On his return to France, Bienville presented a memorial in vindication

of his course. Eight years before this he had urged upon the Marine

Council that he was entitled to promotion. The recapitulation of his

services, with which he opened his letter, is used again in substance

in the memorial: “For thirty-four years Sieur de Bienville has had the

honor of serving the King, twenty-seven of them as _lieutenant du roy_

and as commandant of the colony. In 1692 he was appointed midshipman.

He served seven years as such, and made seven sea-voyages in actual

service on armed vessels of the navy. During these seven years he

participated in all the combats waged by his brother, the late Sieur

d’Iberville, upon the shores of New England, at Newfoundland, and at

Hudson’s Bay; and among others in the action in the North against three

English vessels. These three vessels, one of which had fifty-four guns

and each of the others forty-two, attacked the said Sieur d’Iberville,

then commanding a frigate of forty-two guns. In a combat of five hours

he sank the fifty-four-gun ship, and took one of the others; while

the third, disabled, slipped away under cover of the night. The said

Sieur de Bienville was then seriously wounded in the head.”[63] He then

refers to his services in the exploring expedition and in the colony,

closing with the statement that his father was killed by the savages in

Canada, and that seven of his brothers died in the French naval service.

In support of his memorial, and to refute statements that there would

be an Indian outbreak if he should return, several representatives

of the Indian tribes of the colony, moved thereto by Bienville’s

relatives, were admitted to an audience with the Superior Council, and

there pronounced themselves friendly to him. It was thus that the red

men, on whom he had relied for food at some time in nearly every year

since he landed in Louisiana, rewarded him for his friendly interest in

their behalf,—him who had been the advocate of the plan for exiling

them to Santo Domingo, there to be exchanged for negroes; who had

subdued the eight hundred warriors of the Natchez by treacherously

seizing and holding their principal chiefs; who, on the 1st of

February, 1723, wrote that an important advantage over the Chickasaws

had been gained without the loss of a French life, “through the care

that I took to set these barbarians against each other.”

[Illustration]

All efforts of Bienville for reinstatement were thrown away. The

Council were of opinion that much of the wrangling in the colony

was due to the Le Moynes. M. Périer was appointed governor; and in

order that his administration might have a fair chance, several of

Bienville’s relatives were deprived of office in the colony. Under

the new Government, events moved on as before. The quiet of colonial

life was undisturbed except for the wrangling of the officials, the

publication of company orders, and the announcement of royal edicts.

In a memorial forwarded by the commander of Dauphin Island and Biloxi,

a highly colored picture is shown of the chaotic condition of affairs.

“The army was without discipline. Military stores and munitions of

war were not protected. Soldiers deserted at pleasure. Warehouses

and store-ships were pillaged. Forgers, thieves, and murderers went

unpunished. In short, the country was a disgrace to France, being

without religion, without justice, without discipline, without order,

and without police.”

Bienville had steered clear of serious Indian complications. He had

settled by deceit, without a blow and almost without troops, what in

place of more stirring events had been called the “first war of the

Natchez.” On the occasion of a second collision, in 1723, he had simply

appeared upon the scene with a superior force, and dictated terms to

the natives. During Périer’s term of office signs of uneasiness among

the natives and of impending trouble began to show themselves. Warnings

were given to several of the inhabitants of Natchez that danger was to

be apprehended from the neighboring tribe. The commander of the post

wilfully neglected these warnings, which were repeatedly brought to his

knowledge. On the 29th of November, 1729, the Natchez Indians rose,

and slaughtered nearly all the male inhabitants of the little French

village.[64] The scene was attended with the usual ingenious horrors

of an Indian massacre. A prolonged debauch succeeded. The Yazoos,

a neighboring tribe, surprised and slaughtered the little garrison

which held the post in their country. Even the fathers in charge of

the spiritual affairs of the posts were not spared.[65] Except for

this uprising of the Yazoos, the example of the Natchez tribe was not

contagious. News was quickly conveyed up and down the river, and but

little damage happened to travellers between Illinois and Louisiana.

[Illustration: FORT ROSALIE.

[“Plan du Fort Rozalie des Natchez,” in Dumont’s _Mémoires historiques

de la Louisiane_, ii. 94. There is also a plan of Fort Rosalie in

Philip Pittman’s _Present State of European Settlements on the

Mississippi_ (London, 1770), p. 40.—ED.]]

According to Dumont, the Choctaws and Natchez had conspired to attack

the French simultaneously at New Orleans and Natchez, and the attack at

Natchez was made in advance of the day agreed upon for the outbreak.

At this, he says, the Choctaws were exasperated, and announced that

they were willing to move in conjunction with the French upon Natchez.

According to their own professions, however, their friendship for

the French was uninterrupted, and they denied any previous knowledge

of the outbreak at Natchez. Whatever the motive which prompted it, a

joint military campaign against the Natchez was now organized with

the Choctaws. All the credit in the affair was gained by the Indians.

They were first in the field, and they did all the open fighting. When

the French tardily arrived on the spot, instead of the surprise, the

sudden attack, the rapid flight, and the complete victory or defeat

which had hitherto characterized most Indian warfare, they found the

Natchez behind rude fortifications, within which they had gathered all

their people, together with the women and children captured at the

recent attack on the village. The French were compelled to approach

these defences with all the formalities of a siege. At the end of what

Périer bombastically terms “six days of open trenches and ten days of

cannonade,” the Natchez on the 26th of February, 1730, surrendered the

captive women, children, and slaves to the Choctaws, withdrew their

entire force, and fled to the opposite bank of the Mississippi. The

knowledge that the French captives were with the Indians probably

hampered the French in their attack.

The services of tribes friendly to the French were secured during the

summer to harass the miserable Natchez; and on the 1st of August the

Governor could proudly report that by this means he had been able

since their migration to kill a hundred and fifty. “Lately,” he says

in one of his despatches, “I burned four men and two women here, and

the others I sent to Santo Domingo.” Smarting under the disgrace cast

upon their reputation by the fruitless results of this campaign, the

French felt the necessity for subduing the fugitive Natchez, who still

preserved their tribal organization and their independence. An alleged

negro insurrection the next summer furnished opportunity for hanging

“ten or a dozen of the most culpable” of the negroes, and further

demonstrated the necessity for some attempt to recover the prestige of

the French name.

In the month of November, 1730, Périer started on a crusade against

his foes. The force which he ultimately brought together for this

expedition is said to have been a thousand men, of whom seven hundred

were French. In January, 1731,[66] he succeeded in running down the

Natchez in their fort, situated a short distance from the river on the

west side, where he besieged and finally captured—according to his own

account—four hundred and fifty women and children and forty-five men.

Again the greater part of the warriors of the tribe escaped him. The

captives were sent to Santo Domingo, where they were sold as slaves.

The resources of the colony were now better understood. Buffalo-wool,

pearls, and mines were no longer relied upon. Prosperity had eluded

the grasp of the greater part of the settlers; but if agricultural

experiments had not proved remunerative as they had been handled,

they had at least demonstrated the fertility of the soil. The hopes

of commercial success, with so scant a population and under the

restrictions of the monopoly, were shown to be delusive. The climate

had proved a severe trial to the health of the settlers.[67] Perhaps

the character of the immigrants, their improvident habits, and their

reckless exposure had much to do with it, and had made the test an

unfair one. At all events the experience of the Company was but a

repetition of that of Crozat; and in 1731 the rights granted in the

charter were surrendered to the King. During Périer’s administration a

change was made in the character of the girls sent over to the colony.

In 1728 there arrived a ship bearing a considerable number of young

girls who had not been taken from the houses of correction. They were

cared for by the Ursulines until they were married.

It is not easy to follow the growth of the colony. When Crozat turned

matters over to the Company, there were said to be seven hundred

inhabitants; but four years afterward the Company officials, in one of

their reports, put this number at four hundred. The official estimate

in 1721 was five thousand four hundred and twenty, of whom six hundred

were negroes. La Harpe, in his memorial, puts the population in 1724

at five thousand whites and three thousand blacks. At the time of the

retrocession to the King the white population was estimated at five

thousand, and the negroes at over two thousand.

The treasury notes of the Company at that time constituted the

circulating medium of the colony. Fifteen days were allowed, during

which their use could be continued. After that their circulation was

prohibited, with appropriate penalties.

The Government signalized its renewal of the direct charge of the

colony by efforts to build up its commerce. Bienville succeeded

in securing his appointment as governor, and in 1733 returned to

Louisiana. The finances of the colony having undergone the disturbance

of the withdrawal of the paper money of the Company, the Government

consulted the colonial officers as to issuing in its place some card

money. These gentlemen recommended that the issue should be postponed

for two years. The impatience of the Government could, however,

be restrained but a year, when the entering wedge of two hundred

thousand livres was ordered,—the beginning of more inflation. In 1736

Bienville, owing to the unfriendly attitude of the Chickasaws, felt

the necessity of success in some movement against them, if he would

retain the respect and friendship of the Choctaws. He therefore made

an imposing demonstration against the Chickasaw villages. According to

his own account, he had with him over twelve hundred men, who in an

attack on one of the villages were repulsed with such severe loss that

the whole party were glad to get back to the shelter of their permanent

forts, without the satisfaction of knowing that they had either killed

or wounded one of the enemy.

