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

1684.] LA SALLE'S PLANS. 349some indications of being drawn up inorder to produce a certain effect on the minds of the King andhis minister. La Salle's immediate necessity was toobtain from them the means for establishing a fortand a colony within the mouth of the Mississippi.This was essential to his own plans; nor did he inthe least exaggerate the value of such an establishmentto the French nation, and the importance ofanticipating other powers in the possession of it.But he thought that he needed a more glittering lureto attract the eyes of Louis and Seignelay ;and thus,it may be, he held before them, in a definite andtangible form, the project ofSpanish conquest whichhad haunted his imagination from youth, — trustingthat the speedy conclusion of peace, which actuallytook place, would absolve him from the immediateexecution of the scheme, and give him time, with themeans placed at his disposal, to mature his plans andprepare for eventual action. Such a procedure maybe charged with indirectness ;but there is a differentexplanation, which we shall suggest hereafter, andwhich implies no such reproach. 1advantage in attacking the Spaniards of Mexico, and that an inroadon a comparatively small scale might have been successfullymade with their help. In 1689, Tonty actually made the attempt,as we shall see, but failed, from the desertion of his men. In 1697,the Sieur de Louvigny wrote to the Minister of the Marine, askingto complete La Salle's discoveries, and invade Mexico from Texas.(Lettre de M. de Louvigny, 14 Oct., 1697.) In an unpublished memoirof the year 1700, the seizure of the Mexican mines is given as oneof the motives of the colonization of Louisiana.*Another scheme, with similar aims, but much more practicable.