162 Marcel Moraud
Cavelier’s manuscript in England, declares that such a state-
ment, which reappears in the latest study on de La Salle in
this country, needs confirmation. Indeed it does. There is
in the Archives of India at Seville a copy of the report
brought by Abbe Cavelier to Seignelay (the French Minister
of the Navy) for the King. In this report, a copy of which
I have been able to obtain, the whole episode entirely dis-
appears. We can readily assume that the report to the King
is the correct one. Why then should de La Salle have in-
vented this and other incidents ? He tells us, for instance,
that in the course of the second expedition, which he at-
tempted to the west, his brother, de La Salle, reached the
Mississippi, that he built a temporary fort and left some of
his men there. The truth is that before leaving on that
second expedition, de La Salle, who did not like writing,
prepared a report for Seignelay with the idea of sending it
by his brother. No doubt had he reached the Mississippi
the document would have been sent.
Abbé Cavelier has been called by some historians unde-
pendable, most untruthful, to put things mildly. Others, on
the contrary, have accepted his statements as fully reliable
and used them at length in the writing of the story of de La
Salle. A few lines from each manuscript, Parkman’s and the
official unused report now in Spain at Seville, will suffice to
give an idea of the discrepancies which they offer.
“July 1684.”
“Monseigneur: Here is the relation of the voyage un-
dertaken by my brother to discover, in the Gulf of Mexico,
the mouth of the Mississippi. . . . In the month of July we
left La Rochelle in four vessels with very fine weather. The
season seemed to promise us a continuance thereof, and
should not in all probability lead us to fear either a calm
or great heats.”