Explorers and Travellers

In withdrawing from the demolished post, while doubling the island at the mouth of the Penobscot, he had an opportunity of justifying his reputation as the most skilful officer in the French service; for, falling in with an English squadron of seven sail, he successfully evaded them by bold seamanship along the very coast line of that dangerous and rock-bound shore.

His capacity as a military commander was now to be tested. Charged by the king to co-operate in the reduction of Newfoundland to French power, Iberville found himself viewed with jealousy by his colleague, Brouillan, governor of Placentia, who assumed entire command, interfered with Iberville’s contemplated movements, and declared that his own troops, the Canadians, should not accompany him on the opening campaign.

Iberville realizing the necessity of zealous and concerted action in an enterprise of such importance, decided to leave the field free to Brouillan, and so announced his intention of returning to France. Immediately the Canadians declared to a man that they were bound to him alone, that Frontenac’s orders recognized Iberville as commander, and finally, that they would return to Quebec sooner than accept another. Brouillan recognizing that Iberville was the idol of his Canadian countrymen, and unable to deny that the king had confided all the enterprises to be undertaken during the winter to Iberville, made such concessions as brought about reconciliation; nevertheless the campaign undertaken against St. John’s was marked by dissension. Iberville displayed his usual energy and gallantry in the advance and subsequent skirmishes which ultimately resulted in the surrender of St. John’s, which was abandoned and destroyed by fire. The campaign was pursued with such energy and success that at the end of two months the English had nothing left in Newfoundland except Bona Vista and Carbonniere Island. During these operations Iberville displayed marked ability in handling troops, both in the field and during siege operations. His eagerness to share every danger, and willingness to undergo every hardship in common with his troops, endeared him to all and contributed much to the enthusiasm with which his men followed him or obeyed his orders.

In May, 1697, his brother Serigny arrived at Placentia with four vessels, destined for the command of Iberville in a proposed attempt to again reduce Hudson Bay. With these ships – le Pelican, fifty guns; le Palmier, forty guns; le Profond, le Vespe, and a brigantine – Iberville entered the mouth of Hudson Strait on August 3d, and was immediately beset with heavy ice. The floes were driven hither and thither with such violence by the currents that Iberville directed, as the best means of safety, that each vessel should moor itself to the largest attainable iceberg. This expedient saved four of the ships, but an unexpected movement of two large bergs crushed so completely the brigantine that she sank instantly, the crew barely escaping with their lives.

After a besetment of twenty-four days, Iberville succeeded in extricating his vessel from the ice and passed into the bay. He was alone and in utter ignorance of the fate of his consorts, which had been hidden from view by the ice for the past seventeen days. Iberville was not the man to turn back, nor indeed to delay in an expedition which demanded haste, so he pushed on alone and reached Port Nelson on September 4th.

The next morning he discovered three ships several leagues to the leeward, tacking to enter the harbor. He hoped that they were his consorts, and he at once made signals, which being unanswered showed that the ships were English. It was indeed an English squadron, consisting of the Hampshire, fifty-two guns and two hundred and thirty men; the Hudson Bay, thirty-two guns, and the Deringue, also of thirty-two guns, against which force Iberville had but one ship of fifty guns. It was with reason that, as Jeremie says, “they flattered themselves with the idea of capturing Iberville, seeing that they were three to one, and they were amazed at the boldness with which he attacked them.”

Indeed, almost any other officer in the French navy would have considered an attack as simply madness, but such desperate odds only served to stimulate to the highest degree the known courage and skill of Iberville. He cleared his decks for action, and instantly quitting the shelter and supposed advantage of the harbor, attacked the English squadron in the open sea, where Iberville doubtless counted that his skill in handling ship would inure to his benefit.

Charlevoix thus describes this desperate fight:

“The cannonade opened about half-past nine in the morning and was kept up incessantly till one with great vigor on both sides. Meanwhile the Pelican had only one man killed and seventeen wounded. Then Iberville, who had kept the weather-gauge, bore down straight on the two frigates, pouring in several broadsides at close quarters in order to disable them. At that moment he perceived the third, the Hampshire, coming on with twenty-six guns in battery on each side, with a crew of two hundred and thirty men.

