USA > Louisiana > Historical memoirs of Louisiana, from the first settlement of the colony to the departure of Governor O'Reilly in 1770; > Part 19
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council was the only way open to themselves, was there not an obligation on the council to right them? Could it refuse to listen to the repeated protests of the colonists and principal in-
said colony, to continue in their functions the ecclesiasties and religious in charge of parishes and missions-and continue the ordinary judges as well as the Superior Council, to render justice according to the laws, forms and usages of the colony-and would guard and maintain the colonists in their possessions- hoping, moreover, that his Catholic majesty would show his new subjects in Louisiana, the same marks of good will and protection displayed in the previous government, and of which the miseries of war had alone prevented their feeling greater effects. He, moreover, orders his letter to be registered in the Superior Council at New-Orleans, that the different orders of the colony may be acquaint- ed with its contents, and refers to it in case of need ; his present letter having no other object." Happy and consoling prospect produced in our hearts by the promises of the most august and respected of monarchs ! by what fatality have you vanished ?
Ulloa arrived at the Balize on the 28th of February, 1766, in a 20-gun frigate, with about eighty soldiers, some Spanish capuchins and employés. He landed at the city on the 5th of March, and, accompanied by members of the council, who, in spite of a storm of rain, went to his boat ; he passed through a double line formed by the regular troops, the provincial militia, and the roar of cannon and public acclamations. He at first responded to these signal marks by the most brilliant promises, but the sequel did not prove their solidity. Without entering into minute and ridiculous details of his private life, we shall retrace his public acts. If his principal aim was to destroy by the first acts of his clandestine administration the flattering hopes we entertained, ho succeeded perfectly.
To evince more clearly the first ground of complaint on our side, we must ob- serve, that the trade with the Indian tribes is one of the principal branches of commerce ; so intimately connected with the planter's interest, that one is the spring of the other. This trade is a very profitable market for the productions of several factories, and with encouragement would extend. It is a rich mine- the opening of which offers treasures more considerable than the metallic veins of Potosi. and to increase as the trader increases his commerce. From this inexhaustible source flow advantages both public and private ; the merchant finds in it a market-the man without means, employed as a trader and voya- geur, finds means of subsistence and lays up some money. The affection of the people is sustained by the intercourse with Frenchmen, eager to procure things which a knowledge of them has rendered necessary. And, lastly, public security, which this trade with the Indian tribes that surround us has created, is main- tained hy it ; but this is not the only benefit which results from it, for the colony in general. Ships from Europe and the West Indies, attracted by the hope of a profitable return, bring us the provisions we need, and finding in our stores peltries, on which they hope to profit, furnish us these supplies at a fair price ;
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habitants, against the formation of new establishments in the country without the formal act of oppression? Did not the very orders of the king make that tribunal a guardian of the
which becomes excessive when they have to sail away in ballast. These facts- these solid advantages, have been regarded by our worthy ministers, whenever their express orders have encouraged traders, by recommending free-trade. The reality has been acknowledged and expressly declared by the Duke de Choiseul, in his letter to M. d'Abadie, under date of February 9th, 1765. All the Upper Mississippi, and the northwest on the Missouri, was then offered to our activity. Countless tribes, rich in rare furs, inhabiting these unknown parts, would soon be subjected to our factories alone. The discoveries to be made in those fine countries would be reserved to our efforts, and our eyes would for the first time explore that part of the globe still unknown to civilized man. How encouraging for us are the intentions of this wise minister ! With transports of gratitude we beheld him turn his attention not only to the re-establishment of our fortunes, ruined by the evils of war, and the increase of our resources almost annihilated by the very conditions of peace, but also extend his views to geographical dis. coveries, and trace in the same tableau the path of fortune and glory. A mag- nificent project which Ulloa deranged, and would doubtless have destroyed. We do not seek to fathom his motives, and confine ourselves to the narrative of his persevering efforts against free-trade. They began on the very spot by a general prohibition. The traders and settlers in Illinois complained. They showed M. de Saint Ange, the French commander in that port, the certainty of their ruin, and the inevitable danger of their being plundered and perhaps mur- dered by the Indians, who, ignor int and careless of political considerations, ask only for a constant supply of goods and a market for their furs. In spite of the repugnance of Senior Rice, a Spanish captain sent by Ulloa to Illinois, as com- mandant, the traders went to the villages this year also, although limited to a certain number; these, howeverwere the last efforts of their expiring privileges, and Ulloa about the same time granted to five or six individuals an exclusive trade in the country, recommended by our ministers to general emulation.
