obstacles, due to the excessive cold, and hunger, as well as jealousies among the men, and the distrust of the Indians, a ship-yard was improvised, and a vessel of about 45 tons was builded and equipped with five small cannon. She was named the Griffin, in honor of the Governor-General, and her prow was ornamented with a grotesque figure of that somewhat apocryphal animal, in compliment to his family arms.[1]
The building of this fort and of the Griffin was a master-*stroke of La Salle's, for Niagara was the key to the four great upper lakes (Erie, Huron, Superior, and Michigan), and by its position would control the fur-trade of the whole northern country. In time of peace it would intercept the trade between the Iroquois and the Dutch and English at Albany; in time of war it would be a menace to both.
Any forward movement, however, was delayed from February until August, 1679, by the absence of La Salle, who had been obliged to return, with Tonti, to Fort Frontenac for needed supplies, and to attend to some of his private affairs. For his creditors, excited by false reports of his insolvency, had seized upon all his available property, outside of his seigniory.
Despite these embarrassments, however, he pushed forward his enterprise, and by the 7th of August the Griffin was sailing upon the waters of Lake Erie, never before ploughed by the keel of a white man's ship. Passing through the Straits of Detroit and into Lake Huron, they stayed not their course, although nearly wrecked by a fierce gale, until, early in September, they dropped anchor at the entrance of Green Bay, within the waters of Lake Michigan. Here, at Michilimackinac, was a Jesuit mission and centre of Indian trade, where they were received with show of welcome by the holy fathers, and with evident distrust by their Indian proteges. Here La Salle
- ↑ La Salle often prophesied, says Parkman (La Salle, i, 149), that he "would make the griffin fly above the crows," i. e., that he would make the influence of Frontenac triumph over that of the Jesuits.