“He at once proceeded to meet her, all his guns pointed to sink her, ran under her lee, yard-arm to yard-arm, and having brought his ship to, poured in his broadside. This was done so effectively that the Hampshire, after keeping on about her own length, went down. Iberville at once wore and turned on the Hudson Bay, the ship of the remaining two that could most easily enter St. Teresa River; but as he was on the point of boarding her, the commandant struck his flag and surrendered.

“Iberville then gave chase to the Deringue, the third, which was escaping to the northeast, and which was only a good cannon-shot off; but as that vessel was as good a sailor as his own ship he soon gave up the chase, not daring to crowd sail, having had much of his rigging cut, two pumps burst, his shrouds considerably injured, hull cut up by seven cannon-balls and pierced at the water’s edge, with no way of stopping the leak. He accordingly veered and sent the Sieur de la Sale in his boat with twenty-five men to man the prize. He then proceeded to repair damage, and having done so with great expedition, he renewed the chase of the enemy, who was now three leagues off.

“He began to gain on him when, in the evening, the wind changed to the north, and a thick fog suddenly rising, he lost sight of the Deringue. This accident compelled him to rejoin the Hudson Bay, and he anchored near the Hampshire, now almost out of sight, and from which not a soul had been saved.”

In this fight with an enemy more than twice his superior in guns and men Iberville had sunk one ship, captured another, and put the third to flight; but this was followed by other experiences, which at the outset presented conditions apparently not less desperate and discouraging. Two days later, pending his siege operations against Port Nelson, a violent gale arose, in which, says Charlevoix, “In spite of all d’Iberville’s efforts to ride it out – and there was not, perhaps, in the French navy one more skilful in handling a ship – he was driven ashore with his vessel, the Pelican, and his prize, the Hudson Bay. The misfortune happened at night, the darkness increasing the horrors of the storm and preventing them from beaching the vessels at a favorable place and so saving them, and before the break of day they broke up and filled.”

Both vessels were crowded with wounded men and prisoners, who endeavored as best they could to reach the shore in the storm and darkness. Twenty-three perished in the attempt, but fortunately the receding tide left such shallows that the rest reached shore, and most of the prisoners successfully sought the friendly shelter of Fort Nelson.

Iberville now found himself in most desperate plight – shipwrecked on a barren coast, with a hostile garrison on land, the return of the English ship at sea possible, and destitute of provisions. He turned to the wrecked vessels and found that it was possible to obtain from them cannon and other munitions of war, and, undismayed, he set his cold, wet, and hungry crew at this task, resolved to obtain food by carrying the English fort by assault. At this juncture his missing vessels, having extricated themselves from the ice of Hudson Strait, appeared, and the fort surrendered without putting Iberville to the last proof of his courage.

As might be expected, Iberville became the hero of the day on his return to France in 1697; but true to himself and his career, he sought the influence of friends at court only to obtain other difficult and dangerous service that might add to the glory of France. He was now to enter on a new career as an explorer, colonizer, and administrator, where, if he was to perform less brilliant deeds than in earlier life, he was destined to open up to settlement by his countrymen the fertile lands of Louisiana, and thus lay the foundations of its future greatness.

It was now twelve years since the tragic fate of La Salle’s colony on the coast of Texas had spread dismay and terror among all who had been especially interested in the scheme of French colonization on the Mississippi River. The sentiment seemed to be that the mouth of the great river could never be found and that further effort would only result in useless sacrifice of life and vessels. With the march of time, however, these impressions of doubt and disaster had faded out of mind, and as now the attention of the ministry was especially turned to that part of Louisiana which could be reached from the St. Lawrence, it appeared to Iberville to be a suitable season to revive the project of discovering the mouth of the Mississippi and of planting a colony.

A plan for the colonization of Louisiana was formally submitted to the French Government by M. de Remonville, while Iberville for his part pledged his reputation as a navigator both to find the mouth of the Mississippi and to successfully plant there a colony. The ministry were easily persuaded that the scheme was practicable and advantageous, their decision being doubtless affected by the knowledge that both Spain and England contemplated the early settlement of the northern coasts of the Gulf of Mexico. It was even reported, as afterward transpired to be the truth, that colonizing expeditions were already en route, and in order to insure protection should Iberville first reach the ground, Count Pontchartrain projected and arranged for the construction of a fort at the mouth of the Mississippi.

