. Again, he says in the first edition that he was capturedby the Sioux on the eleventh of April ; and in the edition of1697 he changes this date to the twelfth, without gaining anyadvantage by doing so.1Le Clerc's book had been made the text of an attack on theJesuits.la Foi.See Reflexions sur un Livre intitule* Premier Etablissement deThis piece is printed in the Morale Pratique des Jesuites.