A Half-Century of Conflict, vol 2 | Page 2

the wilderness, the Frenchman in
America has rarely found his match. His civic virtues withered under
the despotism of Versailles, and his mind and conscience were kept in
leading-strings by an absolute Church; but the forest and the prairie
offered him an unbridled liberty, which, lawless as it was, gave scope
to his energies, till these savage wastes became the field of his most
noteworthy achievements.
Canada was divided between two opposing influences. On the one side
were the monarchy and the hierarchy, with their principles of order,
subordination, and obedience; substantially at one in purpose, since
both wished to keep the colony within manageable bounds, domesticate
it, and tame it to soberness, regularity, and obedience. On the other side
was the spirit of liberty, or license, which was in the very air of this
wilderness continent, reinforced in the chiefs of the colony by a spirit
of adventure inherited from the Middle Ages, and by a spirit of trade
born of present opportunities; for every official in Canada hoped to
make a profit, if not a fortune, out of beaverskins. Kindred impulses, in
ruder forms, possessed the humbler colonists, drove them into the
forest, and made them hardy woodsmen and skilful bushfighters,
though turbulent and lawless members of civilized society.
Time, the decline of the fur-trade, and the influence of the Canadian
Church gradually diminished this erratic spirit, and at the same time
impaired the qualities that were associated with it. The Canadian
became a more stable colonist and a steadier farmer; but for forest
journeyings and forest warfare he was scarcely his former self. At the
middle of the eighteenth century we find complaints that the race of
voyageurs is growing scarce. The taming process was most apparent in

the central and lower parts of the colony, such as the Côte de Beaupré
and the opposite shore of the St. Lawrence, where the hands of the
government and of the Church were strong; while at the head of the
colony,--that is, about Montreal and its neighborhood,--which touched
the primeval wilderness, an uncontrollable spirit of adventure still held
its own. Here, at the beginning of the century, this spirit was as strong
as it had ever been, and achieved a series of explorations and
discoveries which revealed the plains of the Far West long before an
Anglo-Saxon foot had pressed their soil.
The expedition of one Le Sueur to what is now the State of Minnesota
may be taken as the starting-point of these enterprises. Le Sueur had
visited the country of the Sioux as early as 1683. He returned thither in
1689 with the famous voyageur Nicolas Perrot. [Footnote: _Journal
historique de l'Etablissement des Français à la Louisiane_, 43.] Four
years later, Count Frontenac sent him to the Sioux country again. The
declared purpose of the mission was to keep those fierce tribes at peace
with their neighbors; but the Governor's enemies declared that a
contraband trade in beaver was the true object, and that Frontenac's
secretary was to have half the profits. [Footnote: _Champigny au
Ministre, 4 Nov._ 1693.] Le Sueur returned after two years, bringing to
Montreal a Sioux chief and his squaw,--the first of the tribe ever seen
there. He then went to France, and represented to the court that he had
built a fort at Lake Pepin, on the upper Mississippi; that he was the
only white man who knew the languages of that region; and that if the
French did not speedily seize upon it, the English, who were already
trading upon the Ohio, would be sure to do so. Thereupon he asked for
the command of the upper Mississippi, with all its tributary waters,
together with a monopoly of its fur-trade for ten years, and permission
to work its mines, promising that if his petition were granted, he would
secure the country to France without expense to the King. The
commission was given him. He bought an outfit and sailed for Canada,
but was captured by the English on the way. After the peace he
returned to France and begged for a renewal of his commission. Leave
was given him to work the copper and lead mines, but not to trade in
beaver-skins. He now formed a company to aid him in his enterprise,
on which a cry rose in Canada that under pretence of working mines he

meant to trade in beaver,--which is very likely, since to bring lead and
copper in bark canoes to Montreal from the Mississippi and Lake
Superior would cost far more than the metal was worth. In consequence
of this clamor his commission was revoked.
Perhaps it was to compensate him for the outlays into which he had
been drawn that the colonial minister presently authorized him to
embark for Louisiana and pursue his enterprise with that infant