rld and irritated by
his arrogant treatment of the Gulf of Mexico as private property of
Spain,--as completely a "closed sea" as if it had been a duck-pond in
his palace yard. Moreover, there was war now between the two
countries, and he would gladly seize an opportunity of striking his
rival a blow in what seemed an exposed part. Besides, the risk would
be small. If La Salle failed, the loss would be chiefly his; if he
succeeded, a province of Mexico would be a shining jewel in the French
crown.

So here was La Salle, with an outfit {263} corresponding with his mad
scheme--but three ships, only one a man-of-war, the "Joly," one a
little frigate, the "Belle," and one a transport, the "Aimable"; for
soldiers, the destined army of invasion, a parcel of rapscallions raked
up from the docks and the prisons; for colonists some mechanics and
laborers, priests and volunteers, with the usual proportion of "broken
gentlemen," some peasant families looking for homes in the New World,
and even some wretched girls who expected to find husbands in the land
of promise. This ill-assorted little mob to seize and colonize the
mouth of the Mississippi and to wrest a province from Spain!

From the first everything had gone wrong. La Salle and the
ship-captains, who could not endure his haughty manners, quarreled
incessantly. A Spanish cruiser captured his fourth vessel, laden with
indispensable supplies for the colony. Then he was seized with a
dangerous fever; and while the vessels waited at San Domingo for him to
be well enough to resume the voyage, his villains roamed the island and
rioted in debauchery.

Its destination being the mouth of the Mississippi, what was the
expedition doing at Matagorda Bay, in Texas? This was the result of
{264} another folly. Not a soul on board knew the navigation of the
Gulf, so carefully had Spain guarded her secret. The pilots had heard
much of the currents in those waters, and they made so excessive
allowance for them that when land was sighted, instead of being, as
they supposed, about Appalachee Bay, they were on the coast of Texas,
probably about Galveston Bay. In the end it proved to be a fatal
mistake, wrecking the enterprise.

On New Year's day La Salle landed and found only a vast marshy plain.
Clearly, this was not the mouth of the Great River. He returned on
board, and the vessel stood westward along the coast, every eye on
board strained to catch some indication of what the