The lumber trade is another object of attention to the merchants, whose interests we have just seen are su closely connected with those of the planter. In the representations made to the Superior Council of the province, it was shown that the value of this article exceeded 100,000 livres a-year-an assertion which no one contradicts. This business, which the nature of the country presents to each with a profit in proportion to the means which he can employ, but always certain in that degree, is the first effort of the new planter, and the steady object of the old one. Deprive Louisiana of free-trade, close the market for her wood, and from that moment you condemn the merchant and planter to indolence and want. The ordinance issued September 6th, 1766, was but a warning of this misfortune. His Catholic majesty informed, we were told, of all that concerned the provisioning and utilizing of the country, deigned so far to favor the inhabit- ants as to permit the export of lumber in vessels from St. Domingo and Mar-
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public peace, over which it was expressly enjoined and recom- mended to watch."
Did not all these reasons tend to convince O'Reilly of the
tinique, till means were found in Spain of carrying on that trade. But what probability is there of our lumber trade being taken up in Spain? This was plunging the dagger gradually in ; the death-blow was given by the decree. In the first article it is said that the shipping shall be only at the ports of Seville, Alicant, Carthagena, Malaga, Barcelona, Corunna, &c. In the eighth, that the returns shall be made to the same ports ; in the third article, vessels sent to Louisiana must be Spanish bottoms, and the captains and crews Spanish or naturalized. Finally, in the fourth and ninth articles, voluntarily putting into any American port, even in Spanish territory, is forbidden, and an involuntary one, subjected to onerous versifications and impositions. Had we then the faintest gleain of hope for our lumber trade to the French colonies of St. Domingo and Martinique, the only spots where it had any value ! Ye imprudent censors, whose unfounded reflections may extend to our conduct in this revolution, try, by your mathematical combinations, to restore the broken harmony, by according it to the decree, but first think of furnishing us means of subsistence.
Besides, what apparent resource could even suspend our just forebodings ? The products of our lands and commerce consist in lumber, indigo, furs, tobacco, cotton, sugar, pitch and tar. Furs have little value in Spain, as they are not in use, and those used are made up abroad. Havana and Peru supply wood and sugar far preferable to ours ; Guatemala, a superior indigo, and in quantities greater than their factories consume; Peru, Havana and Campeachy, cotton ; the Isle of Pines, pitch and tar ; Havana and the Spanish part of St. Domingo, tobacco. Those grown by us, inferior to those produced by those vast territo- ries, and useless and superabundant in her ports, are rejected there, or reduced to a nominal value. What return then can we expect from shipments made to "the ports named in the decree ! On the other hand. the small number of factories in Spain, with the little aid given there to maritime cities by home agriculture, forces Spanish subjects there to resort to foreign ports for provisions of every kind. Marseilles supplies her ports with grain, as they cannot obtain it at home without the excessive expense of a laborious land carriage in a mountain country. The whole nation too, is tributary to all the manufacturing countries, and the most signal favor that Providence has done her, was to make her mistress of Mexico and Peru to purchase her first necessaries. Rich by industry alone, can we expect Spain to furnish ours sufficiently and cheaply, when she herself is 'obliged to buy her own in cash and at high rates ? In spite of the perhaps momentary exemption announced by the decree of all duties on shipments to Louisiana, these sad truths known to the whole world, coupled with the certain depreciation of our products in the Spanish ports, have made us justly fear, that our crops, though abundant, far from rewarding our industry as heretofore, by often giving us superfluities, will cease to supply even pure, simple necessaries.