The Chickasaws had apparently learned the value of earthworks as

defences, from their experience, if not from the English traders. Some

of these traders were in the village at the time of the attack, and

hoisted the English flag over their cabins. By throwing up the earth

around their houses, the Indians had converted each habitation into

a fortification. Unfortunately for the objects of the expedition,

Bienville learned, on his return to Mobile, that a coöperating column,

organized in Illinois, and composed mainly of Northern Indians, which

had marched under young Artaguette against the same enemy, had been

completely worsted, and their leader was reported killed.

If the movement against the Chickasaws was demanded by the condition

of affairs before this demonstration, the repulse made a renewal of it

at an early day a positive necessity. A strong force of men was sent

over from France under an officer trusted by the Court, and in 1739 an

advance was made with twelve hundred white soldiers and twenty-four

hundred Indians, by way of the Mississippi instead of the Tombigbee.

They were joined at a point near the present site of Memphis by a

company under Céloron, and by a detachment from Fort Chartres under

Buissonière. Five months were consumed in exploring a road which was

supposed to have been already laid out before they started. During this

time all the provisions of the expedition were consumed, and the main

army was obliged to return without having seen the enemy. The extensive

preparations for the expedition had, however, a moral effect. In March

a company of Canadians and Northern Indians, which had reported at the

appointed rendezvous, penetrated alone to the Chickasaw villages. The

chiefs of that tribe, believing that this corps was supported by the

expedition, sued for peace, which the French gladly granted them.

Every military effort put forth by Bienville since his return to

Louisiana had resulted disastrously. The old story of accusation

and counter-accusation between the resident officials of the colony

continued during his second term as before. Chagrined at his lack of

success, and mortified by evident distrust of his abilities shown

by the Court, he tendered his resignation and pathetically wrote:

“If success proportionate to my application to the business of the

Government and to my zeal in the service of the King had always

responded to my efforts, I should gladly have consecrated the rest

of my days to this work; but a sort of fatality has pursued me for

some time, has thwarted the greater part of my best-laid plans, has

often made me lose the fruit of my labors, and perhaps, also, a part

of the confidence of Your Highness.” On the 10th of May, 1743, he was

relieved by the Marquis de Vaudreuil, and he then returned to France.

He was at that time sixty-two years of age, and never revisited the

scene of nearly forty-four years of active life in the service of the

Government. He was called the “Father of the Colony,” and a certain

romantic affection attaches to his memory, based rather upon his

professed good-will than upon any success shown in his management of

affairs.

During the remainder of the life of the colony, under the

administration of M. de Vaudreuil until he was called to Canada, and

after that under M. de Kerlerec, his successor, there was no material

change in the condition of affairs. All attempts at recapitulation of

events resolve themselves into dreary reiterations of what has already

been told again and again. Tobacco and rice continued to be the staple

products of the colony. Hopes were still maintained that something

might be made by cultivating the indigo-plant. The sugar-cane was

introduced in 1751.

There was more of tampering with the currency. Incredible as it may

seem, there was scarcity of provisions at this late day, and appeals

to France for food.[68] The friendly Choctaws were again incited to

war against their traditional enemies, the Chickasaws, and strife was

also stirred up among themselves. Another warlike expedition boldly

marched to the Chickasaw villages and came back again. Criminations and

recriminations between governor and _commissaire-ordonnateur_ continued

to the end, with few intermissions and with as lively a spirit as

characterized the fiercest days of Bienville’s chronic fights. There

was another shipment of girls as late as 1751. The character of the

troops remained as before, and deserters continued to be a source of

annoyance. Even the children of the colonists were affected by their

surroundings, if we may believe an anonymous writer,[69] who says, “a

child of six years of age knows more of raking and swearing than a

young man of twenty-five in France.”

Illinois, separated from the cabals of the little courts at Quebec and

New Orleans, showed some signs of prosperity.[70] In 1711 Father Marest

wrote: “There was no village, no bridge, no ferry, no boat, no house,

no beaten path; we travelled over prairies intersected by rivulets and

rivers, through forests and thickets filled with briers and thorns,

through marshes where we plunged up to the girdle.” The character of

the returns expected by the French from this country had been shown by

the expeditions of Le Sueur and La Mothe Cadillac. A few boat-loads of

green earth had been sent to France by Le Sueur for assay, but no mines

were opened. La Mothe brought down a few specimens of silver ore which

had been found in Mexico, and some samples of lead from the mines which

were shown him fourteen miles west of the river; but he discovered no

silver mines. Nevertheless, the Company had great faith in this region.

Their estimate of the dangers to which it was exposed may be gathered

from the instructions to Ordonnateur Duvergier in the fall of 1720.

He was told where the principal fortifications were to be maintained.

Illinois, the directors said, being so far inland, would require a much

smaller fort. Communication was to be opened up with that post by land.

Positive commands were given to hold a post on the Ohio River, in order

to occupy the territory in advance of the English, and prevent them

from getting a foothold there. “Illinois is full of silver, copper, and

lead mines, which ought to produce considerable returns if worked. The

Company has sent to the colony a number of miners to open the mines

and to begin work there as an example to the owners of concessions and

to the inhabitants. The troop of Sieur Renault, composed of people

accustomed to work of this sort, went to the colony at the same time;

but the two troops, according to last reports, are not yet at Illinois.”

About the same time it was ordered that “the establishment made

by Boisbriant,” originally a few leagues below the village of the

Kaskaskias, but apparently afterward transferred to a point about

the same distance above the village, should be “called Fort de

Chartres.”[71]

In 1721 Charlevoix traversed this region. Speaking of the so-called

fort at St. Joseph, near the foot of Lake Michigan, he says: “The

commandant’s house, which is but a sorry one, is called a fort from

its being surrounded with an indifferent palisade,—which is pretty

near the case with all the rest.” The route of Charlevoix was up the

St. Joseph across a portage to the Kankakee, and down that river,

the Illinois, and the Mississippi, to Fort Chartres, the next French

station which he mentions.[72] He describes it as standing about a

musket-shot from the river. He heard of mines both copper and lead.

Renault, or Renaud, as he is generally called, who was working the lead

mines, still hoped for silver. Even after this we hear occasionally of

alleged mineral discoveries and revived hopes of mines; but neither the

Company nor the Government were destined to reap any great revenue from

this source.

The duties of Boisbriant and of his successors were almost exclusively

limited to adjudicating quarrels, administering estates, watching

Indians, and granting provisional titles to lands or setting off rights

in the common fields of the villages. The history of these years is

preserved in fragments of church-registers, in mouldy grants of real

estate, or in occasional certificates of marriage which have by chance

been saved. No break occurred in this monotony till the joint movement

against the Chickasaws, of young Artaguette from Fort Chartres and

of Vinsennes from his post on the Wabash in 1736. The troops from

these posts, who were to move from the North at the same time that

Bienville should approach from the South, following their orders, met

and advanced at the appointed time. Their prompt obedience brought

them to the spot in advance of the dilatory Bienville, and enabled

the Chickasaws, as has been previously stated, to meet the columns

separately and defeat them in detail. A column from this fort was also

in the body of troops from the North which co-operated in the second

attack on these Indians.

During this uneventful time the little colony grew, and the settlers

enjoyed a moderate degree of prosperity. A contented population of

about two thousand whites,[73] to whom grants of land had been freely

made for purposes of settlement or cultivation, was mainly engaged in

agricultural pursuits. Side by side with them the natives were gathered

in villages in which were established Jesuit missions. The fertile

soil readily yielded to their efforts at cultivation more than they

could consume, and each year the surplus products were floated down to

New Orleans. Bossu asserted that all the flour for the lower country

came from Illinois. Vaudreuil, before leaving the colony for Canada,

reported[74] that boats came down the river annually with provisions;

but as late as 1744 he still harped on the discovery of new copper and

lead mines. Of the real agricultural value of the country there could

not at that time have been any just appreciation. As a mining region it

had proved to be a failure.

[Illustration: PLAN OF FORT CHARTRES.

[Taken from Lewis C. Beck’s _Gazetteer of the States of Illinois and

Missouri_, (Albany, 1823). The plan was draughted from the ground in

1823. Key: _a,a,a_, etc., exterior wall (1447 feet); _B_, gate; _C_,

small gate; _D,D_, houses of commandant and commissary, 96×30 feet

each. _E_, well; _F_, magazine; _G,G_, etc., barracks, 135×36 feet;

_H,H_, storehouse and guard-house, 90×24 feet. _I_, small magazine;

_K_, furnace; _L,L_, etc., ravine. Area of fort, 4 acres.—ED.]]

The little fort needed repairs;[75] and La Galissonière, with his

usual sagacity, wrote, “The little colony of Illinois ought not to

be left to perish. The King must sacrifice for its support. The

principal advantage of the country is its extreme productiveness;

and its connection with Canada and Louisiana must be maintained.”

Apparently the urgency of La Galissonière produced some results.

