his ships crowded and almost crushed by the ice, and his brother, a young, bright boy of nineteen, his favorite brother, just killed by a chance shot from the English fort which they were besieging; and there the commander stands on the icy deck, the cold October wind singing in the shrouds, and his dead brother waiting till their lives are secured before he can receive Christian burial, — there he stands, "moved exceedingly," says the missionary, - but giving his orders with a calm face, full tone, and clear mind. "He put his trust on God," says Father Gabriel," and God consoled him from that day; the same tide brought both his vessels out of danger, and bore them to the spot where they were wanted. '' *

Such was the man who, upon the 31st of January, 1699, let go his anchor in the Bay of Mobile. Having looked about him at this spot, he went thence to seek the great river called by the savages, says Charlevoix, "Malbouchia," and by the Spaniards, "la Palissade," from the great number of trees about its mouth. Searching carefully, upon the 2d of March our commander found and entered the Hidden River, whose mouth had been so long and unsuccessfully sought. As soon as this was done, one of the vessels returned to France to carry thither the news of D'Iberville's success, while he turned his prow up the Father of Waters. Slowly ascending the vast stream, he found himself puzzled by the little resemblance which it bore to that described by Tonti and by Hennepin. So great were the discrepances, that he had begun to doubt if he were not upon the wrong river, when an Indian chief sent to him Tonti's letter to La Salle, on which, through fourteen years, those wild men had been looking with wonder and awe. Assured by this that he had indeed reached the desired spot, and wearied probably by his tedious sail thus far, he returned to the Bay of Biloxi, between the Mississippi and the Mobile waters, built a fort in that neighbourhood, and, having manned it in a suitable manner, returned to France himself. †

While he was gone, in the month of September, 1699, the lieutenant of his fort, M. De Bienville, went round to explore the mouths of the Mississippi, and take soundings. Engaged in this business, he had rowed up the main entrance

Lettres Edifiantes, Vol. X. p. 300. † New France, Vol. III. p. 380, et seq.

some twenty-five leagues, when, unexpectedly and to his no little chagrin, a British corvette came in sight, a vessel carrying twelve cannon, slowly creeping up the swift current. M. Bienville, nothing daunted, though he had but his leads and lines to do battle with, spoke up, and said, that, if this vessel did not leave the river without delay, he had force enough at hand to make her repent it. All which had its effect; the Britons about ship and stood to sea again, growling as they went, and saying, that they had discovered that country fifty years before, that they had a better right to it than the French, and would soon make them know it. This was the first meeting of those rival nations in the Mississippi Valley, which, from that day, was a bone of contention between them till the conclusion of the old French war. Nor did the matter

rest long with this visit from the corvette. Englishmen began to creep over the mountains from Carolina, and, trading with the Chicachas, or Chickasaws of our day, stirred them up to acts of enmity against the French.

When D'Iberville came back from France, in January, 1700, and heard of these things, he determined to take possession of the country anew, and to build a fort upon the banks of the Mississippi itself. So, with due form, the vast valley of the West was again sworn in to Louis, as the whole continent through to the South Sea had been previously sworn in by the English to the Charleses and Jameses; and, what was more effectual, a little fort was built, and four pieces of cannon placed therein. But even this was not much to the purpose; for it soon disappeared, and the marshes about the mouth of the Great River were again, as they had ever been, and long must be, uninhabited by men.

And now we must turn aside for a time, and let our read-ers know something of these English claims and attempts.

"King Charles the First, in the fifth year of his reign (1630), granted unto Sir Robert Heath, his attorney-general, a patent of all that part of America," which lies between thirty-one and thirty-six degrees north latitude, from sea to sea. Eight years afterwards, Sir Robert conveyed this very handsome property to Lord Maltravers, who was soon, by his father's death, Earl of Arundel. From him, by we know not what course of conveyance, this grant, which formed the Province of Carolana (not Carolina), came into the hands of Dr. Daniel Coxe, who was, in the opinion of the attorney

L

general of England, true owner of that Province in the year of D'Iberville's discovery, 1699.*

In support of the English claim, thus originating, we are told by Dr. Coxe, that, from the year 1654 to the year 1664, one "Colonel Wood in Virginia, inhabiting at the Falls of James River, above a hundred miles west of Chesapeake Bay, discovered at several times, several branches of the great rivers, Ohio and Meschasebe." Nay, the Doctor affirms, that he had himself possessed, in past days, the Journal of a Mr. Needham, who was in the Colonel's employ, which Journal, he adds, "is now in the hands of," &c. The Doctor also states, that about the year 1676, he had in his keeping a Journal, written by some one who had gone from the mouth of the Mississippi, up as far as the Yellow or Muddy River, otherwise called Missouri; and he says, this Journal, in almost every particular, was confirmed by the late travels. And still further, Dr. Coxe assures us, that, in 1678, "a considerable number of persons went from New England upon discovery, and proceeded so far as New Mexico, one hundred and fifty leagues beyond the river Meschasebe, and, at their return, rendered an account to the government at Boston; " for the truth of all which he calls Governor Dudley, who was still living, as witness. Nor had he been idle himself; "apprehending that the planting of this country would be highly beneficial," he tried to reach it first from Carolina, then from "Pensilvania, by the Susquehannah river," and "many of his people travelled to New Mexico." He had also made discoveries through the great river Ochequiton, or, as we call it, Alabama; and "more to the northwest, beyond the river Meschasebe," had found a very great sea of fresh water, several thousand miles in circumference," whence a river ran into the South Sea, about the latitude of forty-four degrees, and "through this," he adds, "we are assured the English have since entered that great lake."