As was always the case, schemes of trade were interwoven with the policy of colonization and extension of the royal domain. The principal objects of the trade proved fanciful or chimerical, being, first, the idea of making bison wool an article of trade, a scheme fostered in France by La Salle, and, second, in the hope that valuable pearl fisheries might be found. In Iberville’s instructions we find that “one of the great objects proposed to the king, when he was urged to discover the mouth of the Mississippi, was to obtain wool from the cattle (buffalo) of that country, and for this purpose these animals must be tamed and parked and the calves sent to France.”

Iberville worked with his usual energy, and the expedition, consisting of two small frigates, the Badine, the Marin, and two Norman fishing-boats, sailed from Brest, October 4, 1698. It was Friday, but Iberville no more than Columbus minded the day, and in the reluctance of the other vessels, himself led in the Badine.

A storm off Madeira caused the disappearance of one of the fishing-boats, but after a short search Iberville tarried no more than he did in the Hudson Straits for his missing consort, but pushed on and reached San Domingo early in December. Here the governor, Ducasse, was so impressed with Iberville’s elucidation of his projects that he expressed to the home government his opinion that the views and genius of Iberville seemed to equal his valor in war.

English vessels had been cruising in the neighborhood of San Domingo, which led Iberville to believe that it was a colonizing expedition, so he worked day and night in completing his preparations, and on January 1, 1699, sailed for the Gulf of Mexico. On the afternoon of the twenty-third day, Iberville as usual leading, land was sighted in the northeast. It proved to be the harbor of Pensacola, where Iberville was chagrined to find himself preceded by a Spanish colony under command of Don Andres de la Riola. There were two frigates yet in the harbor, which four months before had brought up three hundred colonists from Vera Cruz. The half-finished fort, the dissatisfied garrison, and the uncertainty of the future explorations to the westward were so many inducements for Iberville to drive out the Spaniards and secure the harbor. Iberville made arrangements to enter the harbor, but was notified by the Spanish governor that he had formal orders from Spain to permit no foreign ships to enter the harbor. Under pretence that he feared heavy weather the French fleet sounded the entrance to the harbor and prepared to enter. The Spanish commander, however, begged that they would retire, and fortunately having been given information by the Spanish pilot, Iberville decided to sail to the west. Iberville, exploring the coast, anchored at the eastern point of the entrance to Mobile Bay, where violent gales nearly destroyed the squadron.

Reconnoitring boats giving such unsatisfactory reports of the depth of the channel, Iberville determined, with his usual energy, to survey it himself. Taking his younger brother Bienville and a crew of his faithful Canadians he started, despite approaching darkness, so as to begin work at day-light; the storm breaking with great violence, Iberville’s efforts to make headway over the billows were in vain. Finally, his rowers exhausted, the boat was turned to the nearest land, but the sea was so high and the wind so violent that unceasing efforts were needful to prevent the boat from swamping. It was due to Iberville’s great skill that the boat was finally beached in a favorable spot on the sandy beach, which the crew reached with difficulty, so exhausted were they with their struggles. Here they were weather-bound three days, and so had an opportunity to explore the island. It was with horror that they discovered in one place ghastly piles of human bones and skulls, mute witnesses of a scene of slaughter, which terrified many of the crew until they found the island to be uninhabited. The island, now known as Dauphin, was called Massacre by Iberville, who, undisturbed by the sight, visited the mainland with a few of his men and made every effort to discover the inhabitants, of whom he found recent traces.

Finally came good weather, and with it the continued voyage to the west brought the fleet to safe anchorage on a bright February morn off Ship Island. The live-stock landed, Iberville gave his freight consorts permission to return to France, while he explored the mainland that now lay fair and bright before him. The Indians were communicated with, after many failures, but, beyond the discovery of the Pascagoula and reports of a larger river to the west, which the Bayagoula Indians called Malbouchia, no valuable information was obtained. Iberville planned to reach the great river by one of its reported outlets, and, following the main channel down, thus learn the way for his vessel; but, the Indians giving him the slip, it only remained to search every foot of the coast until the river was gained. He was thus thrown on his own resources, which had never failed and were not to do so now. Iberville, with his brother Bienville and fifty picked men, largely Canadians, and twenty days’ provisions, started February 27th, on two Biscayennes or barges, for his difficult task, the discovery of the mouth of the Mississippi.