Macarty, the officer who had command of the post at the time of the

collision between the French and the English at the headwaters of the

Ohio, arrived at Fort Chartres in the winter of 1751-1752. Bossu,

who accompanied him, writes from the fort: “The Sieur Saussier, an

engineer, has made a plan for constructing a new fort here, according

to the intention of the Court. It will bear the same name with the

old one, which is called Fort de Chartres.” In January, 1755, Bossu

arrived a second time at the post, having in the mean time made a trip

to New Orleans. He says: “I came once more to the old Fort Chartres,

where I lay in a hut till I could get a lodging in the new fort,

which is almost finished. It is built of freestone, flanked with four

bastions, and capable of containing a garrison of three hundred[76]

men.” The construction of this fort was the final effort of France in

the Valley of the Mississippi. It proved to be of even less value than

the fortress at Louisbourg, upon which so much money was wasted, for

it fell into the hands of the enemy without the formality of a siege.

On the other side of the river, Bournion, who in 1721 bore the title

of “Commandant du Missouri,” founded Fort Orleans on an island in the

Missouri, and left a garrison[77] there, which was afterward massacred.

Misère, now known as St. Genevieve, was founded about 1740.

As events drifted on toward the end of the French occupation, the

difficulties of the French Government elsewhere compelled the absolute

neglect of Louisiana. Kerlerec writes in 1757 that he has not heard

from the Court for two years; and in 1761 the French ambassador,

in a memorial to the Court at Madrid, states that for four years

no assistance had been furnished to the colony. An estimate of the

population made in 1745 places the number of inhabitants at six

thousand and twenty, of whom four thousand were white. Compared with

the number at the time of the retrocession by the Company, it shows

a falling off of a thousand whites. It is probable that the white

population was even less at a later day. It is not strange that the

feeble results of this long occupation should have led the Most

Christian King to the determination to present the colony to his very

dear and much-loved cousin, the King of Spain,—an act which was

consummated in 1762, but not made public at the time. Its influence was

not felt until later.

* * * * *

The outline of events in Canada which we have previously traced carried

us to a point where the first collision in the Valley of the Ohio

between the troops of the two great nations who were contending for

the mastery of the northern portion of the continent had already taken

place. News of this contest reached New Orleans, and reports of what

was occurring at the North served to fill out the Louisiana despatches.

From this source we learn that the Chevalier de Villiers,[78] a

captain stationed at Fort Chartres, solicited the privilege of

leading an expedition to avenge the death of his brother Jumonville,

who had been killed by the Virginian force under Washington. The

request was granted; and thus the troops from the East and from the

West participated in these preliminary contests in the Valley of the

Ohio.[79]

It is not within the proposed limits of this sketch to follow in

detail the military events with which each of the few remaining years

of French domination in America were marked. The death-struggle was

protracted much longer than could have been anticipated. The white

population of the English colonies is said to have been over ten

times greater than that of Canada in 1755; and yet these odds did

not fairly express the difference between the contending Powers.[80]

The disproportion of the aid which might be expected from the mother

countries was far greater. The situation was the reverse of what it had

been in the past. England began to show some interest in her colonies.

She was prosperous, and the ocean was open to her cruisers. The French

experiments at colonization in America had proved a source of expense

so great as to check the sympathy and crush the hopes of the Court.

The vessels of France could only communicate with her colonies by

eluding the search of the English ships widely scattered over the sea.

Although no formal declaration of war was made until 1756, England did

not hesitate to seize French merchant-vessels and to attack French

men-of-war, and she backed the pretensions of her colonists with solid

arguments clad in red coats and bearing glittering bayonets. France

shipped a few soldiers and some stores to Canada. Some of her vessels

succeeded in running the gauntlet of the English cruisers, but more

were driven ashore or captured. The native Canadians, more French than

Frenchmen themselves, rallied to the support of the Government which

had strangled every sign of independent life in their country. Old men

and children joined the ranks to repel the invader; and again we have

the story repeated of scant crops improperly harvested because of lack

of field hands, and thereafter actual suffering for food in this old

and well-established colony. The experiences of Braddock and of Dieskau

were needed to teach Europeans the value of the opinions of provincial

officers in matters of border warfare. Temporary successes during

several years inspired hopes in the minds of the French and thwarted

the progress of the English. Nevertheless, the strength of the English

began to tell, especially along the seaboard, where their supremacy

was more conspicuous. The line of French forts across the neck of

the Acadian peninsula fell without serious opposition, and it was

determined to remove from the country a population which would neither

take the oath of allegiance to His Britannic Majesty, nor preserve

neutrality in time of war. Their forcible deportation followed; and in

their wanderings some of these “neutral French” even penetrated to the

distant colony of Louisiana, where they settled on the banks of the

Mississippi.[81] Such was the demoralization of the official class of

peculators in Canada that those refugees who escaped to the protection

of its Government were fed with unwholesome food, for which the King

had been charged exorbitant prices by his commissaries. The destruction

of the fort at Oswego postponed for that year the efforts of the

English to interrupt the communication between the valleys of the Ohio

and the St. Lawrence. The destruction of Fort William Henry temporarily

protected Montreal; the check sustained by Abercromby was of equal

military value. But in 1758 Louisbourg, with its garrison and stores

was lost, the little settlements in Gaspé were ravaged, and France was

deprived of the last foot of territory on the North Atlantic seaboard.

Quebec thus became accessible to the enemy by way of the sea without

hindrance.

[Illustration]

Distrust and jealousy pervaded the Government councils in Canada.

Pierre François, Marquis of Vaudreuil, the successor of Duquesne in

1755, and Montcalm, whose cordial co-operation was essential, were

at swords’ points. With each succeeding year the corrupt practices

of Intendant Bigot were more openly carried on. With famine stalking

through the streets of Montreal and Quebec, with the whole population

living on short rations, and bread-stuffs at incredible prices,

the opportunity for this wide-awake Intendant to make money was

never better. If accounts are to be trusted, he availed himself of

his chance; and out of the sufferings and dire necessities of this

sorely pressed people he amassed a fortune.[82] All this was to the

advantage of England. Every point that she gained in the struggle

she kept. From each reverse that she sustained she staggered up,

surprised that the little band of half-starved Canadian troops should

have prevailed again, but with renewed determination to conquer. The

only value of success to Canada was to postpone the invasion, and for

the time being to keep the several columns which threatened Montreal

from co-operation. With so feeble a force the French could not hope to

maintain the widely scattered forts which they held at the beginning of

hostilities. In 1759 they were threatened by hostile columns counting

more than the entire number of Canadians capable of bearing arms. All

hope of aid from France was crushed by the Minister, who wrote: “In

addition to the fact that reinforcements would add to the suffering

for food which you already experience, it is very much to be feared

that they would be intercepted by the English on passage.” Such was the

mournful condition of affairs when Wolfe sailed up the St. Lawrence,

expecting to find Quebec ready to fall into his hands. To his surprise,

the place was held by a force thoroughly capable of defending it

against the combined strength of his soldiers and sailors. Fortune

favored him, and Quebec was gained.

The resistance of the French during one more campaign was probably

justifiable, but was a mere matter of form. Without hope of assistance

from France, without means of open communication with any other French

possession, without supplies of ammunition or of food, there was really

nothing left to fight for. Even the surrounding parishes of Canada

had yielded to the pressure of events, after the failure to recapture

Quebec. When, therefore, the English columns converged upon Montreal

in 1760, the place capitulated, and the French flag disappeared from

Canada.

* * * * *

At the mouth of the Mississippi French occupation was not disturbed

until the boundaries were adjusted in accordance with the terms of

the Treaty of Peace signed at Paris in February, 1763. No reference

was made in the treaty nor in the preliminary convention to the fact

that France had already granted to Spain her title to the whole of

Louisiana. Knowledge of this remarkable act was kept secret for a few

years longer. England, by the terms of the treaty of Paris, became the

acknowledged mistress of all that portion of the American continent

which lies east of the middle of the Mississippi River, with the

exception of the island on which was built the city of New Orleans.

Ample provision was made to protect the rights of French citizens who

might wish to remove from the country. The privilege of religious

worship according to the forms of the Roman Catholic Church was

guaranteed to those who should remain, as far as the laws of England

would permit.

* * * * *

The era of colonial history which this chapter covers is coincident

with a period of decline in France. The transmission of the throne in

the line of descent was not, however, interfered with, nor were the

traditions of colonial policy changed. The causes of the rise and fall

of the colonies of European Powers at that time are to be found in

the history of European politics; and European politics in turn were

largely influenced by the desire to control territory in the New World.

The life of French colonies was in close contact with European events.

If the pulse of the English settlements did not throb in such sympathy

with the mother country, it was because there was a fundamental

difference in the methods by which English colonies had been formed and

in the conditions of their growth. A colony was not looked upon at that

time as forming a part of the parent State. It was a business venture,

entered into directly by the State itself, or vicariously by means of a

grant to some individual or company. If the colony did not earn money,

it was a failure. Spain had derived wealth from ventures of this sort.

Other nations were tempted into the pursuit of the same policy in the

hope of the same result.

