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

;1670.] SAINT-LUSSON AND PERROT. 49of the King's purse. La Salle paid all the expensesof his firstexpedition made under Talon's auspicesand apparently of the second also, though the intendantannounces it in his despatches as an expeditionsent out by himself. 1 When, in 1670, he orderedDaumont de Saint-Lusson to search for copper mineson Lake Superior, and at the same time to take formalpossession of the whole interior for the King, it wasarranged that he should pay the costs ofby trading with the Indians. 2the journeySaint-Lusson set out with a small party of men,and Nicolas Perrot as his interpreter. AmongCanadian voyageurs, few names are so conspicuousas that of Perrot ; not because there were not otherswho matched him in achievement, but because hecould write, and left behind him a tolerable accountof what he had seen. 3 He was at this time twentysixyears old,and had formerly been an engage of theJesuits. He was a man of enterprise, courage, and1At least, La Salle was in great need of money, about the timeof his second journey. On the sixth of August, 1671, he hadreceived on credit, "dans son grand besoin et ne'cessite," fromBranssac, fiscal attorney of the Seminary, merchandise to the amountof four hundred and fifty livres ; and on the eighteenth of Decemberof the following year he gave his promise to pay the same sum,in money or furs, in the August following.in the ancient records of Montreal.Faillon found the papers2 In his^despatch of 2d Nov., 1671, Talon writes to the King that" Saint-Lusson's expedition will cost nothing, as he has receivedbeaver enough from the Indians to pay him."8 Moeurs, Coustumes, et Relligion des Sauvages de VAmerique Septentrionale.This work of Perrot, hitherto unpublished, appeared in1864, under the editorship of Father Tailhan, S. J. A great part ofit is incorporated inLa Potherie.4