USA > Louisiana > Historical memoirs of Louisiana, from the first settlement of the colony to the departure of Governor O'Reilly in 1770; > Part 11
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Avarice, which always finds real or apparent means of satis- fying itself, invented a very onerous one to repair the evil caused by the departure of the Spaniards; this was to increase the royal expenses, and we may say that they had no more moderate limits than the motives to which they owed their ex- istence and their excess. The forts which the French king had in different parts of the colony were objects of office- seekers .* These men, led there by cupidity, carried the ex-
and he had to send to Vera Cruz for ammunition and supplies. The fate of the colony was approaching. The Choctaws and Alibamons threatened to join the English, unless they received supplies. Things continued to get gradually worse, when, on the 3d of November, 1762, the king of France ceded to the · king of Spain this splendid province, which extended from the Gulf of Mexico to the shores of the Pacific. On the 20th of June, 1763, D'Abadie landed at New-Orleans, and Kerleree soon after departed for France, where he was thrown nto the Bastile to answer charges made against him. Here he was confined for some time, and after his release, it is said, ho died of grief .- Gayarre's Archives of France .-- Martin.
* These posts were Point Couper, Natchitoches, Natchez, Arkansas, Illinois, Mobile, Tombeckbe and Alibamons. They served as retreats for Indian traders. Under Kerlerec's administration the commanders of these exclusively carried on the trade, and disposed at will of the royal stores intended as presents for the Indians. After exhausting these, they sold goods to the king at exorbitant prices, and frequently the very articles which they had abstracted. I have heard on this point strange items of expense, the most entertaining are these, viz : it cost the king of France ten thousand francs to clear a prairie ! and in another post twenty thousand francs in one year for milk for the hospital. The garrison of the post must have been suckled all that year !
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penses to unheard-of sums, for they depended on their will, or rather on their caprice. They drew bills of exchange, which the comptroller (commissaire-ordonnateur) of New-Orleans was obliged to accept in the king's name. All this took place during the last war, and expenses are mentioned which are perfectly incredible, so barefaced and ridiculous are they.
The great quantity of paper showed the necessity of depre- ciating its value, and before the king had spoken, commerce had taxed it. His Christian majesty acted much more favor- ably than was supposed; for the paper was reduced only half, while on 'change at New-Orleans they lost three-quarters .*
It is easy to see how such shocks injured the progress of the colony. They soon combined with other causes to pro- duce the unhappy state into which that province fell, at the time when I was drawn there with the troops sent by the English government, to begin establishments on the ceded ter- ritory. The information which I acquired enables me to say positively, that the two main causes of the weakness of the colony at all times are, first, a neglect to encourage agriculture and thereby a medium of exchange; and secondly, the mis- management in the expenses incurred in the king's name. All believe that Louisiana would have been able to sustain Canada and carry French conquest into the very heart of the English possessions in North America, had the French government thought more seriously of the means of increasing the power of that portion of the new world !- had it animated the dif- ferent branches of cultivation, for which it is better adapted than any other part of North America-had posts been opened
* The amount of paper at this time afloat in the colony was about seven mil- lions of livres, which was selling at the rate of about five livres in paper for ono of specie. About this time, too, a memorial was written proposing to restore confidence by adopting a plan for the withdrawing of all paper money in the colony.
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for commerce, means of exchange instead of means of cupidity and revulsions been presented, and a deaf ear been turned to those who, 'impelled by avarice, proposed at times to shackle agriculture under the false pretext of encouraging commerce.
Such is the idea that I conceived of the main causes of the languishing state of that colony ; and we shall be convinced of their accuracy, when in the second part we see Louisiana re- covering her strength when the colonists turned their attention to agriculture.