To preserve the proper relations to the parent State, the colony

should have within itself elements of wealth which should enrich

its projectors; it should absorb the productions of the State which

founded it; and in no event ought it to come into competition with its

progenitor. The form of the French government was so logical that its

colonies could be but mimic representations of France. Priests and

nuns, soldiers and peasants, nobles and seigniors, responded to the

royal order, and moved at the royal dictation in the miniature Court

at Quebec much the same as at Paris. There was so little elasticity

in French life that the French peasant, when relieved from the cramp

of his surroundings, still retained the marks of pressure. Without

ambition and without hope, he did not voluntarily break away from his

native village. If transported across the water, he was still the

French peasant, cheerful in spirit, easily satisfied, content with but

little, and not disposed to wrestle for his rights. The priest wore

his shovel-hat through the dense thickets of the Canadian forests, and

clung to his flowing black robe even though torn to a fringe by the

brambles through which it was trailed. Governor and council, soldier,

priest, and peasant, all bore upon their persons the marks that they

were Frenchmen whose utmost effort was to reproduce in the wilds of

America the artificial condition of society which had found its perfect

expression in Versailles. Autocratic as was Frontenac, unlikely as he

was to do anything which should foster popular notions of liberty, or

in any way endanger monarchical institutions,—even he drew down upon

himself a rebuke from the Court for giving too much heed to the people

in his scheme of reorganization.

From his palace in France the Grand Monarque dictated the size and

shape of a Canadian farm. He prescribed the localities which new-comers

ought to select. They must not stray too far from villages; they must

clear lands in spots contiguous to settlements. He could find men who

would go to Canada, but there was no emigration of families. Soldiers

in the colony were offered their discharge and a year’s pay if they

would marry and settle. Premiums were offered the colonists for

marrying, and premiums for children. “The new settler,” says Parkman,

“was found by the King, sent over by the King, and supplied by the King

with a wife, a farm, and sometimes with a house.” Popular meetings

were in such disfavor that not until 1717 were the merchants permitted

to establish an exchange at Quebec. His Majesty, while pulling the

wires which moved the puppets of European politics, still found time

to express his regrets that the “King’s officers had been obliged to

come down from Frontenac to Quebec to obtain absolution,” and to convey

his instructions to the Bishop of Quebec to suppress several fête-days

which interfered with agricultural labors. Cared for thus tenderly,

it would seem that Canada should have thriven. Had the measures put

forth been wisely directed toward the prosperity of the colony, it

might have done so; but Louis XIV. was not working for the benefit of

Canada; his efforts were exclusively in behalf of France. In 1706 his

Minister wrote: “It is not for the interest of the parent State that

manufactures should be carried on in America, as it would diminish

the consumption of those in France; but in the mean time the poor are

not prohibited from manufacturing stuffs in their own houses for the

relief of themselves and their families.” Generous monarch! The use of

the spinning-wheel and the loom was not forbidden in the log-cabins in

Canada, even if this did clash somewhat with French trade. “From this

permission,” says Heriot, “the inhabitants have ever since continued to

fabricate coarse linen and druggets, which has enabled them to subsist

at a very small expense.” Coin was almost unknown much of the time; and

the paper money and bills of exchange, upon which the colony depended

for a circulating medium, were often seriously depreciated.

The spirit of organization and inquisition which infested the

Government pervaded all things temporal and spiritual. Trade in

peltries could only be carried on by those having permits from the

Government or from the firm or company which for the time being had the

monopoly. All trade at outlying posts was farmed out by the governors.

Young men could not stray off into the woods without violating a royal

edict. Such solicitude could only produce two results,—those who

endured it became automatons; those who followed their inclinations and

broke away from it were proscribed as bushrangers. From the day when

Champlain founded the city of Quebec down to the time when the heroic

Montcalm received his death-wound on the Plains of Abraham, the motives

which had influenced the French in their schemes of colonization had

been uniform and their methods identical. Time enough had elapsed to

measure the success of their efforts.

French colonization in America had reached three degrees of prosperity.

In Acadia, under English rule, freed from military service in the

ranks of the country to which they naturally owed allegiance, and

with their rights as neutrals recognized by the English, the French

colonists had prospered and multiplied. Originally a band of hunters

and fishers, they had gradually become an agricultural population,

and had conquered prosperity out of a soil which did not respond

except to the hand of patience and industry. Exempt from the careful

coddling of His Most Christian Majesty, they had evoked for themselves

a government patriarchal in its simplicity and complete for their

needs. In Louisiana, under the hothouse system of commercial companies

and forced immigration, the failure had been so complete that even

those who participated in it could see the cause. In Canada there was

neither the peaceful prosperity of Acadia nor the melancholy failure of

Louisiana. Measured by its own records, the colony shows steady growth.

Compared with its rivals, its laggard steps excite surprise and demand

explanation. The Acadians were French and Catholics. Neither their

nationality nor their religion interfered with their prosperity. They

had, however, been lucky enough to escape from the friendly care of the

French Government. It is but a fair inference that the Canadians also

would have thriven if they could have had a trial by themselves.

* * * * *

The history of England during the corresponding period showed no such

uniform motive, no such continuous purpose as to her colonies. From

the time of their foundation the English colonies became practically

independent States, with which the Home Government, during the long

period of political disturbances which intervened, seldom interfered.

The transmission of the crown by descent was interrupted. A parliament

displaced and executed a king. A protector temporarily absorbed his

power. The regular order of the descent of the crown in the restored

royal family was again interrupted. The crowned ruler of England was a

fugitive on the Continent, and Parliament by act prescribed who should

govern England, and afterward how the crown should be transmitted.

The causes that produced English emigration, whether political or

religious, varied with these events, and emigration was correspondingly

affected; but whatever the extent and whatever the character of this

influence, the emigration from England was, as a rule, a voluntary

emigration of families. Young men might be tempted by the fascinating

freedom of a wild life in the woods; but the typical emigrant was the

father of a family. He abandoned a home in the old country. He took

with him his wife, his family, and his household goods. Much of the

furniture brought over by the sturdy emigrants of that time is still

treasured by their descendants. The strong mental individuality which

thus led men with families to cut adrift from the struggles and trials

in England, only to encounter the dangers and difficulties of pioneer

life in a new country, found expression in various ways in the affairs

of the colonies, oftentimes to the vexation of the authorities.

The New France was a reproduction of the Old France, with all, and more

than all, the restrictions which hampered the growth and hindered the

prosperity of the parent State. The New England had inherited all the

elements of prosperity with which the Old England was blessed, and had

even more of that individuality and freedom of action on the part of

its citizens which seems to form so important an element of success.

Out of the heterogeneous mixture of proprietary grants, colonial

charters, and commissions, some of which were granted to bodies which

sought exclusive privileges, while others were based upon broad,

comprehensive, and liberal views; out of the conflicting interests

and divergent opinions of fugitive Congregationalists, Quakers,

and Catholics; out of a scattered, unorganized emigration of men

entertaining widely different views upon politics and religion,—these

aggressive, self-asserting colonists evolved the principle of the right

of the inhabitants to a voice in the affairs of their government; and

whether provision was made for it in the charter or not, houses of

burgesses, general courts, and assemblies were summoned to make laws

for the various colonies. Charters were afterward annulled; laws which

contained offensive assertions of rights were refused the royal assent:

but the great fundamental truth remained,—that the colonies were

self-supporting. They had proved their capacity, and they constantly

showed their determination, to govern themselves. Each movement of

the emigrant away from the coast became a permanent settlement which

required organization and control. Out of the unforeseen and unexpected

conditions which were constantly occurring came the necessity for

local government, to be administered by officers chosen by the little

settlements.

Emerson, in speaking of the first tax assessed upon themselves by

the people of Concord in Massachusetts, accounts for the peculiar

developments of colonial life in New England in the following words:

“The greater speed and success that distinguishes the planting of the

human race in this country over all other plantations in history owe

themselves mainly to the new subdivisions of the State into small

corporations of land and power. It is vain to look for the inventor; no

man made them. Each of the parts of that perfect structure grew out of

the necessities of an instant occasion; the germ was formed in England.”

The pioneer penetrated the forest; he took with him the school-house

and the church. Out of the necessities of instant occasions grew, in

New England at least, the town-meeting,—the complete expression of a

government whose foundations are laid in the people.

Before leaving the colony, in 1754, the Marquis Duquesne summoned

the Iroquois to a council. In the course of an address which he then

delivered he said: “Are you ignorant of the difference between the

King of England and the King of France? Go, see the forts that our

King has established, and you will see that you can still hunt under

their very walls. They have been placed for your advantage in places

which you frequent. The English, on the contrary, are no sooner in

possession of a place than the game is driven away. The forest falls

before them as they advance, and the soil is laid bare so that you can

scarce find the wherewithal to erect a shelter for the night.” No more

powerful contrast of the results in North America of the two methods

of colonization could be drawn than is presented in the words of the

French Governor.

CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF LOUISIANA HISTORY.

CHARLEVOIX’ _Nouvelle France_[83] and the account of his personal

adventures in the _Journal d’un voyage_, etc., have been much quoted by

early writers. The extent and value of Dr. Shea’s work in annotating

his translation of this history can only be appreciated by careful

study. Through this means the translation is more valuable for many

purposes of research than the original work.[84]

[Illustration]

In 1831 the _Journal historique de l’établissement des Français à la

Louisiane_ was published at New Orleans and at Paris. It consists of

an anonymous historical narrative, to which is appended a memorial

signed by Benard de La Harpe. It is generally quoted as “La Harpe.”

