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By an ordinance of the 22d of February, 1770, O'Reilly provided a revenue for the town of New Orleans. An annual tax of forty dollars was to be levied on every tavern, billiard table, and coffee house, and one of twenty dollars on every boarding house ; a duty of one dollar was to be charged on every barrel of brandy brought to the town ; and O'Reilly graciously accepted and sanc- tioned a proposition liberally made by the butchers, to pay an annual contribution of three hundred and seventy dollars into the coffers of the town, to meet municipal expenses. In making this offer, these butchers expressly declared, that they did not mean to justify thereby any alteration on their part, now and thereafter, in the price of meat-which alteration, they said, ought never to take place without extreme necessity. It was estimated that,
35
COMMERCIAL REGULATIONS.
with all these branches of revenue, the annual income of the town would amount to two thousand dollars .*
As the town was put to considerable expense, to keep up the levee which protected it against inundation, it was authorized to collect an anchorage duty of six dollars from every vessel of two hundred tons and upwards, and half that sum from smaller ones.
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On both sides of the public square or Place d'armes, from Levee to Chartres and Condé streets, there was a large space of ground facing on St. Peter's and St. Anne's streets, with a front of three hundred and thirty-six feet on both these streets, and eighty-four feet in depth. O'Reilly granted to the town, in the name of the king, the whole of that space of ground, which was soon after- wards sold to Don Andres Almonaster on a perpetual yearly rent.t It is still owned by his daughter, the baroness of Pontalba, who has lately covered it with buildings of an imposing aspect, by which she has con- siderably embellished the great commercial emporium to which she is indebted for her birth and wealth.
O'Reilly expressly prohibited the purchase of anything from persons navigating the Mississippi, or the lakes, without a passport or license .¿ It was, however, permitted to sell fowls and other articles of provisions to boats and vessels, provided the fowls and provisions were delivered on the bank of the river, and payment received in ready coin.
Persons violating this prohibition were liable to a fine of one hundred dollars, and to the confiscation of the articles so purchased, one third of the whole being the reward of the informer.
Que con todos los expresados ramos podran ascender los proprios de la ciudad á 2000 pesos fuertes .- See the Records of the deliberations of the Council of the Indies on O'Reilly's acts in Louisiana.
+ Martin's History of Louisiana.
# Jbid.
36
THE CAPUCHINS AND THE NUNS.
No change was effected in the ecclesiastical organiza- tion of the province. The old Superior of the capuchins, the reverend father Dagobert, remained in the undis- turbed exercise of his pastoral functions, as curate of New Orleans, and in the administration of this southern part of the diocese of Quebec, of which the Canadian bishop had constituted him vicar general. The other capuchins were maintained in the curacies of their respective parishes.
It may be remembered that, in 1726, the Ursuline Nuns, by the agreement which they had made with the India Company, had bound themselves to take charge of the Charity Hospital in New Orleans. Displeased proba- bly with this kind of service, the Nuns had, in the course of time, obtained from the Pope a bull releasing them, it seems, from their obligation, which had become merely nominal, being confined to the daily attendance of two nuns, during the visit of the king's physician .* After having noted down his prescriptions, they withdrew, contenting themselves with the easy task of sending from their dispensary in the convent the medicines he had ordered. The Catholic king, to show his regard for this religious corporation, decided that two of the Nuns should be maintained at his own expense, for each of whom sixteen dollars was to be paid monthly to the convent out of his royal treasury.
Don Joseph de Loyola, who had come to Louisiana with Ulloa, in 1766, as intendant died in 1770, and his functions were discharged ad interim by Don Estevan Gayarre, the royal comptroller, or contador.
Don Cecilio Odoardo arriving with the commission of auditor of war and assessor of government, Jose de Ur- rustia and Felix del Rey, those two learned men in the law, who had been the advisers of O'Reilly, and who had
* Martin's History of Louisiana.
37
THE FRENCH BLACK CODE RE-ENACTED.
been discharging the duties now imposed on Odoardo, departed for Havana.
Bobé Desclozeaux, who, on the death of Michel de la Rouvillière, in 1759, had acted as commissary general ad interim, remained in New Orleans by order of the king of France, with the consent of the king of Spain, to call in and redeem the paper money which had been emitted by the former colonial administration, and of which a very considerable quantity was still in circulation.
