May 1679

On May 11th, 1679, Henri de Tonty sent M. de La Motte and Father Louis, with eleven men, back to Fort Frontenac in the brigantine, in pursuance of orders that Henri de Tonty had received.

On May 20th, 1679, M. de La Forest Major was in command at Fort Frontenac. He sent Henri de Tonty orders from M. de La Salle to go with the vessel of forty tons to the end of the lakes to announce to the Illinois Indians that he was to come and dwell among them by command of the King. M. de La Salle brought a second anchor and three Recollet missionaries (Fathers de La Ribourde, Membre, and Louis Hennepin) with several Frenchmen for the travel.

On May 30th, 1679, they launched a brigantine to get what had been saved from the bark that had been wrecked on the coast. The wind came from the southwest, so they arrived early. Later, the wind from the lake was producing ice, which closed about the vessel and made it unmanageable, their cable broke, so they were lowly drifting ashore. Around midnight, the wind shifted to the northeast, so they rowed for three hours to get clear of the ice, which they accomplished to get the brigantine free from the ice.

The next day (May 31st, 1679), they set sail and arrived at the Niagara River. Some of them went into a canoe to fish up the anchor from the previous vessel. M. de La Motte told Henri de Tonty that the Iroquois were pacified. As a result, Henri de Tonty put M. de La Motte in charge of recovering the anchor, while Henri de Tonty returned to the camp above the Falls.