The narrative is founded largely upon the journals of Le Sueur and

La Harpe, though it is evident that the author had other sources

of information. Within its pages may be found a record of all the

expeditions despatched by the colony to the Red River region and to the

coast of Texas.[85] The work of compilation was done by a clear-headed,

methodical man. Margry quotes from the work, and attributes its

authorship to “le Chevalier de Beaurain, géographe du roy.”[86]

Manuscript copies of this work, under the title _Journal historique

concernant l’établissement des Français à la Louisiane, tiré des

mémoires de Messieurs D’Iberville et De Bienville, commandants pour le

roy au dit pays, et sur les découvertes et recherches de M. Benard de

la Harpe, nommé aux commandement de la Baye St. Bernard_, are to be

found in some of our libraries.[87]

[Illustration

Following the engraving in Shea’s _Charlevoix_, vol. i. [but now, 1893,

thought to be Le Jeune].]

The historians of Canada give but brief and inaccurate accounts of the

early history of Louisiana. Ferland repeats the errors of Charlevoix

even to the “fourth voyage of Iberville.” Garneau leaves the Natchez in

possession of their fort at the end of the first campaign.[88]

Judge François-Xavier Martin, in the _History of Louisiana from the

Earliest Period_, 2 vols. (New Orleans, 1827-1829), followed closely

the authorities accessible to him when he wrote; his work is a

complete, and in the main accurate, compendium of the materials at his

command. A new edition was published at New Orleans in 1882, entitled:

_The History of Louisiana from the Earliest Period. With a Memoir of

the Author by W. W. Howe. To which is appended, Annals of Louisiana

from 1815 to 1861, by J. F. Condon_.

Charles Gayarré is the author of two distinct works which must not be

confounded. _Louisiana, its Colonial History and Romance_,[89] is a

history of colonial romance rather than a history of the colony. The

_Histoire de la Louisiane_[90] is an essentially different book. It is

mainly composed of transcripts from original documents, woven together

with a slender thread of narrative. He states in his Preface that he

has sought to remove from sight his identity as a writer, and to let

the contemporaries tell the story themselves. References to Gayarré in

this chapter are exclusively made to the _Histoire_, which was brought

down to 1770. His final work (reprinted in 1885) was in English, and

was continued to 1861.[91] In this edition two volumes are given to the

French domination, one to the Spanish, and one to the American.[92]

[Illustration]

A little volume entitled _Recueil d’arrests et autres pièces pour

l’établissement de la compagnie d’occident_ was published in Amsterdam

in 1720. It contains many of the important edicts and decrees which

relate to the foundation and growth of this remarkable Company.

The presence of Le Page du Pratz in the colony for sixteen years (1718

to 1734) gives to his _Histoire de la Louisiane_[93] a value which his

manifest egotism and whimsical theories cannot entirely obscure. It was

an authority in the boundary discussions.[94]

[Illustration: MOUTHS OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

[Part of a map in Le Page du Pratz’ _Histoire de la Louisiane_ (1758),

i. 139. Cf. also the _Carte des embouchures du Mississipi_, by N.

Bellin, given (1744) in Charlevoix’ _Nouvelle France_, iii. 442. In

the same volume (p. 469) is the “Partie de la coste de la Louisiane et

de la Floride,” giving the coast from the mouths of the Mississippi to

Apalache Bay. In 1759 Jefferys gave in the margin of his reproduction

of La Tour’s map of New Orleans a map of the Mississippi from Bayagoula

to the sea, and of the east mouth of the river, with the fort La

Balise.—ED.]]

Dumont, whose _Mémoires historiques sur la Louisiane_[95] were edited

by M. L. Le M. (said to have been L’Abbé Le Mascrier), was in the

military service in the colony. In the _Journal historique_, etc.,

mention is made of a sub-lieutenant Dumont de Montigny[96] at the

post at Yazoo. The author was stationed at this post, and accompanied

La Harpe up the Arkansas. The statement made in biographical works

that Butel Dumont,[97] who was born in 1725, was the author, is

manifestly incorrect. Both Dumont and Le Page were contributors to

the _Journal œconomique_, a Paris periodical of the day. We are able

positively to identify him as Dumont de Montigny, through an article

on the manner in which the Indians of Louisiana dress and tan skins,

in that journal, August, 1752. Dumont had a correspondence with

Buache the cartographer[98] on the subject of the great controversy

of the day,—the sea of the west and the northwest passage. Dumont

was fond of a good-sounding story;[99] and his book, like that of Le

Page depends for its value largely upon the interest of his personal

experiences. Another book of the same class is the _Nouveaux voyages

aux Indes occidentales_,[100] by M. Bossu. The author, an army officer,

was first sent up the Tombigbee, and afterward attached to the forces

which were posted in Illinois, and was there when Villiers marched on

Fort Necessity. He was in the colony twelve years, and bore a good

reputation.

The work entitled _État présent de la Louisiane, avec toutes les

particularités de cette province d’Amérique_, par le Colonel Chevalier

de Champigny (A la Haye, 1776), has been generally quoted as if

Champigny were the author. In an editorial introduction Champigny says

the text and the notes were furnished him in manuscript by an English

officer. In the body of the work the statement is made by the author

that he accompanied the English forces which took possession of the

colony after its cession to England. This work is cited by Mr. Adams in

the boundary discussion.

The _Mémoire historique et politique de la Louisiane_, by M. de

Vergennes, minister of Louis XVI. (Paris, 1802), contains a brief

historical sketch of the colony, intended only for the eye of His

Majesty. Its wholesome comments on the French troops and on French

treatment of the Indians are refreshing to read.[101] They would

not have been so frank, perhaps, if the work had been intended for

publication.

[Illustration]

In his _Early Voyages Up and Down the Mississippi_ (Albany, 1861)

Dr. Shea has collected, translated, and annotated various relations

concerning the voyages of Cavelier, De Montigny de Saint-Cosme, Le

Sueur, Gravier, and Guignas.[102]

A number of the relations in the _Lettres édifiantes et curieuses_

cover portions of the period and territory of this chapter. These

have been collected and translated by Bishop Kip in the _Early Jesuit

Missions_ (Albany, 1866). To avoid repetition, he has made certain

abridgments. Some of the material thus left out has value to the

student of the early history of Illinois.[103]

Major Amos Stoddard, in his _Sketches Historical and Descriptive of

Louisiana_ (Philadelphia, 1812), furnished an unostentatious and modest

book, which has been freely quoted.

The _Relation du voyage des dames religieuses Ursulines de Rouen_,

etc. (Paris, 1872), with an introduction and notes by Gabriel Gravier,

is an exact reprint of a publication at Rouen in 1728 of certain

letters of Marie Madeleine Hachard, sœur Saint-Stanislas, to her

father. The account of the tedious journey of the nuns from Paris

to Orient, and of their perilous voyage to New Orleans, was worth

preservation. M. Gravier has performed his part of the work with the

evident satisfaction which such a task would afford a bibliophile and

an antiquary. His introductory chapter contains a condensed history of

Louisiana down to 1727, and is strongly fortified with quotations. He

acknowledges himself to be indebted to M. Boimare for a great number

of valuable unpublished documents relating to the foundation of New

Orleans. Greater familiarity with his subject would have enabled him to

escape several errors of date and of statement into which he has been

led by authorities whose carelessness he apparently did not suspect.

The memorial concerning the Church in Louisiana (_note_ 1, p. 113 _et

seq._) is a document of great value and interest. M. Gravier (p. lvi)

states that the Relation is substantially the same as the _Relation du

voyage des fondatrices de la Nouvelle Orléans, écrite aux Ursulines

de France, par la première supérieure, la mère St. Augustin_, which

was reprinted by Dr. Shea in an edition of one hundred copies in 1859,

under the general title of _Relation du voyage des premières Ursulines

à la Nouvelle Orléans et de leur établissement en cette ville [1727],

par la Rev. Mère St. A. de Tranchepain; avec les lettres circulaires de

quelquesunes de ses sœurs, et de la dite mère_ (62 pp.).

The _History of the American Indians, particularly those Nations

adjoining to the Mississippi, East and West Florida, Georgia, South

and North Carolina, and Virginia_, etc., by James Adair, who was forty

years in the country, is a work of great value, showing the relations

of the English traders to the Indians, and is of much importance to the

student of Indian customs.[104]

The _Géologie pratique de la Louisiane_, by R. Thomassy (New Orleans

and Paris, 1860), contains copies of some rare documents which were

first made public in this volume.

The _Histoire de la Louisiane_[105] by M. Barbé Marbois is so brief in

its treatment of the period covered by this chapter that very little

can be gained from consulting that portion of the book.

A work entitled _De la puissance Américaine_, by M. Guillaume-Tell

Poussin, was published at Paris in 1843. A translation was printed

at Philadelphia in 1851. The writer, from his familiarity with this

country, was especially fitted to give a French view of our history.