When Louisiana was ceded to Spain, there were pend- ing in France several appeals from the judgments of the Superior Council. On the 6th of April, 1770, the king of France, through his council of state, declared that he could no longer take cognizance of said appeals, because, when parting with Louisiana, he had also parted with the first and most glorious of his rights, that of rendering justice in that province, wherefore he ordered that all the cases which might still be on the dockets of any of his courts, be transferred to the tribunals of Spain, by which they were to be decided.
O'Reilly thought it necessary, by a special procla- mation, to re-enact the Black Code which Louis XV. had given to the province. This seems to confirm the opinion, that the French laws were considered by the Spanish government as virtually abrogated by the pub- lication of the ordinance subjecting the colony to the laws of the Indies. A short time after, O'Reilly having completed the mission for which he had been clothed with extraordinary powers, and temporarily sent to Loui- siana, delivered up the government of the province to Don Louis de Unzaga, and departed, on the 29th of October, 1770.
Judge Martin, in his History of Louisiana, says : " Charles III. disapproved of O'Reilly's conduct, and he received, on his landing at Cadiz, an order prohibiting
38 O'REILLY'S ADMINISTRATION APPROVED BY THE KING.
his appearance at court." This assertion seems to rest only on the very fallible authority of tradition, and is certainly irreconcilable with official documents on record. Thus, on the 28th of January, 1771, the king of Spain sent to his Council of the Indies a communication, in which he informed them, that he submitted to their con- sideration all the acts of O'Reilly's administration in Louisiana, which he fully approved, but on which, never- theless, he wished to have the opinion of his faithful council. The answer was : that the council, having care- fully examined all the documents to which the king had called their attention, could discover in the acts of O'Reilly nothing which did not deserve the most decided approbation, and which was not a striking proof of the extraordinary genius of that general officer. Would such an encomium have been bestowed on him, if he had been even suspected of having excited the slightest royal displeasure ? Not only all his acts, but also all his sug- gestions were sanctioned, with one solitary exception, which seems to give still more force to the sweeping commendation expressed, as to every thing else, by the king and his council. This exception is relative to the 6th article of section 5 on punishments, in which O'Reilly said : "The married woman convicted of adultery, and he who has committed the same with her, shall be delivered up to the husband, in order that he may do with them what he pleases, with this reserve, however, that he shall not put one of them to death, without inflicting the same punishment on the other." The coun- cil declared that this article, "The perusal of which had proved sufficiently disgusting to them, should be con- sidered* as of no effect, and as having never been writ-
* Se considerase como suspenso y no escrito el art. 6, que dice : "La muger casada que adultere y el adultero sean entregados al marido para que haga de ellos lo que quiera, con tal que no pueda matar al uno sin matar al otro." El cual causó bastante repugnancia al tiempo de leerse.
39
O'REILLY'S CHARACTER.
ten." This article, however, had not been devised by O'Reilly, but was borrowed from book 8 of the "Nueva Recopilacion de Castilla " (new digest of the laws of Castile). It is besides well known that O'Reilly remained high in favor at court, until the death of Charles III.
. The motto on O'Reilly's coat of arms was : " fortitudine et prudentiâ ;" and he seems not to have been deficient in the possession of both these virtues. But there is hardly an instance, when blood shed in a political cause, whatever may have been the just and apparent neces- sity of it at the time, did not, sooner or later, rise from the earth, to cloud in the eye of the world the fame of the author or adviser of the deed. This has become an historical truth, and is confirmed by what O'Reilly's memory has suffered, in consequence of the execution of Lafrénière and his companions. He was not, however, the blood-thirsty tyrant that he was represented to be, and never, except on this occasion, in the whole course of a long public life, which was exposed to the scrutiny of those who hated him as a foreigner, and envied him as one of the king's favorites, did he ever give the slightest cause to accuse him of not having been always attentive to the dictates of humanity. His talents as a military man, and as an administrator when discharging the functions of a civil officer, cannot be the object of a .doubt, and it must even be admitted that they were of a superior order.
