A half-century of conflict. France and England in North America. Part ...

1731.] LA VJ^RENDRYE'S ENTERPRISE. 11manned, provisioned, and stocked with goods broughtthrough two thousand miles ofdifficult and perilouswilderness. There were other dangers, more insidious,and perhaps greater. The exclusive privileges grantedto La Vdrendrye would inevitably rouse the intensestjealousy of the Canadian merchants, and they wouldspare no effort to ruin him. Intrigue and calumnywould be busy in his absence. If, as was likely, hispatron, Beauharnois, should be recalled, the newgovernor might be turned against him, his privilegesmight be suddenly revoked, the forts he had builtpassed over to his rivals, and all his outlays turnedto their profit, as had happened to La Salle on therecall of his patron, Frontenac. On the other hand,the country was full of the choicest furs, which theIndians had hitherto carried to the English at HudsonBay, but which the proposed trading-posts wouldsecure to the French. La V^rendrye's enemies pretendedthat he thought of nothing but beaver-skins,and slighted the discovery which he had bound himselfto undertake; but his conduct proves that hewas true to his engagements, and that ambition togain honorable distinction in the service of the Kinghad a large place among the motives that impelledhim.As his own resources were ofthe smallest, he tooka number of associates on conditions most unfavorableto himself. Among them they raised money enoughto begin the enterprise, and on the eighth of June,1731, La V^rendrye and three of his sons, together