It is useless to detail this journey of Iberville through an apparently endless maze of islets, mud-banks, sand-banks, reefs, and marshy shoals, which go to make up the great level delta of the Mississippi. It would, even to-day, be a difficult search for most mariners without a chart, but then well-nigh impossible. Iberville’s skill and patience were tasked to the utmost, and, when he did find the mouth of the great river, it almost seemed to be by the intervention of Providence. On the eve of March 3, 1699, while struggling along the mainland, to which they persistently clung, the violence of an increasing gale threatened to swamp their barges, despite every effort, if they kept off shore, while every approach to watch the shore-line, and thus make certain of the river-mouth, incurred danger of beaching and destruction. Darkness came on and the gale increased, making certain, as it seemed to them, that they must choose death at sea or death on land. Suddenly Iberville put his barge before the wind, and into the face of death as his followers thought, but it shot between huge piles of interlaced drift-wood into a turbid stream of whitish water. Iberville put out his hand and tasted. The water was fresh, and the Mississippi was rediscovered.

The Spaniards had spoken of the river as La Palisada, which Iberville thought most appropriate when he saw the bristling barricades of huge jagged trees with outstretched limbs and contorted roots borne incessantly onward by the strong current.

Iberville camped that night at the edge of the dense rank sedge-growth, saying: “Stretched on the sedges and sheltered from the gale, our pleasure is so much the greater that we feel our escape from a great peril. It is a very lively business, this exploring the unknown shores of a sea in shallops too small to carry sail in the open sea, too tiny to anchor, and yet so large that they strand and ground half a league from land.”

The next morn was that of Mardi-Gras, when our devout explorers celebrated mass, sang joyfully the Te Deum and raised a commemorative cross before voyaging further.

Never in their wildest dreams could the hardy Canadian explorers from their marshy camp in the delta of the Mississippi ever have presaged, that in the coming time, from the many millions of future inhabitants in the Valley of the Mississippi should be gathered tens of thousands to celebrate the merry day of carnival in the metropolitan city that was to spring up from their memorable voyage.

The Mississippi was near its high stage, so that travel was tediously slow, mostly by oar. The land rose somewhat, the sedge gave way first to cane and willows, and later to richly foliaged trees with graceful festoons pleasing to the eye and fruitful of promise in the coming autumn. The country, largely flooded, would have seemed uninhabited save for the Indian ferry-boats, bundles of cane pointed at both ends and fastened together by crossbars of wood, and an occasional column of smoke rising in the distant blue. The rapid current obliged the oarsmen to hug the bank closely, while diminishing food and increasing piles of drift-wood discouraged them; but the indomitable Iberville cheered on his Canadians, and on the fifth day, some thirty-five leagues from the river’s mouth, six pirogues, or canoes, full of Indians were seen. The savages fled, but one was captured, and through him communication and friendly overtures were established with the Annochys. Through these Indians Iberville was taken to the present site of New Orleans and was shown the portage over which the Indians travelled to Lake Pontchartrain, and thence to the bay where the ship was at anchor. Farther up the stream Iberville visited the village of the Bayougoulas, which consisted of about two hundred souls. The men, well made, with short hair and painted faces, stalked around most unconcernedly in a naked state. The women blackened their teeth, tied up their hair in a top-knot, tattooed their faces and breasts, and wore girdles woven of bark fibre, dyed red or bleached white, with pendulous fringes reaching to the knee. The ornaments of the women were metal bracelets and bangles and fancy articles made of feathers, while the young braves wore sashes of feathers, which, weighted with bits of metal, made merry sound as they danced. In short, they were an inoffensive folk, content with the simple fruits of the earth, which largely served as their sustenance.

Iberville visited one of their temples, a structure some thirty feet in diameter, which Charlevoix describes as follows: “In the centre were slowly burning logs (keeping up a perpetual fire), and at the end a platform on which lay skins of deer, buffalo, and bear, offerings to the Chouchouacha (the opossum), the god of the Bayougoulas, which animal was painted in red and black at various points in the temple. The roof was decorated with the figures of various animals, among which a red fox was conspicuous. On either side of the entrance were other animal figures, such as bears and wolves and also various birds, but above all the Chouchouacha (the opossum), an animal about the size and having the head of the sucking pig, the white and gray fur of the badger, the tail of the rat, the paws of an ape, and a sack under its stomach.”