When in Louisiana, he was no more than thirty-four or thirty-five years old. There he left a reputation of strict morality and military precision. Fond of pomp, and somewhat ostentatious in all his tastes, naturally gay, and animated with strong sociable dispositions, he, nevertheless, was not addicted to pleasure, and he de- voted himself entirely to the business he had on hand. He was exceedingly prompt, exact and active, and he
40
O'REILLY'S CHARACTER.
required the same qualifications in his subordinates. By a proper and systematic distribution of his time, to which he inflexibly adhered, he could get on, with astonishing ease and rapidity, through an immense deal of labor, and he left nothing to be done by others which he could do himself. He emphatically was a man of action, a lover of the camp, as his predecessor, Ulloa, was a man of study, a lover of meditation and scientific speculations. It was said that he endeavored, as far as possible, to see every thing with his own eyes, and, when he had to trust others, he never failed to descend into the minutest details of the duties which he expected them to fulfil. Not only was O'Reilly exces- sively urbane in his social and official intercourse, but distinguished also for the exquisite refinement of those courtly manners which have now almost ceased to be a reality, and the recollection of which will soon fade away into vague and dreamy traditions. But he was of an irritable temper, and liable to fits of haughtiness on the slightest appearance of what he supposed to be premeditated contradiction or opposition. Preserving all the vivacity, excitability, and sprightly wit of the Irish temperament, he was remarkably animated in con- versation, and seemed to have a relish and a turn of mind for a good joke. He cultivated with sedulous attention the society of some families with which he seemed to be highly pleased, and which he always treated with deferential courtesy. Escorted by a few dragoons, his carriage was frequently seen driving at a rapid pace up the Coast, where he used, in his moments of leisure, to visit a family residing a few miles from the town, and in which he found himself in an atmosphere reminding him of that of the best European society. One day, when, according to his habit, he had provoked a keen encounter of wits with the lady of the manor,
41
O'REILLY'S CHARACTER.
being stung by a sharp repartee, his hasty temper betrayed him, and he forgot himself so far as to say, with a tone of command: " Madam, do you forget who I am ?" "No, sir," answered the lady, with a low bow, " but I have associated with those who were higher than you are, and who took care never to forget what was due to others; hence, they never found it necessary to put any one in mind of what they were." Nettled at this proud answer, Count O'Reilly departed instantly, but returned the next day with a good-humored smile, and an apology befitting a gentleman of his rank. Finally, he became a much valued friend, where at first he had merely been a guest, and, to complete the description of his character, it may be sufficient to add, that, whatever may have been some of his errors, he won esteem and affection wherever he was intimately known.
CHAPTER II.
UNZAGA'S ADMINISTRATION.
1770 to 1776.
THE departure of O'Reilly for Spain was soon followed by that of the royal comptroller, Don Estevan Gayarre. This officer had applied to the court for leave to return to Spain, and to be put on the list of retired pensioners, on account of his many years of service and of his im- paired vision. On the 22d of September, 1770, the Mar- quis of Grimaldi wrote to the royal comptroller a letter in which he informed him that the favor for which he had petitioned (his return to Spain) was granted, and requested him, on his arrival in the Peninsula, to give information of it and of the state of his health to the government, in order that his majesty might determine on calling him to some other employment or allow him to retire, with the pension to which he was entitled. In consequence of this communication, Estevan Gayarre left the colony in the beginning of 1771, carrying away with him more than one document,* showing conclusively the good understanding which had always existed between Aubry and the Spanish authorities, during all the phases of the revolution of 1768, and a certificate in which the French governor testified, in warm terms of acknowledg- ment and eulogy, to the important services rendered by the comptroller both to the kings of France and Spain. He was succeeded in office by. Antonio Joseph de Aguiar ;
* See the Appendix.