From these observations, superficial indeed compared to the certainties from
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innocence of the accused? And even if he had received from his royal master, which is out of the question, the cruel order to condemn them to death, should he not, before pronouncing
which they are deducted, can we for a moment doubt that this colony, as far as its productions are concerned, will be useless to Spain, and that the political views in the treaty of cession was confined to the sole object of making a bulwark for Mexico. But will the misery of the colonists give strength to that bulwark ? What madness to undermine our rising fortunes by destroying free-trade, when even these political views do not seem to require the sacrifice ! Everything induces us to believe that bis Catholic majesty desired first to learn by the reports of his envoy, the causes which produced and the means which maintained our prosperity. Our king's promises assured us of the good will of our new sove- reign and the mildness of his intended administration. The officers of the Span- ish king, on their arrival, announced the continuance of our commerce for at least ten years ; the source of our wants known in Spain, without our even indicating it, was left open to our activity : but on seeing the decree, can we doubt that Ulloa, charged with that report, as stated in the ordinance published here on the 6th of September, 1760, is the author of the calamities which threaten us, and that having projected our ruin, his untrue reports have prevented the effect of that good will, which his master undoubtedly intended to show us.
It is vain to object that the list article of the decree permits us to draw from Spanish ports the fruits and goods from Louisiana to sell them in foreign coun- tries, if there is no market in Spain, and that without paying any export duty. What avail is all this pretended advantage to us ? Let us not count the articles of the deerce, but observe its spirit, and read none of the articles without follow- ing the close connection between them all. We are indeed permitted to sell in foreign countries, products unsaleable in Spain, but on what conditions ? Our merchants, naturalized in Spain (decree, art. 3), must go to the ports of Seville, Malaga, Ke., and pay five per cent. (art. 12) ; foreed by the refusal of their cargo to leave these ports and go to seek a market in the neighboring countries, they must return in ballast to Spain (art. 1) ; to take in a cargo of fruits and goods already into Spain after paying import duties (art 7). Does this expensive voyage dispel our sad reflections on the general want that threatens us ? Add to this, the ships' expenses, estimated by our chambers of commerce at 3,000 livres a month for a vessel of 300 tons, the unloading in a Spanish port, reloading for a foreign market, double commission, insurance and storage, the increase of avaries, (duties) which foreign nations will of course charge on goods coming from Spain, and we behold the deerce as a kind of alembic, devouring, rarefying our crops to their quintessence.
Our king's promises in his letter of April 21st, 1764, induced us to hope that we would always have the same laws to follow and the same judges to hearken to. Yet, what a blow was given to this article by Ulloa at the very outset of his administration ? He had not yet taken possession ; his commission has never been verified, enrolled, or even presented ; no tie yet binds us to his authority ;
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sentence, prove to the king that he had been deceived, that the colony never having ceased to be governed in the name of the French monarch, the inhabitants were not guilty of any
nothing but a respectful deference for the character which he is supposed to bear, promises him our obedience ; and yet severe punishments, chastisements unknown under the still subsisting French rule, are already inflicted by his orders, on the slightest faults ; even if supposed to be faults at all. Now, it is not to be imagined that these false principles of administration, these sad novel- ties of an unknown domination, are the only motives of our fears and the alarm spread through our families. The Spanish law may have beauties and advan- tages unknown to us ; but an antipathy to all that is humane, a natural disposal to injure, seen and proved in the individual who comes to proffer us that law, make us feel the hardest consequences, while appearing to act only by those very consequences. Spanish policy closes its ports as much as possible, in order to close it at will to foreigners, and absolutely to cut off contraband trade. In con- sequence of this law, the envoy of his Catholic majesty has closed all the passes of the Mississippi but one, and that the most shallow, difficult and dangerous. An almost universal law forbids establishments within a certain distance of the citadels and fortifications of the frontier towns. Señor Ulloa has thought that establishments formed in the primitive towns of the rising colony by grant from our prince and under the eyes of his governors, should be destroyed, on account of their proximity to the palisade with which the city has within a few years been surrounded. Condemnation to the mines is decreed by the Spanish law against malefactors and dangerous men. Ulloa has not hesitated to pronounce it against respectable men, whose only crime was their being the spokesinen of their fellow-colonists and bearers of respectful representations, exposing our wants and tending only to the encouragement of agriculture, the increase of commerce, the importation of necessaries, and the general good of the country. Dispatches given by persons in office require more diligence and exactness as they may interest the general welfare ; but the hearers have never been held . responsible for superior strength, head-winds, the risks and perils of the sea ! What harsh treatment, what vexation was not exercised by Ulloa successively towards Messrs. Gaynard and Gachon, because their ships did not deliver pack- ages at Havana in time on account of the weather. A decree of the Superior Council of this province had for wise and just motives forbidden the introduction of negroes creolized or domesticated, in St. Domingo and the other isles ; but it was all reduced to visiting slavers on their arrival, and sending immediately back such as were within the prohibition. To this Ulloa added sequestration of property, imprisonment, and without any commendatory ordinance, which should always precede first punishments, he has exercised them on Mersrs. Cades and Leblane, whose sole crime was their not having had a prophetic spirit, and hav- ing been ignorant'of the existence of his decree. These facts, which are not notorious, and of which many individuals have been victims, interest all as much and more than can be imagined. To make this consequence more evident, we hall enter into the details of several.
