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

16 CAVELIER DE LA SALLE. [1669.nary,which had given it to him, should buy it backagain, with such improvements as he had made.Queylus, the Superior, being favorably disposedtowards him, consented, and bought of him thegreater part; while La Salle sold the remainder,including the clearings, to one Jean Milot, an ironmonger,for twenty-eight hundred livres. 1 Withthis he bought four canoes, with the necessary supplies,and hired fourteen men.Meanwhile, the Seminary itself was preparing asimilar enterprise.The Jesuits at this time not onlyheld an ascendency over the other ecclesiastics in' Canada, but exercised an inordinate influence on thecivil government.The Seminary priests of Montrealwere jealous of these powerful rivals, and eager toemulate their zeal in the saving ofsouls and the conqueringof new domains for the Faith. Under thisimpulse, they had, three years before, established amission at Quinte*, on the north shore of LakeOntario, in charge of two of their number, one ofwhom was the Abbe* Fdnelon, elder brother of thecelebrated Archbishop of Cambray. Another ofthem, Dollier de Casson, had spent the winter in ahunting-camp of the Nipissings, where an Indianprisoner, captured in the Northwest, told him ofpopulous tribes of that quarter living in heathenishdarkness. On this, the Seminary priests resolved toessay their conversion; and an expedition, to bedirected by Dollier, was fitted out to this end.1Ceuion de la Seigneurie; Contrat de Vente (Margry, i. 103, 104).