This part will embrace the period between the peace and the arrival of the Spaniards; and the success of so short a period will tend to prove what I have advanced in the first part, " that the neglect of agriculture was the main cause of the state of weakness in which the colony was in 1762."*
* In the Archives of the Escurial, there is a document in which Spain states her impossibility to send supplies to the colonists, but recommends it as the in- terest of France and Spain to retain Louisiana. As early as 1762, the king of France wrote to Kerlerec, that, by the preliminaries of peace, he had ceded to the king of England a part of Louisiana, and had also resolved upon ceding the other part to his cousin, the king of Spain.
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SECOND PART.
WHAT LOUISIANA WAS FROM THE PEACE OF 1762 TILL THE ARRIVAL OF THE SPANIARDS.
MTHE Frenchman loves his king as the Englishman loves his country ; this love, more disinterested in the former, is as worthy of high praise. These two different springs produce in each nation similar acts of patriotism. In the last war we saw the Canadian recognize welfare and hap- piness only under French rule, and for it sacrifice fortune, children, life ; and, after the peace, half the inhabitants of Cana- da abandon their lands, and run the risk of dying from want in France rather than enjoy the ease which their possessions assured them under a free and peaceful government.
We see this same patriotic fire extend to Louisiana among all the colonists who were on the part ceded to the English.
We shall, in the third part of this work, show this spark the origin of a great conflagration which might have produced the most surprising revolution; but we are, at present, to consider what transpired between the peace of 1762 and the arrival of - Don Antonio de Ulloa. This period embraces, if we may use the expression, the manhood of the colony-a glorious time, indeed, but too short.
The English, as I have already said, had acquired the ces- sion of Florida and all Louisiana east of the Mississippi, whose course became common to the two nations, French and English. The former, however, preserved the isle of New-Orleans, formed by Iberville River and the lakes. The circumference of this island is about 150 leagues, but all the land is not inhabitable; in fact, only the banks of the Mississippi are. The city lies on
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the island which bears its name, thirty-two leagues from the mouth of the river, and one league from a narrow channel running to Lake Ponchartrain, which connects with the gulf. As the entrance to this lake belonged to the English,* commerce with the French was secured to them on all sides, as the prin- cipal French establishments are on New-Orleans island, and communicate with the city by the river and lakes. The gulf- shore at Pensacola and Mobile is of a white sand, unfit for culti- vation, rendering it indispensable to communicate and trade with the French colony of Louisiana. The English govern- ment had felt it, and by leaving the isle of New-Orleans to the French, they assured themselves a trade which cannot possibly be prevented, and which is, moreover, necessary and very ad- vantageous to the inhabitants.
At the moment when the treaty of peace was published, the French, whose possessions lay on the part now become English · territory, t were seen abandoning their lands and proceeding with their negroes and stock to territory which they believed, as the treaty pretended them, to be still French. In some places they had only to cross the river. They showed no regret at the constant sight of the plantations which they had . abandoned.
Who can refuse a tribute to such sacrifices? The promises of the English, the facilities which they afforded, retained only such colonists as could not abandon their possessions without exposing themselves to starvation.
* See the correspondence between Col. Robertson and Gov. d'Abadic, in 1763, on the commerce of the lakes.
t Prior to this period the whole territory on both sides of the Mississippi, situ- ated between the northern lakes and the Gulf of Mexico, and between the Mexi- can and Alleghany Mountains, went under the name of Louisiana. That part of it ceded to the English lost the name, but the new acquisition of Spain re- tained it. In 1762, the king of France sent instructions to M. d'Abadie respect- ing the delivery of Louisiana to England and Spain.
