318 EXPEDITION TO THE 



Two days after their arrival, they presented to the Count 

 de Frontenac, in a public assembly, as many arrows as 

 there were Sioux villages, and they informed him that all 

 those villages entreated him to receive them among his 

 children, as he had done to all the other nations which 

 they named one after the other; which favour was granted " 

 to them. M. le Sueur was to have reascended the " Missis- 

 sipi" as early as 1696, with that Sioux chief who had only 

 come down upon an express promise that he should be taken 

 back to his country ; but the latter fell sick in Montreal, 

 and died after thirty-three days disease. M. le Sueur, 

 finding himself thus released from his pledge to return 

 into the Sioux country, where he had discovered mines of 

 lead, copper, and earth, both blue and green, resolved upon 

 going over to France, and asking leave of the court to open 

 those mines; a permission to this effect was granted to 

 him in 1697. About the latter end of June in the same 

 year, he embarked at la Rochelle for Canada : as he was 

 crossing Newfoundland banks he "was captured by a Bri- 

 tish fleet of sixteen ships, and by them taken to Ports- 

 mouth ; but peace having been soon after concluded, he 

 returned to Paris to obtain a new commission, as he had 

 thrown his overboard, lest the English should become ac- 

 quainted with his scheme. The French court directed a 

 new commission to be issued to him in 1698. He then 

 went over to Canada, where he met with various obstacles 

 which compelled him to return to Europe. During this 

 interval of time, part of the men whom he had left in 

 charge of the forts which he had erected in 1695, being 

 without intelligence from him, abandoned them, and pro- 

 ceeded down to Montreal."* 



• " Journal historlque concernant I'etablissement des Francais a Vi 

 Louisianue, tir6 des menaoires de Messrs. d'lberville & de Bienville 



