The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 62, July 1958 - April, 1959 Page: 258
617 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
To Sir Terrisse, officer of the troops of Louisiana, for the Assinais.
I have been extremely mortified, Sir, on learning, at Natchitoches,
that you have retired to the Spaniards, in the fear that your enemies
might have obtained from M. de Bienville your appeal. You should,
Sir, render more justice to your commander; he is incapable of allow-
ing himself to be biased by false reports, particularly when it con-
cerns the honor of officers. I know that he has esteem for you; do not
force him to change his sentiments and do not give to the Spanish
nation a bad idea of the French officers of this colony; return then
to your native country and destroy by your presence all the rumors
which might carry prejudice to your reputation. Be persuaded, Sir,
of the sincerity of my sentiments and that no person has the honor
of being more completely, Sir, etc., etc.
The 28th, the war chief of the Natchitoches left from the
Nassonites to return to his village; I turned over to him one of
the large boats of the Company to take him down to New Or-
leans; I wrote to M. de Bienville on this occasion and noted to
him the pains that I was taking in order to succeed in opening up
commerce with the Spaniards and that my design was to pene-
trate as far as to New Mexico.
The first of May, four of my men deserted me with the design
of going to the Assinais. I had some savages to pursue them, who
brought them back to me; my plan was to punish certain ones of
them, but at the solicitation of the others, in whom I saw a spirit
of mutiny, I was constrained to pardon them.
The 9th, a soldier of the garrison informed me that he had
learned through a savage woman, that several chiefs of these na-
tions had resolved among themselves to scalp all the French, and
that the one who was at the head of this plot was the war chief
of the Nassonites. Although I doubted very strongly this infor-
mation, I did not fail to take the necessary measures to put myself
beyond insult. I had trenches dug around my house and put in
position four swivel guns, a culverin47 and all of our defensive
arms; in the places where we could be attacked I had set up six
big pikes of iron that I intended for catching buffalo; after that
I sent the sergeant with six soldiers to take the war chief in his
house. They brought him to me; I had him put in irons and I
sent the next day to search for the chiefs of the four nations, to
470riginally a culverin was a rude sort of musket, but by the eighteenth century
it was a long cannon.258
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 62, July 1958 - April, 1959, periodical, 1959; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101173/m1/303/: accessed March 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.