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Monsieur d'Abadie was appointed by the French king governor of the part of Louisiana which had been left him by the treaty of peace. The city had the rank of a port of entry, and M. d'Abadie had the direction of the custom- house, thus uniting the two offices of intendant and governor of that wretched colony; the deplorable state in which he found it, left him no hope of ever seeing it attain the splendor to which he saw it could be raised. Yet, he employed wisely and understandingly the best means to attain it. He felt that a spirit of trade and exchange had seduced many . To recall some to agriculture and inspire a taste for it, and destroy all hopes of making fortunes otherwise, he diminished the exces- sive expenses of the government, giving a surer and more profitable direction to agriculture; he flattered the hopes of the colonist, and endeavored to open markets for articles that could employ the greatest number of inhabitants, such as tobacco and rice. Lastly, he permitted the English to trade with the colonists, and even encouraged them to supply negroes .*
No governor had till then perceived, as M. d'Abadie did, the real means of prosperity for Louisiana; but the colony was three or four years in arrear, and this debt was first to be liqui- dated. The Louisiana merchants owed a great part of the invoices shipped by houses in France, and M. d'Abadie had to seek means to send back all these sums in order to restore the colony's credit, entirely lost since the war. This he could not effect without incurring the hostility of the mer- chants, who looked with a jealous,eye on the English stores at New-Orleans. But the welfare of the colonial cultivator called for his first attention. Commerce he could always .
. English merchants for a number of years supplied Louisiana and the Ameri- can colonies with negroes from Africa.
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restore, and with applause, when the colonial produce, aug. mented by the facilities offered the cultivator, had furnished the merchants sure means of exchange and speculation .*
A premature death unfortunately carried off this worthy man, at the very moment when he was most occupied with means of elevating the colony ; which had as yet but slightly experienced the efficacy and certainty of those means. His death was not accordingly as much regretted as it should have been.t
He was, moreover, replaced by M. Aubry a man whose valor had won the highest praise in the last war, and whose
* The merchants addressed a memorial to M. d'Abadie on the 7th of June, 1764, depicting the wretched condition of the colony produced by the depreciation of paper money. This document contains a practical refutation of the paper system, and shows its demoralizing effects .- Archives of France.
t M. d'Abadie was appointed by the king, director-general in 1774, in which year he arrived in Louisiana. This magistrate was profoundly distressed with the duty he was instructed to perform, and the grief which it occasioned caused his death on the 4th of February, 1765. It is stated by a writer of this period, that he died universally regretted. " A disinterested ruler, just towards all, and inflexibly firm in causing the laws to be respected, he severely repress- ed the excesses of masers towards their slaves, and protected the Indians from every kind of oppression. By his example, he caused religion and morality to be honored ; and left a memory dear to all Louisianians."
In October, 1764, M. d'Abadie announced the cession to the colonists. This intelligence plunged the inhabitants into the deepest consternation. They in- dulged however the fond hope that their united exertions might avert the im- pending calamity. Every parish was accordingly invited to send its most notable planters to a general meeting in New-Orleans in the beginning of the following year. It was attended by almost every respectable planter from the province, and by almost every person of note in New Orleans Lafreniere, the attorney- general, addressed themeeting in a patriotic speech, which he concluded with a proposition, " that the sovereign should be entreated to retrace his steps, and that an agent should be sent to France to supplicate his majesty." The propo- sition was assented to without a dissenting voice, and Jean Milhet was selected for the important mission. He went to France, and at Paris he was assisted by Bienville, the former governor of Louisiana, who bewailed the dismemberment of Louisiana. He called with Milhet on the Duc de Choiseul, but as he was the prime mover of the measure, they were denied access to the king, and the mission failed. Mithet returned to New-Orleans ; reported the ill success of his mission, and ended his days as a state prisoner in the Moro Castle, Havana.
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social virtues made him generally respected. It was not remarked that the qualities of a good soldier and a good citi- zen do not necessarily suppose those necessary for government, the administration and finances. M. Aubry, an excellent grenadier, had no quality to fit him for governing properly a colony situated as Louisiana was then. A talent far superior to this governor's was needed to carry out the important work begun by M. d'Abadie, and to fulfil worthily the difficult commission imposed upon him.
The planter who, under M. d'Abadie, had felt the necessity of devoting his time to cultivation, and whose essays had proved how advantageous it would be, did not relax under M. Aubry, from whom he expected as much protection and encouragement as he had received from his predecessor.