His chapter on Louisiana shows that he had access to the treasures of

the Paris Archives. Its value, however, is diminished by the fact that

he is inexact in his details.

Daniel Coxe, the son of Dr. Coxe, the claimant of the Carolana grant,

published in London in 1722 _A Description of the English Province

of Carolana, by the Spaniards call’d Florida, and by the French La

Louisiane_.[106] The body of the text is devoted to a description of

the attractions of the province to the emigrant. The preface contains

an account of the entrance of the Mississippi by the vessel which

was turned back by Bienville. The appendix is an argument in favor

of the claimant’s title to the grant, and of England’s title to the

Mississippi Valley. It contains a curious story of a Massachusetts

expedition to New Mexico in 1678, and a claim that La Salle’s guides

were Indians who accompanied that expedition.[107]

The official correspondence concerning the Louisiana boundary question

may be found in Waite’s _American State Papers and Public Documents_

(Boston, 1815-1819), vol. xii. The temperate statements of Don Pedro

Cevallos are in strong contrast with the extravagant assumptions

of Luis de Orris, who even cites as authority the mythical Admiral

Fonte.[108] Yoakum, in his _History of Texas_ (New York, 1856), goes

over this ground, and publishes in his appendix an interesting document

from the archives of Bexar.

_Illinois in the Eighteenth Century_, by Edward G. Mason (Fergus

Historical Series, no. 12), Chicago, 1881, has two papers dealing with

the topics of this chapter: “Kaskaskia and its parish records” and

“Old Fort Chartres.” The recital of the grants, the marriages, and the

christenings at Kaskaskia and St. Anne brings us close to Boisbriant,

Artaguette, and the other French leaders whose lives are interwoven

with the narrative of events in Illinois. The description of Fort

Chartres is by far the best extant. The work of rescuing from oblivion

this obscure phase of Illinois history has been faithfully performed.

The following works have been freely used by writers upon the early

history of Illinois and the Illinois villages and forts:—

_The Administration of the Colonies_, by Thomas Pownall, 2d ed.

(London, 1765). The appendix, section 1, deals with the subject of this

chapter.

_A Topographical Description of North America_, by T. Pownall (London,

1776). Appendix, no. 4, p. 4, Captain Harry Gordon’s Journal, describes

the fort and villages.

[Illustration: COXE’S CAROLANA.

[Part of the _Map of Carolana and of the River Meschacebe_, in Daniel

Coxe’s _Description of the English Province of Carolana_, London,

1742—ED.]]

Thomas Hutchins has also published two books,—_An Historical Narrative

and Topographical Description of Louisiana_, etc. (Philadelphia, 1784),

and _A Topographical Description_, etc. (London, 1778).

Captain Philip Pittman prepared a report on _The Present State of the

European Settlements on the Mississippi_. It was published in London,

in 1770. It is embellished with charts of the river and plans of

several of the forts and villages.[109]

Also _Sketches of History, Life and Manners in the West_, by James Hall

(Philadelphia, 1835), who visited the fort in 1829.

The _Early History of Illinois_, by Sidney Breese, contains an

interesting description of French life in Illinois.[110] See also a

chapter on the same subject in Davidson and Stuvé’s _Complete History

of Illinois_ (Springfield, 1874). _The History of the Discovery and

Settlement of the Mississippi Valley_, by John W. Monette (New York,

1846), also has an elaborate sketch of the settlement of Louisiana and

Illinois.[111]

_Mississippi as a Province, Territory, and State_, by J. F. H.

Claiborne (1880), devotes considerable space to the Province.

Extracts from a memoir by M. Marigny de Mandeville may be found in

several of the histories of Louisiana of colonial times. In a note in

Bossu[112] it is stated that such a work was published in Paris in 1765.

The story of Saint-Denys’ experiences in Mexico is told in H. H.

Bancroft’s _North Mexican States_, p. 612 _et seq._, in which the

sources of information are mainly Mexican and Spanish. The hero of

Penicaut’s romances, viewed from this standpoint, becomes a mere

smuggler.

Under the title _Historical Collections of Louisiana_, etc., Mr.

B. F. French, in the years 1846-1875, inclusive, published seven

volumes containing reprints and translations of original documents

and rare books. Mr. French was a pioneer in a class of work the value

of which has come to be fully appreciated. His _Collections_ close

a gap on the shelves of many libraries which it would be difficult

otherwise to fill. The work was necessarily an education to him,

and in some instances new material which came to his hands revealed

errors in previous annotations.[113] The value of the work would have

been increased if abridgments and omissions had been noted.[114]

The translation of the _Journal_ _historique_, etc., given in the

collection was made from the manuscript copy in the library of the

American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia.[115] The Penicaut

relation differs materially from the copy published by Margry.[116]

The labors of Mr. French, as a whole, have been of great service to

students of American history.[117]

The fourth and fifth volumes[118] of Pierre Margry’s _Découvertes et

établissements des Français dans l’ouest et dans le sud de l’Amérique

septentrionale_ contain the material upon which so much of this

chapter as relates to Iberville’s expeditions is founded. We have

here Iberville’s correspondence with the minister, his memorials, the

instructions given to him, and his reports.[119] There are also some

of Bienville’s despatches, and the correspondence with the engineer

about New Orleans and about the bar at the mouth of the river. The

publication of these volumes has enabled us to correct several minor

errors which have been transmitted from the earlier chroniclers.

Interesting as the volumes are, and close as their scrutiny brings

us to the daily life of the celebrated explorer, it is not easy to

understand why their contents should have been shrouded with such a

profound mystery prior to their publication.[120]

The periodicals and tracts of the eighteenth century contain many

historical articles and geographical discussions, from which historical

gleaners may yet procure new facts.[121] The manuscripts in the

Archives at Paris have by no means been exhausted. Harrisse, in his

_Notes pour servir à l’histoire, etc., de la Nouvelle France_ (Paris,

1872), gives an account of the vicissitudes which they have undergone.

He traces the history of the formation of the Archives of the Marine

and of the Colonies and points out the protecting and organizing care,

which Colbert during his ministry devoted through intelligent deputies

to the arranging of those documentary sources, among which the modern

historian finds all that the Revolution of 1789 has left to him.

The copies which from time to time have been procured from France

for the State Archives of Louisiana have so generally disappeared,

particularly during the Federal occupation, that but a small portion of

them still remains in the State Library.[122]

[Illustration]

EDITORIAL NOTES.

[Illustration: JOHN LAW.

Copied from the head of a full-length portrait in _Het Groote Taferel_.

Rigaud’s portrait of Law is engraved in Alphonse Courtois’ _Histoire

des banques en France_, 2d ed. (Paris, 1881). Cf. also the print in

Mouffle d’Angerville’s _Vie privée de Louis XV._ (Londres, 1781), vol.

1. p. 53.]

=I.= LAW AND THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE.—The literature of the Mississippi

Scheme is extensive, and includes the relations of Law’s system to

general monetary science. The Mississippi excitement instigated the

South Sea Scheme in England. Holland, also, was largely affected,

and gave, as well as England and France, considerable additions to

the contemporary mass of brochures which grew out of these financial

revolutions. Law’s own pleas and expositions, as issued in pamphlets,

are the central sources of his own views or pretensions, and are

included in the _Œuvres de J. Law_, published at Paris in 1790. These

writings are again found in Daire’s _Économistes financiers;_ where

will also be met the _Essai politique sur le commerce_ of Melon, Law’s

secretary,—a production which Levasseur styles an allegorical history

of the system,—and the _Réflexions politiques sur les finances et le

commerce_ of Dutot, another of Law’s partisans, who was one of the

cashiers of the Company of the Indies, and undertook to correct what he

thought misconceptions in Melon; and he was in turn criticised by an

opponent of Law, Paris Duverney, in a little book printed at the Hague

in 1740, as _Examen du livre intitulé, etc._

Law’s proposal for his Mississippi Company is also included in a Dutch

collection of similar propositions, printed at the Hague in 1721 as

_Verzameling van alle de projecten en conditien van de compagnien van

assuratie_, etc.

There are various _Lettres patentes_, _Édits_, _Arrests_,

_Ordonnances_, etc., issued separately by the French Government,

some of which are included in a volume published at Amsterdam in

1720,—_Recueil d’arrests et autres pièces pour l’établissement de la

compagnie d’occident_. Others will be found, by title at least, in the

_Recueil général des anciennes lois Françoises_ (Paris, 1830), vol.

xxi., with the preambles given at length of some of the more important.

Neither of these collections is complete, nor does that of Duhautchamp

take their place; but all three, doubtless, contain the chief of such

documents.

A few of the contemporary publications may be noted:—

_Some Considerations on the Consequences of the French settling

Colonies on the Mississippi, from a Gentleman_ [Beresford] _of America

to his Friend in London_, London, 1720 (Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no.

275).

_Impartial Inquiry into the Right of the French King to the Territory

west of the Mississippi_ (London, n. d.).

_The Chimera; or, the French way of paying National Debts laid open_

(London, 1720).