43
UNZAGA'S ADMINISTRATION.
his son, Don Juan Antonio Gayarre, who had, under him, acted as chief officer in the comptroller's office (11º offi- cial de contadoria), and who on the 23d of September, 1768, notwithstanding he was then only sixteen years of age, had been, on the eve of the insurrection, appointed commissary of war by the intendant Joseph de Loyola, in which office he was subsequently confirmed by O'Reilly on the 5th of January, 1770, remained in the colony to serve under Aguiar. The old contador and companion of Ulloa died in Spain at the close of the century. To complete the sketch which I gave of his life and charac- ter, when depicting that of the other actors who appeared on the stage at that eventful period of the history of Louisiana, and also to illustrate the manners and feelings of another age, it may not be inappropriate to give here a short extract from a letter which, in 1796, he wrote from Coruna in Gallicia, to one of his grandsons in Loui- siana :
"My son, I may say that I have already one foot in the grave. I have little of earthly goods to bequeathe, or to dispose of, contenting myself with leaving, at my death, what will be necessary to bury me in seven feet of ground, with the little but honorable exhibition of military pomp, within which have shrunk all my vain hopes in this mise- rable world. Yea, such is this world ! Its flitting glories fade away-and there remains nothing but the alternate lassitude and self-torment of thought. Therefore a pure and sound mind ought ever to have its eyes fixed on heaven."*
* Hijo mio, yo estoy yá con el pie en la sepultura y tengo no efectos de conside- racion de que testar ni disponer, contentandome yó con que, á mi fallecimiento se halle lo necesario para enterrarme en siete quartas de tierra con la corta y honrada pompa militar con que solo he fundado la esperanza vana de este mise- rable mundo. Lo que es el mundo ! Cesen glorias pasadas-Del pensamiento unas veces fatiga y otras tormento ; el spiritu bueno siempre há de estar mirando al cielo.
44
.
COMMERCE OF THE COLONY.
Don Luis de Unzaga, whom O'Reilly had designated as his successor, was colonel of the regiment of Havana, and was subsequently confirmed as governor of Louisiana, by a royal schedule of the 17th of August, 1772, with a salary of $6000. When he entered upon the duties of his office, he found that the commerce of Louisiana had greatly decreased under the ill-advised policy of Spanish restrictions ; for, it will be recollected that, by the royal ordinance which Ulloa had caused Aubry to publish in 1766, the trade of the colony had been confined to Seville, Alicant, Carthagena, Malaga, Barcelona, and Coruna, and that no vessels were to engage in this trade, restricted as it was, but those that were Spanish built and commanded by Spaniards. Even these vessels, when sailing to or from Louisiana, were prohibited from entering any Spanish port in America, except in case of distress, and then they had to be submitted to a strict examination and to heavy charges. It is true that, in 1768, an exemp- tion from duty had been granted by the king to the commerce of Louisiana on foreign and Spanish goods, either when exported from the six ports already men- tioned, or when imported into New Orleans ; but the exportation of specie or produce from Louisiana was burdened with a duty of four per cent. The colonists . had lately obtained a very slight and insufficient mitiga- tion of the evils of which they complained, and it con- sisted in a permission granted for the admission of two vessels from France annually.
.
This oppressive system was exceedingly foolish, as it could benefit neither the colony nor the mother country. Which of the. goods they most wanted for their consumption could the colonists have procured to ad- vantage, in Seville, Alicant, Carthagena, Malaga, Bar- celona and Coruna, the only ports they could trade to ? And if procured, how could they have paid for them ?
45
COMMERCE OF THE COLONY.
Importations are paid with exportations ; and what could they have successfully exported to those ports, that would have defrayed the costs of transportation ? Was it their indigo ? But it could not have encountered the com- petition of the indigo of Guatimala, Caraccas and other Spanish possessions, to which it was greatly inferior in quality. Was it their furs and peltries ? But these objects were little cared for in the warm climate of Spain. Was it their rice and corn ? But this they raised in too small a quantity, and wanted altogether for their own home consumption. Was it their timber and lumber, which was their most important branch of revenue ? But what cargo of the kind would have sold sufficiently high in Spain, to cover the bare expenses of transportation across the Atlantic ? Moreover, setting all these considerations aside, how could the merchants of New Orleans compete with the English, who had engrossed the contraband trade of the colony, through the facilities afforded them by the privilege of navigating the Mississippi ? Their vessels were constantly plough- ing the river up and down ; and, under the pretence of going to their possessions of Manchac, Baton Rouge and Natchez, the English contrived clandestinely to supply the inhabitants of New Orleans and. the planters above and below that town with goods and slaves. They took in exchange whatever their customers had to spare,* and extended to them a most liberal credit, which the good faith of the purchasers amply justified. Besides, they had very large warehouses at Manchac, Baton Rouge and Natchez, and a number of vessels constantly moored a short distance above New Orleans, opposite to the spot now known as the city of Lafayette. To these places the inhabitants of Louisiana used to resort, and to
* Martin's History of Louisiana, p. 26, vol. 2.
