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

312 ST. LOUIS OF THE ILLINOIS. [1682/going. I pray you, my dear sir, to give me oncemore all the help you can. I have great enemies,who have succeeded in all they have undertaken. Ido not pretend to resist them, but only to justifymyself, sobegun here by land."that I can pursue by sea the plans I haveThis was what he had proposed to himself fromthe first; that is, to abandon the difficult accessthrough Canada, beset withenemies, and open a wayto his western domain through the Gulf and theMississippi. This was the aim of all his toilsomeexplorations. Could he have accomplished his firstintention of building a vessel on the Illinois anddescending in her to the Gulf, he would have beenable to defray in good measure the costs of the enterpriseby means of the furs and buffalo-hides collectedon the way and carried in her to France. With afleet of canoes, this was impossible; and there wasnothing to offset the enormous outlay which he andhis associates had made. He meant, as we have seen,to found on the banks of the Illinois a colony ofFrench and Indians to answer the double purpose ofa bulwark against the Iroquois and a place of storagefor the furs of all the western tribes; and he hopedin the following year to secure an outlet for thiscolony and for all the trade of the valley of theMississippi, by occupying the mouth of that river/ with a fort and another colony. This, too, was anessential part of his original design.But for his illness, he would have gone to France