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

1684.] LA BARRE REBUKED. 351to attempt.La Forest, La Salle's lieutenant, ejectedfrom Fort Frontenac by La Barre, was now at Paris;and he was despatched to Canada, empowered toreoccupy, in La Salle's name, both Fort Frontenacand Fort St. Louis of the Illinois. The King himselfwrote to La Barre in a strain that must havesent a cold thrill through the veins of that official."I hear," he says, "that you have taken possessionof Fort Frontenac, the property of the Sieur de laSalle, driven away his men, suffered his land to runto waste, and even told the Iroquois that they mightseize him as an enemy of the colony." He adds,that, if this is true, La Barre must make reparationfor the wrong, and place all La Salle's property, aswell as his men, in the hands of the Sieur de laForest, "as I am satisfied that Fort Frontenac wasnot abandoned, as you wrote to me that it hadbeen." 1 Four days later, he wrote to the intendantof Canada, Meules, to the effect that the bearer, LaForest, is to suffer no impediment, and that La Barreis to surrender to him without reserve all thatbelongs to La Salle. 2 Armed with this letter, LaForest sailed for Canada. 8i Lettre du Roy d La Barre, Versailles, 10 Avril, 1684.2 Lettre du Roy d De Meules, Versailles, 14 Avril, 1684. Seignelaywrote to De Meules to the same effect.* On La Forest's mission, — Memoire pour representer a Afonseigneurle Marquis de Seignelay la necessite d'envoyer le S r - de la Foresten diligence h la Nouvelle France ; Lettre du Roy a La Barre, 14 Avril,1684; Ibid., 31 Oct., 1684.There is before me a promissory note of La Salle to La Forest,of 5,200 livres, dated at Rochelle, 17 July, 1684 This seems to be