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a speedy development. The heavy debt, from the contemplation of which so many shrank back appalled, now presses no more heavily upon her energies, than the curtain of morning mist that rests upon the bosom of her prairies. Her whole population are excited to unwonted activity by the brilliancy of the future; and, from every quarter, emigrants throng to her fertile plains. Inhabited by an honorable people, who kept her escutcheon free from the deep stain of repudiation, in the terrible ordeal of temptation through which she passed inhabited by a generous people, who, although weighed down with onerous burdens, cheerfully submitted to additional taxation, to provide asylums for the stricken and unfortunateinhabited by a brave people, whose valor upon the field has illuminated some of the brightest pages of the Republic's history, and heard of wherever the "birds of fame have flown."

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(From an Oration, delivered by ROBERT BELL, Esq., at Fairfield, Illinois.)

ILLINOIS AS IT IS.

HISTORY.

CHAPTER I.

THE STATE OF ILLINOIS was, originally, a part of Florida, and belonged to Spain, and was so laid down upon the old Spanish map of North America. The Spaniards, led on by the daring Fernando de Soto, were the first Europeans who had discovered the Mississippi; they had erected the standard of Spain on its shores in the year 1541, and, according to the views at that time prevailing, had thus established the title of their country to the whole of that vast region watered by its tributary streams, so that thenceforth the State of Illinois became a Spanish colony, and its native inhabitants vassals of the Spanish crown. But, although the Spaniards claimed the State by right of possession, its settlement was never entered upon by them, but was first carried into effect by the French.

At the very time that the Spaniards under Fernando de Soto were exploring Florida and the valley of the Mississippi, several attempts were made on the part of the French by two enterprising adventurers, Cartier and Roberval, to plant settlements on the banks of the St. Lawrence; but these enterprises proving abortive, nothing effectual was done by the French to colonize North America, until the year 1603, when certain merchants at Rouen having formed themselves into a company for this purpose, Champlain, a man of untiring energy and great intrepidity, who had been charged with the direction of their enterprise, succeeded in establishing the first permanent French settlement upon the North American Continent. As early as 1608, he laid the foundation of Quebec, and, in the following year, explored the region occupied by the Indian Nations of Northern New York.'

By a charter from Louis XIII, granted to him in the year 1627, he obtained a patent of New France, embracing the whole basin of the St. Lawrence and Canada, and entered upon its government in the year 1632. Perceiving that the climate of New France would offer but little encouragement to immigration, he thought, that the settlement of the new country could not be more effectually promoted than by establishing missions, to call upon religion to aid him in the execution of his designs, and to enter into a close alliance with the native Indians. No sooner, indeed, had the French established their authority in Canada, than numbers of Jesuit missionaries resorted thither, and commenced preaching the gospel to the untutored savages, and forming alliances, in the name of their king, with the numerous savage tribes that inhabited the "Far West." In August, 1665, Father Claude Allouez set out to travel among the Indians, visited the Chippeways, entered their councils, displaying before the wondering savages pictures of hell and of the last judgment, and lighted the Catholic torch at the council fires of more than twenty nations, whom he claimed for his country and his king. In his endeavors to extend the influence of France he was assisted by various missionaries employed for that purpose; among others by James Marquette, who labored incessantly for the cause of his Redeemer and his country, travelling far and wide, exposed to the inclemencies of the season, often subsisting on no other food than the unwholesome moss which he gathered from the rocks, and sleeping beneath the skies on the open ground, without the comfort of a fire. Whilst he was preparing to leave St. Mary's, the outlet of Lake Superior, where he then was, in order to explore the Mississippi, Louis XIV. and his minister Colbert having formed a plan for the extension of the dominion of France in North America, Nicholas Perot appeared at St. Mary's as their agent, and convoked a universal congress of the Indian nations at that place. The remotest Indian nations, from the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, and the Red River being assembled in council, in the presence of brilliantly-clad officers from the veteran French armies, it was announced to the amazed savages by Allouez, who acted as interpreter, that they had been placed under the protection of Louis XIV., king of France; and thereupon "a cross of cedar was raised, and the whole company, bowing

before this emblem of Christianity, chanted to its glory a hymn of the seventh century;" after which a cedar column, with the arms of the Bourbons engraved on it, being planted by the side of the cross, the faith and the rule of France were supposed to be permanently established upon the Continent.

