The name is absent

154         Marcel Moraud

through some letters written by Abbe Tronson, the superior
of the order to which Cavelier belonged, we hear that “the
government is not disposed to keep the establishment up,”
that the “death of de La Salle has put an end to all the
measures which were being taken,—that Cavelier himself has
given up the idea of going to the rescue of the unfortunate
colony left at Matagorda Bay,—that he will await more fa-
vorable circumstances and take advantage of any opening
that Providence may offer.” Nothing further was then at-
tempted by the government, but the fate of the colony re-
mained for a long time a matter of investigation judging
from reports which were sent to the court up to 1698 and
even to 1704.

The unfortunate expedition had entered the domain of
history and once more went through another long ordeal.
The first printed account of de La Salle’s last venture was
written in 1690 by a Jesuit, a certain Don Carlos de Siguenza
y Gongora, professor of cosmography and mathematics at
the Academy of Mexico. The book, recently discovered, had
never been used by the historians of de La Salle, indeed its
existence had not even been suspected. It is based on such
information as could be gathered from a few survivors of the
expedition and also from Father Massanet who had accom-
panied Alonso de Leon to Camp Saint Louis, and witnessed
its destruction. The book has no historical value and is
interesting only as a document of a mentality which one
seldom finds today, a combination of fanatic hatred for
foreigners and of the most servile flattery for the authorities
that be.

Thirty-three years later, in 1723, a Spaniard, Barcia, in
his Chronological Essay on the History of Florida, published
another account of de La Salle’s expedition, giving very val-
uable information on the fate of the French settlement after

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