46
COMMERCE OF THE COLONY.
carry on their contraband dealings, which were hardly, if in any way, checked by the Spanish authorities. Encouraged by this tacit connivance, the English had gone farther, and had contrived to convert into floating warehouses two vessels, the cabins of which they fitted up as stores, with shelves and counters. These ingeni- ously devised shops were kept moving up and down the river, stopping, like our present line of coast steamboats, at every man's door, and tempting him and his family with the display of their goods and trinkets. Thus, in this indirect way, the English having monopolized the trade of Louisiana, this colony had, in a commercial point of view, become for its owner an entirely worthless possession.
Without this infraction of the unwise provisions of the commercial and revenue laws of Spain, it is difficult to imagine how the colony could have subsisted, and, therefore, Unzaga acted judiciously for the province and for Spain, when he disregarded the Chinese-like regulations which he was commanded to enforce, and when he winked at their violation. The poor merchants of New Orleans, whose occupation, like Othello's, was gone, were permitted to indulge in im potent clamors, and in slyly whispered insinuations that the Spanish governor had some reason of his own, besides the alleged one of supplying the wants of the colony, for the indulgence which he extended to British traders. But their complaints were as unnoticed as the idle wind, and things went on as usual, without even any show of attempted interruption.
This year (1771) the Marquis of Grimaldi informed Unzaga, that his majesty had consented to what, he, Unzaga, had applied for, that is, that eleven capuchins from the province of Champagne in France be permitted to come to Louisiana, and had granted the prayer of the
47
DISASTROUS HURRICANE.
Ursuline Nuns-that a church be built as an appendage to their convent.
In the beginning of 1772, Colonel Estecheria arrived, and assumed the command of the regiment of Louisiana. There came also from Spain, at the king's expense, a priest with two assistants, who were sent to instruct the rising generation in the Spanish language, and from Ha- vana, four young women, who took the veil in the con- vent of the Ursuline Nuns of New Orleans, and who were destined to teach Spanish to young persons of their sex.
The winter of 1772 was made remarkable for its ex- treme severity, and all the orange trees perished, as in 1748 and 1768.
If the winter had been Siberian-like, the summer which followed showed itself tropical in all its character, and the country was visited by a hurricane, which was much more furious and destructive than all those which had yet been seen, and which, beginning on the 31st of
August, lasted to the 3d of September. Strange to say, however, it was hardly perceptible in New Orleans, where the weather retained its serenity, although it was severely felt in the immediate neighborhood of that town. The sea was driven over the islands along the coast of the gulf, and rushed in mountainous waves, not through, but, as it were, over the passes of the Rigolets and Chef-Menteur, to meet Lake Pontchartrain, which rose to a prodigious height. As the wind blew from the sea, all the vessels at the Balize, with the exception of one that foundered, and was lost with all on board, were lifted up like feathers by the joint fury of the war- ring elements, and blown over into the midst of those swamps of reeds which line the mouths of the Mississippi. Along the sea-coast, from Lake Borgne to Pensacola, the wind ranged from South-South-East ; but farther west, it blew with still greater violence from North-North-East and
48
DISASTROUS HURRICANE.
East. Judge Martin relates, in his History of Louisiana, that a schooner, belonging to the British government, and having a detachment of troops on board, was driven westerly as far as Cat Island, under the western part of which she cast anchor; but the water rose so high, that she parted her cable, and floated over the island. The wind swept with such irresistible power through the woods, that they were almost entirely destroyed within a radius of about thirty miles from the sea-shore. At Mobile, the strong hand of the hurricane seized the vessels, boats, logs and every thing else that were in the bay, and scattered them about the streets of that town, just as a boy, in a mad freak, flings round his playthings. There was such an accumulation of logs in the gullies and hollows about the town and in its lower grounds, that it supplied the inhabitants with fuel during the whole of the ensuing winter.
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