before the Governor of Canada who recommends him to the favor of the King. Repairing to the courts of France, he obtains the sanction and encouragement of his sovereign. He returns to Canada and applies himself, like an enthusiast and a philosopher, a skilful financier and an importunate mumper, to the prosecution of his plans. He raises money without security, builds a ship sixty tons burthen, and crosses the waters of Lake Michigan to Green Bay. Returning his barge, laden with furs, to Niagara for the benefit of his creditors, he with others coasts the lake in canoes to the mouth of St. Joseph River where he erects a fort. Ascending this stream he crosses the portage and glides down the Kankakee into the Illinois. He descends with the current of this smooth flowing river as far as Peoria and erects another fort. His means are now exhausted and he is compelled to return, while Henepin, his associate, sets out in a northwest direction and explores the Mississippi for some distance above the mouth of the Wisconsin.
On the 4th of January, 1682, La Salle enters upon his second expedition. Descending the river Chicago, across the portage, down the Illinois, by the 6th of February he glides upon the waters of the Mississippi; yielding to its swift current, occasionally halting to smoke the calumet with the natives, and erecting Fort Prudhomme, on Chicasaw Bluffs, in three months he explores it to its mouth. Here, with due solemnity and in a formal manner, he takes possession of the country, by the name of Louisiana, in behalf of the King of France. Erecting a column with a cross, he has inscribed upon it Louis the Great, King of France and Navarre, reigns the 9th of April, 1682. He now resolves to return to Canada, collect a number of emigrants, convey them down the Mississippi and plant a colony at its mouth. His journey back was long delayed by illness, and this plan was never executed. He determines to accomplish his object in a different way. Placing his faithful associate Tonty, in command of Fort St. Louis at Peoria, which by