The great discrepancies between the topography of the river and the descriptions given in the accounts of the journeys of La Salle and Tonti so impressed Iberville that he was really doubtful if he was on the Mississippi, and so his journey was pursued up the river to the Oumas, a short distance below the mouth of the Red River. Fortunately his brother, Bienville, obtained from an Indian chief a letter, which the savage had carried for thirteen years, given him by Tonti, who descended the river from Illinois in 1686 and left this letter addressed to La Salle, whose active and loyal assistant Tonti was.

Iberville was now over seven hundred miles distant from his ship, and his original stock of provisions was exhausted, so that the men were obliged to live on the corn of the Indians and such meat or game as could be bought or killed. Sending his men back by the delta with the barges, Iberville decided to try himself the route of portages to the Gulf. With an Indian guide he entered the Ascantia, a narrow, winding bayou, where with his four Canadians and two pirogues fifty portages over fallen trees and drift were made the first day in a distance of seven leagues. It is not surprising that the Indian guide, unaccustomed to such tremendous labor and fatigue, deserted the second day. Iberville none the less pushed on undauntedly, confident that he could reach his ship through this unknown country, guide or no guide. Next, one of his hardy Canadians fell sick, and Iberville took his place and oar, and in the portages carried his end of a pirogue. After eighty portages they passed into Lake Maurepas and next into Lake Pontchartrain, whence the way was easy to the ship, which was reached eight hours in advance of the barges from the delta.

In his absence of six weeks Iberville had found again the Mississippi, explored its shores almost to the Red River, made friends with all its native tribes, discovered the short route to the sea, travelled about fifteen hundred miles, and had returned to his ship with every man of his party. What volumes these few facts speak for the energy, tact, skill, and foresight of this wonderful Canadian!

Casting about for a convenient spot Iberville decided to build his fort at the head of Biloxi Bay, and in this unfortunate location, under the spurring supervision of the chief, Fort Biloxi soon rose, and there on Easter Sunday mass was celebrated, vespers sung, and a sermon preached. On May 2, 1700, Iberville sailed for France, leaving his lieutenant, Sauvole, as the first governor of the province of Louisiana and Bienville second in command.

The action of France and the desperate haste of Iberville in occupying the mouth of the Mississippi were most timely. The very month in which our Canadian sailed from Brest an expedition left England under the auspices of Mr. Cox, who sent out three vessels loaded with emigrants. They wintered in the Carolinas, where many settled, but in 1700 two ships continued their voyage to the Mississippi. One of these vessels was commanded by a Captain Banks, who once captured by Iberville in Hudson Bay now found himself worsted by his rival in the peaceful work of colonization. One of the English ships appeared in the lower Mississippi, into which Banks had found entrance, in September, 1700. Bienville, with five men and two pirogues, met the English vessel, and setting forth to the captain that France was in possession of all the surrounding country, succeeded either by argument or cajolery in persuading the captain to withdraw from the Mississippi.

Iberville was not long delayed by the delights and pleasures of the French court, but speedily returned to Biloxi, where he arrived on the eve of Twelfth Night with supplies, and more important of all, with sixty hardy and energetic Canadians, with whom he established a fort a short distance below the present site of New Orleans. The winter proved a very cold one, the drinking-water freezing in the cups, but it did not delay the rapid progress of the new fort. In the midst of this work Chevalier de Tonti arrived with twenty Canadians from their former settlement in Illinois.

Thus for the first time, with intercommunication established between the permanent settlement in Illinois, Tonti’s fort on the Arkansas, and the new colony at the mouth of the Mississippi, Iberville felt that France had indeed entered into actual possession of its great province of Louisiana. He realized, however, the necessity of permanently connecting these settlements, many hundred miles apart, and of facilitating intercommunication through the establishment of intermediate posts.

Iberville contemplated an exploration of the Red River, thinking it might afford access to the gold and silver mines of New Spain, but abandoned the project owing to the representations of the Indians that the river was unnavigable from the interlaced drift-wood, later known as rafts. He turned his attention to the main river, the Mississippi, and visited the Natchez, a brave and powerful tribe of Indians, whose country delighted his heart as resembling France, and where he planned a city to be called Rosalie (now Natchez), which, however, it was not his fate to ever see take definite form, as it was only built long after his death, in 1714, by his brother Bienville. It was at this time that Le Sueur, sent up the Mississippi by Iberville, discovered the St. Peter River, in Minnesota, and attempting mining operations, later brought back a worthless cargo of green earth. To Iberville’s credit, it may be said, he viewed this and many other similar schemes of development with a sceptical and practical eye.