"

These various statements are, it must be owned, somewhat startling; but, leaving them undisturbed for the present, we can see clearly the bearing of what follows, namely, that the Doctor, in 1698, fitted out two vessels, well armed and manned, one of which (when, we hear not) entered

A Description of the English Province of Carolana, &c. by Daniel Coxe, Esquire. London, 1722. pp. 113 et seq.

the Mississippi and ascended it above one hundred miles, and then returned, - wherefore, is not specially stated. This was, doubtless, the corvette which M. Bienville turned out of what he considered French domains; as Charlevoix tells us, that the vessel, which Bienville met, was one of two which left England in 1698, armed with thirty-six guns, the same number which Daniel Coxe, the Doctor's son, tells us, were borne by his father's vessels. The English, having thus found their way to the Meschasebe, wished to prosecute the matter, and it was proposed to make there a settlement of the French Huguenots, who had fled to Carolina; but the death of Lord Lonsdale, the chief forwarder of the scheme, put an end to that plan, and we do not learn from Coxe, whose work appeared in 1722, that any further attempts were made by England, whose wars and woes nearer home kept her fully employed.

And now, what are we to say to those bold statements by Coxe; statements contained in his memorial to the King in 1699, and such as could hardly, one would think, be tales à la Hontan? Colonel Wood's adventures are recorded by no other writer, so far as we have read; for, though Hutchins, who was geographer to the United States when the western lands were first surveyed, refers to Wood, and also to one Captain Bolt, who crossed the Alleghanies in 1670, his remarks are very vague, and he gives us no one to look to, as knowing the circumstances. Of the Boston expedition we know still less; the story is repeated from Coxe by various pamphlet writers of those days, when Law's scheme had waked up England to a very decided interest in the West; but all examinations of contemporary writers, and the town records, have as yet failed to lend a single fact in support of this part of the Doctor's tale.

But what makes us suspect the whole, is his account of discoveries to the northwest which were never made, and which account, in all probability, was taken direct from the author of the Long River. We must own, therefore, that we are disposed to doubt all Dr. Coxe's statement relative to English travellers upon the Mississippi, and to think that he was guided and spurred on, in his undertaking of 1698, by the two spurious narratives of Hennepin and Tonti, published in

1697.

Resuming our sketch of French endeavours, we have next

to record the project of our friend D'Iberville to found a city among the Natchez, which nation he visited in 1700,- a city to be named, in honor of the Countess of Pontchartrain, Rosalie. Indeed, he did pretend to lay the corner-stone of such a place, though it was not till 1714 that the fort called Rosalie was founded, where the city of Natchez is standing at this day.

Having thus built a fort at the mouth of the Great River, and begun a settlement upon a choice spot above, D'Iberville once more sought Europe, having, before he left, ordered M. Le Sueur to go up the Mississippi in search of a copper mine, which that personage had previously got a clue to, upon a branch of the St. Peter's river; * which order was fulfilled, and much metal obtained, though at the cost of great suffering. Mining was always a Jack-a-lantern with the first settlers of America, and our French friends were no wiser than their neighbours. The products of the soil were, indeed, scarce thought valuable on a large scale, it being supposed that the wealth of Louisiana consisted in its pearlfishery, its mines, and the wool of its wild cattle. In 1701 the commander came again, and began a new establishment upon the river Maubile, one which superseded that at Biloxi, which thus far had been the chief fort in that southern colony. After this things went on but slowly until 1708; D'Iberville died on one of his voyages between the mother country and her sickly daughter, and after his death little was done. In 1708, however, M. D'Artagnette came from France as commissary of Louisiana, and, being a man of spirit and energy, did more for it than had been done before. But it still lingered; and, under the impression that a private man of property might do more for it than the government could, the King, upon the 14th of September, 1712, granted to Crozat, a man of great wealth, the monopoly of Louisiana for fifteen years, and the absolute ownership of whatever mines he might cause to be opened.

Crozat relied mainly upon two things for success in his speculation; the one, the discovery of mines; the other, a lucrative trade with New Mexico. In regard to the first,

Charlevoix, Vol. IV. pp. 162, 164. In Long's Second Expedition, p. 318, may be seen a detailed account of Le Sueur's proceedings, taken from a manuscript statement of them.

+ Charlevoix, Vol. III. p. 389.

VOL. XLVIII. - No. 102.

14