But sometime before his death, in 1763, M. d'Abadie bad received from the French court notice of the cession of Louisi- ana to Spain, by an act passed at Madrid and Versailles at the time of the peace of 1764. No one knew why this cession had been so long kept secret, or why France had after that sent a governor and troops in her pay. The French king, an- nouncing the cession, ordered M. d'Abadie to enter the letter*
* Louis the Fifteenth to M. d' Abadie.
" MONSIEUR D'ABADIE :- Having, by a special act, passed at Fontainebleau, November 3d, 1762, ceded, voluntarily, to my dear and well-beloved cousin, the king of Spain, his heirs and successors in full right, purely and simply without exception, the whole country known under the name of Louisiana, as well as New-Orleans and the island on which that city is situated ; and the king of Spain having, by another act, passed at the Escurial, on the 13th of November, in the same year, accepted the cession of the said country of Louisiana, city and island of New-Orleans, according to the annexed copies of these acts ; I address this letter to inform you that my intention is, that on the receipt of this letter and the copies annexed. whether it reaches you through the officers of Ins Spanish majesty, or directly by the French vessels charged with its delivery, you will resign into the hands of the governor therefor appointed by the king of Spain,
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in the council minutes, that the different departments in the province might refer to it when necessary.
I was an eye-witness of the consternation which this over- whelming news produced at New-Orleans. A general despair would have followed, had they not fondly hoped that the ces- sion would never actually take place. They could not conceive
the said country and colony of Louisiana and its dependencies, with the city and island of New-Orleans, in such state as they may be at the date of such cession, wishing that in future they belong to his Catholic majesty, to be governed and administered by his governors and officers as belong to him, in full right and without exception. I accordingly order, that as soon as the governor and troops of his Catholic majesty arrive in the said country and colony, you put them in possession, and withdraw all the officers, soldiers, and employés in my service in garrison there, to send them to France or my other American colonies, or such of them as are not disposed to remain under the Spanish authorities. I moreover desire, that after the entire evacuation of the said port and city of New-Orleans, yon collect all papers relative to the finances and administration of the colony of Louisiana, and come to l'rance and account for thein. It is, nevertheless, my intention that you hand over to the governor or officer thereto appointed all the papers and documents which especially concern the government of the colony, either relative to the colony and its limits, or relative to the Indians and the various posts, after having drawn proper receipts for your discharge, and given said governor all the information in your power to enable him to govern said colony to the reciprocal satisfaction of both nations. It is my will that there be made an inventory, signed in duplicate by you and his Catholic ; majesty's com- missary, of all artillery, effects, magazines, hospitals, ships, &c., belonging to me in said colony, in order, that after putting said commissary in possession of the civil edifices and buildings, an estimate be made up of the value of all the said . effects remaining on the spot, the price whereof shall be paid by his Catholic majesty according to such estimate. I hope, at the same time, for the advantage and tranquillity of the inhabitants of the colony of Louisiana ; and in consequence of the friendship and affection of his Catholic majesty, I trust that he will give orders to his governor or other officer employed in his service, in said colony and city of New-Orleans, to continue in their functions the ecclesiastical and reli- gious houses in charge of the parishes and missions, as well as in the enjoyment of the rights, privileges and exemptions granted to them by their original titles ; to continue the ordinary judges, as well as the superior council ; to render justice according to the laws, forms and usages of the colony ; to guard and maintain the inhabitants in their possessions; to confirm them in possession of their estates according to the grants made by the governors and intendants (ordonna- teurs) of said colony, and that such grants be deemed and reputed confirmed by his Catholic majesty, even though not yet confirmed by me. Hoping, morcover, that his Catholic majesty will be pleased to give his subjects in Louisiana the
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how France could abandon a colony so convenient for her European and West Indian trade. They saw how little benefit it could be to Spain. They still imagined, so much did they fear a change of government, that the cession of Louisiana was only a temporary political arrangement, and such as could conecive it to be real, redoubled their ardor to increase the revenue in the hope and desire of laying up a competence in Europe. Nobody accordingly thought of becoming a Span - iard, so dear is country to every virtuous heart.