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crime against the king of Spain ; that it would be a violation of the law of nations, and what is more, of the respect due to the French king, to judge men in his service, and condemn and
As to the interdiction of the passes of the Mississippi, it must be known that Ulloa, in spite of all representations, and what he could have seen himself or learnt by the disasters, stubbornly insisted on their frequenting only the North- East Pass, which, in the highest tides, has only nine or ten feet of water, pre- venting all vessels from entering or leaving by the others which have ordinarily ten or twelve. To this restrictive and dangerous prohibition he added another still more so ; he forbid pilots to sleep on board of vessels anchored outside the pass, and kept out by head-winds or shallow water. Difficulties and accidents followed, but this did not dissuade him from his first plan. The first difficulty was the delay of vessels going out, frequent and expensive at all seasons, but almost inevitable in winter when the north and north-northwest winds prevail, as these are useless for the North-East P'ass, while they not only serve to carry vessels out of the Eastern Pass, but also to drive them on their way, without any necessity of their waiting for a wind. Entering was as bad. The North-East Pass could not be entered with a south or south-southwest wind, though the eastern could. Besides this, the Spanish officer at the Balize obliged them to anchor as soon as entered opposite the houses of the Balize, to be examined there, in an exposed anchorage. Thus great risk was run, which could have been avoided by anchoring in the fork, or keeping on their way up the river, as was done under their former liberty, which was not more favorable to those to whom they wished to forbid entrance. Moreover, in all countries when a coast-pilot sets foot on board, he never leaves till the vessel is in or out, and in safety, and acting day and night as the case and weather may require. If this rule should be inviolable anywhere, it should be undoubtedly in our parts border- ing on low countries and a large river, with a bed of mud in one place, and of sand in another, where winds change, and water rises or falls from hour to hour. By preventing pilots from sleeping on board in a gale and sending them off at night, an inexperienced captain, ignorant of the bars and passes, was helpless ; obliged to hoist sail to get off, often with the loss of anchor and cable, he would iun on the reefs opposite, called " Les Moutons, " or at least would get in the wind of the pass, without any hope of getting up easily ; and finally, if he was fortunate enough to get off, he returned after much time and trouble only to face the same danger again.
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Navigation, that art so useful to states, hardly deserves that men should com- bine with nature to increase its difficulties and dangers. Is the fortune of ship- owners and the life of mariners so worthless, that they may be exposed to almost unavoidable danger by the caprice of a single man ! Ask the European and the India captains and crews, who have been here within the last two years and a half. All have seen the new perils invented by Ulloa ; many have been the foot-balls and victims of his malignant combinations. Without citing many examples, the accident of Capt Sarron while leaving the river, is striking. After having lain a considerable time to get out by the North-East Pass, as the
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punish them for their attachment to him. Should he not have added that Ulloa, wishing to govern without showing his right,
wind was v. and x. N. E., the wind changed at last, and his time came. But the water had fallen so that he got fast on the pass; though he had the good fortune to get off and return. He came back to the city to career his vessel again. (And observe the city is nearly ninety miles from the mouth, and that vessels have often to get up by towing, and this has taken some fifty or sixty days, with- out any means of doing it otherwise.) Capt. Sarron lost his voyage and spent usclessly much money ; while had the Eastern Pass been forbidden, and pilots been able to frequent it, he could have got out without delay or danger.