Later he sent his brother Bienville across country to explore the Red River, which was done with good success. His priest Montigny was also active in extending the faith, both among the Natchez Indians and in the basin of the Tensas River. Indeed, every effort was made under Iberville’s sagacious direction to obtain a knowledge of the possibilities of the country, so that its resources might be properly developed.

Iberville returned to France ill with fever, but despite his disease, he displayed extraordinary energy in personally advancing the practical affairs of his new colony. Moreover, he prepared a memoir urging the cession of Pensacola by Spain to France, which nation was to establish forts and arm the Indians along the Mississippi River, whereby the interior of America from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada would be under French domination, save the narrow strip along the Atlantic coast already occupied by England. It was a sagacious scheme which if it had been properly supported by France would have entirely changed the future of America. It received, however, but a perfunctory support, and only resulted in exciting the jealousy of Spain.

Iberville’s last voyage to Louisiana was made in 1701, when his health, undermined by the climate, was impaired by the formation of an abscess which confined him to his bed for two months. His mind worked incessantly, and his activity through other hands was wonderful. He planned the royal magazines on Dauphine Island, located the new post on Mobile River, told off the relief of workmen for the various enterprises, planned flat-boats for lighters, extended relief to the Spaniards at Vera Cruz, and sent Tonti as an agent to make peace with the Choctaws and Chickasaws and secure them as allies. His sailor’s eye was particularly pleased with the magnificent forests of Mobile Bay, where the oaks and pines presented the finest timber for ship-building he had ever seen.

With Mobile commenced, the royal storehouses erected, and the alliance of the Choctaws and Chickasaws secured, Iberville felt that the colony of Louisiana was on a secure foundation, and on March 31st he sailed from Dauphine Island, then the headquarters of that colony for which he had done so much, and which he was destined never again to see.

The domain of Louisiana, obtained by so much heroic endeavor and individual suffering on the part of Joliet, Marquette, La Salle, Tonti, Iberville, and their associates, passed at once, by an edict of Louis XIV., into a monopoly and under the control of a courtier, Anton Crozat, for trading purposes, by the decree of September 14, 1712. In this decree the limits of Louisiana were for the first time defined, including “all the territories by us (France) possessed, and bounded by New Mexico and by those of the English in Carolina… The river St. Louis, formerly called the Mississippi, from the sea-shore to the Illinois, together with the rivers St. Phillipe, formerly called the Missouries, and the St. Jerome, formerly called the Wabash (the Ohio), with all the countries, territories, lakes in the land, and the rivers emptying directly or indirectly into that part of the river St. Louis. All the said territories, countries, rivers, streams, and islands we will to be and remain comprised under the name of the government of Louisiana.”

There was another and blacker page to the decree, whereby Crozat was further authorized to introduce African slavery: “If the aforesaid Sieur Crozat considers it advisable to have negroes in the said country of Louisiana, for agriculture or other use on plantations, he can send a ship each year to trade directly with the Guinea coast, … and is further authorized to sell negroes to the settlers of Louisiana.”

But prior to this condition of affairs the great Canadian naval commander had passed to his final reward, having died of yellow fever at Havana, July 9, 1706. The last leaf in his history was, however, an effort, through his personal bravery and skill, to secure French domination in America by driving out of the Antilles the determined English seamen whose successful raids so often militated against the interests of France. Despite his health, undermined by fevers, Iberville left France with a fleet with which he hoped to carry out this great plan. Intending to make a descent upon Barbadoes, he learned that the English, warned of his plans, were prepared for him. He therefore seized on the islands of Nevis and St. Christopher, where his fleet captured an enormous amount of booty of all kinds. He decided next to ravage the English colonies in the Carolinas, but stopping at Havana for reinforcements he lost his own life by the epidemic which destroyed eight hundred others of his fleet.

Among the qualities of this great Canadian all must admire his intrepidity in war, his skill as a navigator, and his capacity as an explorer; but beyond these were the astonishing administrative ability and political sagacity which he displayed in such an eminent degree in the planning, founding, and fostering of the great province of Louisiana.

III

JONATHAN CARVER,

The Explorer of Minnesota