Our Catliolic H eritag6 in Texas
do now take, in the name of His Majesty and of his successors to the crown, possession of this country of Louisiana ... from the mouth of the great river St. Louis, on the eastern side, otherwise called Ohio . .. as far as its mouth at the sea, or Gulf of Mexico, about the twenty-seventh degree of the elevation of the North Pole, and also to the mouth of the River of Palms," may well be imagined. He little knew that by his last phrase, he was claiming the vast empire of Texas and laying the foundation of endless diplomatic wrangles over the limits of Louisiana.~ Soon after his arrival, through the good offices of the Minister of Marine, the Marquis de Seignelay, he succeeded in obtaining a personal interview with the king, who received him kindly and listened with more than passing interest to an account of his exploration of the great river and his plans for an early return to establish a settlement at its mouth. What his plans were can now be definitely determined. It was his purpose to found a settlement at the mouth of the river. This was to serve as a base for the conquest of the rich mining district of northern New Spain. With the help of the friendly natives, among whom, he declared, he could raise as many as fifteen thousand warriors, he could easily attack the Spanish outposts along the northern frontier. Should peace be made before the completion of his enterprise, he could fall back to his settlement at the mouth of the river and there wait for a new outbreak to continue his conquest of Nueva Vizcaya. 8 In February, 1684, an effort was made to combine the proposals of La Salle with those of Penalosa. In an unsigned memorandum of that date, it is proposed that Penalosa should be given the necessary help to proceed at once to Panuco, from where he was to march to Durango, the capital of Nueva Vizcaya, and hence accomplish the conquest of the entire northern half of New Spain, by cutting all communication between New Mexico and the capital of the viceroyalty. In the meantime, La Salle should also be given the aid he solicited to found a settlement at the 1 For the complete text of the act of possession see Margry, op. cit., Vol. I. The details of his explorations that culminated in the discovery of the mouth of the river are given in Castaneda, Morft's Histor,y of Tex<U, 117-137. The most readable and popular account of the life of this picturesque explorer who established the first tem- porary settlement near Matagorda Bay only to find an inglorious death at the hand of his own men a few years later, is found in Parkman, La Salle and tire Discover')/ of tire Great West, which, in spite of subsequent studies, remains the most vivid and interesting story of this episode. •1J1emofre du Suur de La Salle sur l'entre,Priu qu'ila Pro,Posee a Monseigneur le Marquis de Seignela,y sur une des ,provinces du Mexique, Margry, o;. cit., Vol. II, 359-369.
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