_Full and Impartial Account of the Company of the Mississippi ...

projected and settled by Mr. Law_. To which is added a _Description

of the Country of the Mississippi and a Relation of the Discovery of

it, in Two Letters from a Gentleman to his Friend_ (London, 1720). In

French and English (cf. Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 276). This is an

incentive to the speculation.

_Historische und geographische Beschreibung des an dem grossen Flusse

Mississippi in Nord America gelegenen herrlichen Landes Louisiana_,

etc. (Leipsic, 1720) 8vo. It has a map of Louisiana. There was a second

edition the same year in 12mo, with _Ausführliche_ beginning a title

otherwise the same (Carter-Brown, vol. iii. nos. 277, 278). It has an

appendix, _Remarques über den Mississippischen Actien-Handel_, which

is a translation of a section on Louisiana in _Aanmerkigen over den

koophandel en het geldt_, published at Amsterdam (Muller, _Books on

America_, 1872, nos. 915, 916; 1877, no. 1817).

_Le banquerotteur en desespoir; Das ist, der versweifflende

Banquerottirer_, etc., with a long explanation in German of the lament

of a victim, dated 1720, without place, and purporting to be printed

from a Dutch copy (cf. Carter-Brown, ii. 258).

_Het Groote Tafereel der Dwaasheid, vertoonende de opkomst, voortgang

en ondergang der Actie, Bubbel en Windnegotie in Vrankryk, Engeland

en de Nederlanden, gepleegt in dem Jaare DDCCXX._ (1720). This is a

folio volume of satire, interesting for its plates, most of which are

burlesques; but among them are a full-length portrait of Law, another

of Mrs. Law in her finery, and a map of Louisiana. There is a copy in

Harvard College Library. Cf. Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 270; Muller,

_Books on America_ (1872), no. 1503.

There is in the Boston Public Library a contemporary manuscript

entitled, _Mémoire d’après les voyages par Charles Le Gac, directeur de

la Comp. des Indes à la Louisiane, sur la Louisiane, sa géographie, la

situation de la colonie Française, du 26 aoust 1718 au 6 mars 1721, et

des moyens de l’améliorer. Manuscrit redigé en 1722_. Le Gac was the

agent of Law’s Company during these years.

The earliest personal sketch which we have noted is a _Leven en

character van J. Law_ (Amsterdam, 1722).

_A Sketch of the Life and Projects of John Law_ was published in

Edinburgh in 1791, afterward included in J. P. Wood’s _Ancient and

Modern State of the Parish of Cramond_ (Edinburgh, 1794), and the

foundation of the later _Life of John Law of Lauriston_, published by

Wood at Edinburgh in 1824. This may be supplemented in some points by

Chambers’s _Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen_.

[Illustration]

Professor Smyth found, when he assigned one of his _Lectures on Modern

History_ (no. 27) to Law and his exploits, that he got at that time the

best exposition for his system in English from Steuart’s _Political

Economy_. The latest summarized statement in English will be found

in Lalor’s _Cyclopædia of Political Science_, vol. ii. (1883), and

a good one in Mackay’s _Popular Delusions_. The general historians

of England, more particularly Stanhope, do not tell the story of the

great imitatory pageant of the South Sea Scheme without more or less

reference to Law. Those of the United States necessarily recount the

train of events in Paris, of which Louisiana was the background. A few

English monographs, like J. Murray’s _French Financiers under Louis

XV._, and an anonymous book, _Law, the Financier, his Scheme and Times_

(London, 1856), cover specially the great projector’s career; while

the best key to his fate at the hands of magazinists will be found

in Poole’s _Index to Periodical Literature_ (pp. 728, 854), where a

popular exposition by Irving is noted, which having appeared in the

_Knickerbocker Magazine_ (vol. xv. pp. 305, 450), has since been

included in the volume of his works called _Wolfert’s Roost, and other

Papers_.

In France the treatment of the great delusion has been frequent. The

chief source of later writers has been perhaps Duhautchamp’s _Histoire

du systéme des finances_ (à la Haye, 1739), which, with his account

of the Visa, makes a full exposition of the rise and fall of the

excitement by one who was in the midst of it. His fifth and sixth

volumes contain the most complete body of the legislation attending the

movement. Forbonnais’ _Recherches et considérations sur les finances

de France à l’année 1721_ (Basle, 1758) is a work of great research,

and free from prejudice. The _Encyclopédie méthodique_ (1783) in its

essays on commerce and banking contributes valuable aid, and there

is a critical review in Ch. Ganilh’s _Essai sur le revenu public_

(Paris, 1806). To these may be added Bailly’s _Histoire financière de

la France_ (Paris, 1830); Eugène Daire’s “Notice historique sur Jean

Law, ses écrits et les opérations du système,” in his _Économistes

financiers du dix-huitième siècle_ (1843); Théodore Vial’s _Law, et

le système du papier-monnaie de 1716_ (1849); A. Cochut’s _Law, son

système et son époque_ (1853); J. B. H. R. Capefigue’s _Histoire des

grandes opérations financières_ (Paris, 1855), vol. i. p. 116; J. P.

Clément’s _Portraits historiques_ (1856); and le Baron Nervo’s _Les

finances Françaises_ (Paris, 1863). L. A. Thiers’ encyclopedic article

on Law was translated and annotated by Frank S. Fiske as _Memoir of the

Mississippi Bubble_, and published in New York in 1859. This is perhaps

the best single book for an English reader, who may find in an appendix

to it the account of the Darien Expedition from the _Encyclopædia

Britannica_, and one of the South Sea Scheme from Mackay’s _Popular

Delusions_. Thiers’ French text was at the same time revised and

published separately in Paris in 1858. Among other French monographs P.

E. Levasseur’s _Recherches historiques sur le système de Law_ (Paris,

1854, and again, 1857) is perhaps the most complete treatment which the

subject has yet received. We may further add Jules Michelet’s “Paris et

la France sous Law” in the _Revue de deux mondes_, 1863, vol. xliv.;

and the general histories of France, notably Martin’s and Guizot’s,

of which there are English versions; the special works on the reign

of Louis XV., like De Tocqueville’s; P. E. Lémontey’s _Histoire de la

Régence_ (Paris, 1832); J. F. Marmontel’s _Régence du duc de Orléans_

(1805), vol. i. p. 168; and the conglomerate monograph of La Croix,

_Dix-huitième siècle_ (Paris, 1875), chap. viii. Law finds his most

vigorous defender in Louis Blanc, in a chapter of the introduction to

his _Révolution Française_.

The Germans have not made their treatment of the subject very

prominent, but reference may be made to J. Heymann’s _Law und sein

System_ (1853).

The strong dramatic contrasts of Law’s career have served the English

novelist Ainsworth in a story which is known by the projector’s name;

but the reader will better get all the contrasts and extraordinary

vicissitudes of the social concomitants of the time in the _Mémoires_

of St. Simon, Richelieu, Pollnitz, Barbier, Dangeau, Duclos, and others.

The familiarity of Mr. Davis with the subject has been of great

assistance to the Editor in making this survey.

=II.= THE STORY OF MONCACHT-APÉ.—The writer of this chapter has,

in the _Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society_, April 25,

1883, printed a paper on the story of Moncacht-Apé,—an Indian of the

Yazoo tribe, who claimed to have made a journey from the Mississippi

to the Pacific about the year 1700, which paper has also been printed

separately as _The Journey of Moncacht-Apé_. The story, which

first appeared in Le Page du Pratz’ contributions to the _Journal

œconomique_, and first took permanent form in Dumont’s _Mémoires_ in

1753, was made in part to depend for its ethnological interest on the

Yazoo marrying a captive Indian, who tells him a story of bearded white

men being seen on the Pacific coast. That the Yazoo himself encountered

on the Pacific coast a bearded people who came there annually in ships

for dye-wood, is derived from the fuller narrative which Le Page du

Pratz himself gives in his _Histoire de la Louisiane_ published five

years later, in 1758.

Mr. Davis does not find any consideration of the verity of the story

till Samuel Engel discussed it in his _Mémoires et observations

géographiques_, published at Lausanne in 1765, which had a chart

showing what he conceived to be the route of the Indian, as Le Page du

Pratz had traced it, in tracking him from the Missouri to the streams

which feed the Columbia River. The story was later examined by Mr.

Andrew Stewart in _The Transactions of the Literary and Historical

Society of Quebec_, i. 198 (1829), who accepted the tale as truthful;

and Greenhow, in his _History of Oregon_ (Boston, 1844, p. 145),

rejects as improbable only the ending as Dumont gives it. In 1881, when

M. de Quatrefage rehearsed the story in the _Revue d’anthropologie_,

vol. iv., he argued that the bearded men must have been Japanese.

It was this paper of the distinguished French anthropologist which

incited Mr. Davis to the study of the narrative; and it is by his

discrimination that we are reminded how the story grew to have the

suspicious termination, after Le Page had communicated it to Dumont;

so that in Mr. Davis’s judgment one is “forced to the unwilling

conclusion that the original story of the savage suffered changes at Le

Page’s hands.” The story has since been examined by H. H. Bancroft in

his _Northwest Coast_, i. 599 _et seq._, who sees no reason to doubt

the truth of the narrative.