Then was felt what encouragement and emulation the several objects of produce would have done. The various motives- which animated the colonists all concurred to the same end ; industry was carried to its highest point; machines were everywhere raised to multiply force and facilitate works.
Revenues everywhere doubled, nay tripled in some places. Louisiana indigo, till then depressed, equaled that of St. Domingo in quality and value, such was the care devoted to its manufacture. More expeditious and convenient saw- mills considerably increased the lumber trade ; cotton was planted, and its quality tested by manufacture .* All took life, and the colony of Louisiana would have become the richest, most populous and powerful establishments in the New World.
same marks of affection and good-will which they experienced under my govern- ment, the greater effects of which the evils of war alone prevented their feeling. I order you to register this, my present letter, iu the superior journal at New - Orleans, in order that the different states of the colony may be informed of its contents, that they may have recourse to it in time of need. The present letter having no other object, I pray God. M. d'Abadie, to preserve you in his holy keep- ing .- Given at Versailles, April 21, 1764.
(Signed) " LOUIS. (Countersigned) " THE DUKE DE CHOISEUL."
* Indigo and cotton appear to have been the only staple productions of Louisi- ana at this time, although sugar-cane had been cultivated by the Jesuits as early as 1751.
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We read in the memoirs published about this colony, that a great number of Acadians prepared to leave New-England to .come and join their countrymen on the banks of the Missis- sippi, but the news of the cession of Louisiana to Spain, in- duced some to remain where they were, others to go to St. Domingo or Cayenne. Many took refuge in France, and were sent to Corsica; Canadian families were on their way to settle in Louisiana, believing it still French, but learning the change of government in time, settled at Detroit. Yet, who would have been happier than the Acadians, had they chosen to avail themselves of the offers of the English government ?* But their love of country rose above every other consideration; they aspired only to live under a French rule, and to enjoy it faced the greatest dangers. They would in preference have gone to Louisiana, the climate of which was more like that of Acadia. What an advantage for France ! what a population for Louisi- ana, if it had not changed rulers! "Happy," says the author of one of these memoirs, "Happy, if France had only to regret these generous citizens!" But the total loss of the colony of Louisiana will necessarily follow its cession to a power so little fitted to turn it to advantage.
In fact, if we examine the Spanish colonies, what do we sce ? Misery and oppression spread over a few wretched set- tlers scattered over vast territories, rendered deserts by the cruelties of that nation ; thousands of slaves a thousand times
{ This is mere flattery of England. There is scarcely an act of her govern- ment more disgraceful to common sense and common humanity than her treat- ment of the Acadians. Williamson, in his History of the State of Maine, has given a thrilling account of their cruel treatment and expulsion by the English from Acadia. From the Ist of January to the 15th of May about six hundred .and fifty arrived at New-Orleans. Part of this number were sent to form settle- ments in Attakapas and Opelousas, and the remainder settled on the banks of the Mississippi, which is to this day called the Acadian Coast.
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more unhappy than the most abused beasts, for they are better able to know the extent of their misery, and all employed in wringing from the bowels of the earth the contemptible metals which drew that nation to the new world. The men whom they pretend to call free in Spanish colonies are born serfs to every man sent to command in the name of His Catholic Majesty, and who all successively become gorged with the blood of those whom they harass and oppress. By abusing the power confided to them, these tyrants become arbitrary, and the wretch who dares complain or mourn soon falls a victim for his natural feelings.
Is it possible, that under a just king, engaged in Europe in elevating the well-being of his states and extending abundance and fertility, not one generous soul can be found to carry to the foot of his august throne the cries of the wretched inhabi- tants of his colonies ? The picture that could be drawn of the horrible vexations to which they are subjected, would touch his great and magnanimous soul, but cupidity carefully keeps aloof the man bold enough to address the monarch in accents of truth. For soon would follow the destruction of the means which the rapacity of his officers finds of sating itself in the blood of the wretches whom it overwhelms with misery. There are too many interested in maintaining them.
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