In 1673 James Marquette, with five Frenchmen as companions and two Indians for guides, reached the great "father of waters," on which they embarked "with a joy that could not be expressed," and hoisting the sails of their bark canoes, floated down the majestic river, "over broad clear sandbars," and glided past islets swelling from its bosom with tufts of massive thickness, between the "broad plains of Illinois and Iowa, all garlanded with majestic forests and chequered with illimitable prairies and island groves." After descending the Mississippi for about sixty leagues, they discovered an Indian trail, and unhesitatingly left their canoes to follow it. After walking for some six miles, they came to an Indian village, whence four men immediately advanced to meet them, offering the pipe of peace, their calumets "brilliant with many colored plumes," and speaking to them in language which Marquette understood: "We are Illinois;" that. is, "we are men." "How beautiful is the sun, O Frenchman, when thou comest to us! our whole village awaits thee, thou shalt enter in peace all our dwellings." After staying with that hospitable people for a while, James Marquette and his companions further descended the Mississippi River until they were satisfied of its flowing into the Gulf of Mexico, when they returned, and having reached the 39th degree of North Latitude, entered the Illinois River and followed it to its source. The tribe of Illinois Indians, which occupied its banks, invited Marquette to remain and reside among them. But expressing a desire to continue his travels, he was conducted by one of the chiefs and several warriors to Chicago, in the vicinity of which place he remained to preach the gospel to the Miamis, whilst his companions returned to Quebec to announce their discoveries. Two years afterwards Marquette entered the little river in the State of Michigan, called by his name, and erecting on its bank a rude altar, said mass after the rites of the Catholic Church; and being left alone at his own request, "he kneeled down by its side, and offering to the Mightiest solemn thanks and supplications, fell asleep to wake no

more. The light breeze from the lake sighed his requiem, and the Algonquin nation became his mourners."

The fame of Marquette induced others to follow in his wake; and among these was Robert Cavalier de la Salle. In 1667, when the attention of Europe was directed to New France, he resorted thither, and first established himself as a fur-trader at La Chine, being in habits of daily intercourse with the warriors of the Iroquois, the Five Nations of Northern New York. Hearing from them the most glowing accounts of the Far West, he resolved to annex the same to France, and to establish a close connection between the valley of the Mississippi and New France by a line of military posts, and for that purpose repaired to France, where he sought and obtained an interview with Colbert, then the prime minister of Louis XIV. Colbert listened with delight to the gigantic schemes of La Salle, and a paper having been obtained from the king commissioning La Salle to explore the valley of the Mississippi, he arrived with a number of mechanics, and military stores and merchandise for the Indian trade, at Fort Frontenac, in the year 1678. In the fall of that year a boat of ten tons, the first that ever entered the Niagara River, conveyed part of his company to the Niagara Cataract. He immediately established a trading-house in its vicinity, and laid the keel of a vessel of sixty tons, called the Griffin, which in the summer of 1679 was launched on the Upper Niagara, being the first vessel that ever rode on the waters of Lake Erie. The roar of its artillery reverberated from shore to shore, arousing the savages in their forests and making them come forward in their swift canoes and look with astonished curiosity upon it. He sailed across the lake and cast anchor on the 27th of August in Green Bay, where he exchanged his goods at an immense profit for a rich cargo of furs, which he shipped in the Griffin to Niagara River to be disposed of, in order that he might make a remittance to his creditors. He next entered the river St. Joseph, on the banks of which he erected a small fort, known as the fort of the Miamies; and after waiting for a long time to hear tidings of the Griffin, being weary of delay, he resolved to explore the interior of Illinois. He left ten men as the garrison of his little fortress, and descended the Illinois as far as Lake Peoria, where he met large parties of Illinois Indians, who, desirous of obtaining axes and firearms,

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