following. He speaks of himself in the third person. "To acquit himself of
the commission with which he was charged, he has neglected all his private
affairs, because they were alien to his enterprise; he has omitted nothing
that was needful to its success, notwithstanding dangerous illness, heavy
losses, and all the other evils he has suffered, which would have overcome
the courage of any one who had not the same zeal and devotion for the
accomplishment of this purpose. During five years he has made five
journeys, of more, in all, than five thousand leagues, for the most part
on foot, with extreme fatigue, through snow and through water, without
escort, without provisions, without bread, without wine, without
recreation, and without repose. He has traversed more than six hundred
leagues of country hitherto unknown, among savage and cannibal nations,
against whom he must daily make fight, though accompanied only by thirty-
six men, and consoled only by the hope of succeeding in an enterprise
which he thought would be agreeable to his Majesty."

See the original, as printed by Margry, _Journal General de I'Instruction
Publique,_ xxxi. 699.] He had friends near the court,--Count Frontenac was
one of them,--and he gained the ear of the colonial minister. There was a
wonderful change in the views of the court towards him. The great Colbert
had lately died, bequeathing to his son Seignelay, his successor in the
control of the Marine and Colonies, some of his talents, and all of his
harshness and violence. Seignelay entered with vigor into the schemes of
La Salle, and commended them to the king, his master. The memorial, in
which these schemes are set forth, is still preserved, as well as another
memorial designed to prepare the way for it; and the following is the
substance of them. The preliminary document states that the late
Monseigneur Colbert was of opinion that it was important for the service
of his Majesty to discover a port in the Gulf of Mexico; that to this end
the memorialist, La Salle, made five journeys of upwards of five thousand