At the very time that we are drawing this memorial, the trumpet announces the sale by auction of the rigging and artillery saved from the ship Carlota, from Rochelle, half buried in the sand. Captain Lacoste would not complain of the Joss of his vessel, if, when he wished to enter, he could have kept his pilot on board, as the pilot, if he could not get him in the pass, could have shown him a sandy bottom where he could lie to, as many, and among others Capt. Couriac, have done.
Some colonists here are engaged in manufacturing brick for home consump- tion. The three principal kilns are at the city gates ; the largest, employing a considerable number, is the patrimony of four minors, and sometimes yields 150,000 livres a-year. This ground is susceptible of no other revenues, and the men cannot even make a living there. The city, moreover, is not incommoded by it, and the pits whence the clay is dug being removed from the highway, the public road is neither narrowed nor impeded. Ulloa first attacked the adminis- trator of this brick kiln, and absolutely forbid him to continue. under pain of for- feiting his negroes, oxen, carts and tools. The parties interested, after many efforts, at last wrung from him the grounds of this prohibition. He told them that the pits corrupted the salubrity of the air. To disabuse him, they furnished certificates of physicians and surgeons M. Lebeau, M. D., in his majesty's pay, even drew up some learned and perfectly conclusive observations. As to com- mon reflections, they were, "that the country had always been very healthy in spite of all the clay-pit's and cypress groves on the river and around the city." According to his system it would be necessary also to fill those into which the water runs and remains most of the year. Ulloa undoubtedly had not forescen these objections, but he imagined or adopted another reason which he believed unanswerable, namely, that establishments should be kept off from the fortifica- tions, as he called the palisade, which has nothing secret, and an approach to which is of no consequence.
The affair was however spun out, and they could neither obtain of him an order in writing to stop, nor a verbal permission to continue, and many have justly supposed that the brick business was aimed at by some two or three individuals -a plan which coincided exactly with the Spanish envoy's turn to reduce all to monopolies.
This unconquerable inclination was more clearly evinced last year in his pro- hibition to introduce negroes into the colony, as it would have been prejudicial
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should be regarded as having violated the usages established by reason and equity. O'Reilly might say, too, that the sub-
to an English merchant in Jamaica, who had sent a vessel to Ulloa to arrange with him the contract for supplying slaves ; this blow was aimed both at our commerce and our agriculture. From the merchant it took a considerable branch of trade, and cut off the planter's means of fortune, for the rivalry prejudicial to the English merchant was advantageous to the colonist, who would have prefer- red cheap and well-conditioned slaves. What then ? Deprive the new subjects of the most natural means of profit and increase, and enrich a foreigner ? Is this what the new rule promised ? Has U'lloa received such orders from his master ? Who dare presume so ! Are we not tempted to believe that vile reasons of interest entered into these monopolies !
Our governors, commandants and magistrates have always been regarded by us. as our fathers. As often as we decined it our duty to remonstrate humbly our particular wants or the general interest, were favorably received ; when we .addressed our governors and commandants, instead of regarding us as rebels and mutineers, (a favorite expression of Ulloa's) they approved our steps, as proper in a truc citizen. We have a proof in M. Aubry's, on the 28th of June, 1765, to the memorial of the merchants of New-Orleans. He dispels our uncertainty ; the organ of the minister to us, as the minister himself is of the sovereign's will, he communicates to us orders received from him, and gives us copies of letters which he has written in consequence to the officers of the posts. In the end he excites, encourages, and evokes in us a reciprocal zeal. When we address the council our memoirs are examined ; if our demands appear just, the voice of the procurator-general seconds ours, and the court deliberates ; the events of the 20th October, are a recent proof. Royal promises induced us to expect the same mildness, the same liberty, the same privileges in the new government. But far from assuring us of their continuance, Ulloa will not even allow their semblance to remain. The ordinance published on the 6th of September, 1766, exhorts merchants to make the representations which they addressed to their magistrates. Ulloa treated them as seditious, without knowing them ; and although our judges by condescendence at first suspended judgment, he thought proper to try an example capable of alarming whoever would in future dare to speak of his interests or his wants. Some of our merchants, whom he doubt- less believed the authors of these representations, attached to the country by their family, credit, commerce and fortune, have been menaced with imprison- ment and confiscation-a judgment to emanate solely from Ulloa's tribunal, and which they with difficulty escaped.
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