There is an account of the early maps of the country west of Lake

Superior and of the headwaters of the Mississippi in Winchell’s

_Geological Survey of Minnesota, Final Report_, vol. i., with a

fac-simile of one of 1737. Between 1730 and 1740 Verendrye and his

companions explored the country west and northwest of Lake Superior,

and reached the Rocky Mountains. Mills, _Boundaries of Ontario_, p. 75,

says he failed to find in the _Moniteur_, September and November, 1857,

the account of Verendrye’s discoveries by Margry, to which Garneau

refers.

CARTOGRAPHY

OF

LOUISIANA AND THE MISSISSIPPI BASIN UNDER THE FRENCH DOMINATION.

BY THE EDITOR.

THE original spelling of the name Mississippi, the nearest approach to

the Algonquin word, is _Mêché Sébè_,[123] a form still commonly used

by the Louisiana creoles. Tonty suggested _Miche Sepe_; Father Laval,

_Michisepe_, which by Father Labatt was softened into _Misisipi_.

Marquette added the first _s_ in _Missisipi_, and some other explorer a

second in _Mississipi_, as it is spelled in France to-day. No one knows

who added a second _p_ in _Mississippi_, for it was generally spelled

with one _p_ when the United States bought Louisiana.[124]

In Vol. IV. of the present _History_ the earliest maps of the

Mississippi Basin are enumerated, and fac-similes or sketches of the

following may be seen in that volume:—

1672-73 (p. 221). An anonymous map of the course of the Mississippi,

which is also to be found in Breese’s _Early Hist. of Illinois_. Other

early maps, without date, are noted in Vol. IV. at pp. 206, 215.

1673-74 (pp. 208, 212, 214, 218). Joliet’s maps; and (p. 220)

Marquette’s map, which has since been reproduced in Andreas’s

_Chicago_, i. p. 47.

1682-84-88 (pp. 227, 228, 230, 231). Franquelin’s maps,—the last of

which has since been reproduced in Winchell’s _Geological Survey of

Minnesota, Final Report_, i. pl. 2.

1683-97 (pp. 249, 251, 252, 253). Hennepin’s maps, also to be found in

Winchell and Breese.

1685 (p. 237). Minet’s map; and without date (p. 235) the map of

Raudin. The map which accompanied Joutel’s _Journal_ in 1713 also gave

the topography of the time of Lasalle. (See p. 240.)

1688 (p. 232). The map of Coronelli and Tillemon; and (p. 233) that of

Raffeix.

1702 (p. 394). The map in Campanius.

1703-1709 (pp. 258, 259, 260, 261). Maps in Lahontan.

* * * * *

It is in continuation of this series, which includes others not

here mentioned, that the following enumeration is offered of the

cartographical results which controlled and developed the maps of the

eighteenth century.

The plates of the maps of Nicolas Sanson, who had died in 1667,[125]

were towards the end of that century in the hands of Hubert Jaillot,

who was later a royal geographer of France.[126] He published in

Paris, in 1692, what passes for Sanson’s _Amérique Septentrionale_,

with adaptations to contemporary knowledge of American geography. It

naturally augments the claims of the French to the disputed areas of

the continent. It was reissued at Amsterdam not long after as “Dressée

sur les observations de M^{rs} de l’Academie Royale des Sciences.” The

plate was long in use in Amsterdam, and I have noticed reissues as late

as 1755 by Ottens.

The English claims to the westward at this time will be seen in “The

Plantations of England in America,” contained in Edward Wells’ _New

Sett of Maps_, London, 1698-99.[127]

The most distinguished French cartographers of the early part of

the eighteenth century were the father and son, Claude and Guillaume

Delisle. The father, Claude, died in 1720 at 76; the son, six years

later, in 1726, at 51.[128] Their maps of _Amérique Septentrionale_

were published at Paris of various dates in the first quarter of the

century, and were reissued at Amsterdam.[129] Their _Carte de la

Louisiane et du Cours du Mississipi_ appeared first at Paris in 1703,

and amended copies appeared at various later dates.[130] Thomassy[131]

refers to an original draft by Guillaume Delisle, _Carte de la rivière

du Mississipi, dressée sur les mémoires de M. Le Sueur_, 1702, which

is preserved in the Archives Scientifiques de la Marine, at Paris.

Thomassy (p. 211) also refers to an edition of Delisle’s _Carte de la

Louisiane_, published in June, 1718, by the Compagnie d’Occident. Gov.

Burnet wrote of this map to the Lords of Trade[132], that Delisle had

taken from the borders of New York and Pennsylvania fifty leagues of

territory, which he had allowed to the English in his map of 1703.

There is an Amsterdam edition (1722) of Delisle’s _Carte du Mexique et

de La Floride, des Terres Angloises et des Isles Antilles, du Cours et

des Environs de la Rivière de Mississipi_, measuring 24 × 19 inches,

which includes nearly the whole of North America.

Nicholas de Fer was at this time the royal geographer of Belgium,

1701-1716.[133] We note several of his maps:—

_Les Costes aux Environs de la Rivière de Misissipi, par N. de Fer_,

1701. This extends from Cape Roman (Carolina) to the Texas coast, and

shows the Mississippi up to the “Nihata” village. There is a copy in

the Sparks MSS., vol. xxviii.

_Le Vieux Mexique avec les Costes de la Floride, par N. de Fer,_ 1705.

This extends south to the Isthmus of Panama. There is a copy in the

Sparks MSS., vol. xxviii.

_Le Canada ou Nouvelle France_, Paris, 1705. There is a copy in the

Sparks MSS., vol. xxviii. It shows North America from Labrador to

Florida, and includes the Mississippi valley. The region west of the

Alleghanies is given to France, as well as the water-shed of the lower

St. Lawrence.

De Fer also published, in 1717, _Le Golfe de Mexique et les provinces

et isles qui l’environne_ [sic].

In 1718 his _Le Cours du Mississipi ou de Saint Louis_ was published by

the Compagnie d’Occident.

Making a part of Herman Moll’s _New and exact Map of the Dominions of

the King of Great Britain on the Continent of North America_, measuring

24 × 40 inches, issued in 1715, was a lesser draft called _Louisiana,

with the indian settlements and number of fighting men according to the

account of Capt. T. Nearn._[134]

When Moll, in 1720, published his _New Map of the North Parts of

America claimed by France under the name of Louisiana, Mississippi,

Canada, and New France, with the adjoining territories of England and

Spain_ (measuring 24 × 40 inches), he said that a great part of it was

taken from “the original draughts of Mr. Blackmore, the ingenious Mr.

Berisford, now residing in Carolina, Capt. Nairn, and others never

before published.” He adds that the southwest part followed a map by

Delisle, published in Paris in June, 1718.[135]

In 1719 the Sieur Diron made observations for a map preserved in

the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, _Fleuve Saint Louis, ci-devant

Mississipi_, showing the course of the river from New Orleans to

Cahokia, which was not drawn, however, till 1732.[136] About the same

time (1719-20) the surveys of M. De Sérigny were used in another map,

preserved in the Archives Scientifiques de la Marine, _Carte des Côtes

de la Louisiane depuis les bouches du Mississipi jusqu’à la baie de

Saint-Joseph_. Part of the gulf shore of this map is reproduced in

Thomassy (plate ii.).

The year 1719 is also assigned to John Senex’s _Map of Louisiana and

the river Mississipi, most humbly inscribed to Law of Lawreston_,

measuring 22 X 19 inches.[137]

Gerard van Keulen published at Amsterdam, in 1720, a large map, in two

sheets, _Carte de la Nouvelle France ou se voit le cours des grandes

Rivières Mississipi et S. Laurens_, with annotations on the French

fortified posts.

At Paris, in November, 1720, De Beauvilliers took the observations of

La Harpe and drafted a _Carte nouvelle de la parte de l’ouest de la

province de la Louisiane_.[138]

The map of Coxe’s _Carolana, 1722_, is given in fac-simile on an

earlier page (_ante_, p. 70).

The _Memoirs of John Ker of Kersland_ (London, 1726) contain a “new map

of Louisiana, and the river Mississipi.”[139]

The map in La Potherie’s _Histoire de l’Amérique Septentrionale_

(Paris, 1722, vol. ii.), called “Carte généralle de la Nouvelle

France,” retains the misplacement of the mouths of the Mississippi, as

La Salle had conceived them to be on the western shore of the gulf,

giving the name “Baye de Spiritu Sancto” to an inlet more nearly in the

true position of its mouths.

Thomassy[140] points out that William Darby, in his _Geographical

Description of Louisiana_ (2d ed. 1817), in reproducing Jean Baptiste

Homann’s map of Louisiana, published at Nuremberg as the earliest of

the country which he could find, was unfortunate in accepting for such

purpose a mere perversion of the earlier and original French maps.

Homann, moreover, was one of those geographers of easy conscience,

who never or seldom date a map, and the German cartographer seems in

this instance to have done little more than reëngrave the map which

accompanied the Paris publication of Joutel’s _Journal historique_, in

1713. Homann’s map, called _Amplisimæ regionis Mississipi seu Provinciæ

Ludovicianæ a Hennepin detectæ anno 1687_, was published not far from

1730, and extending so as to include Acadia, Lake Superior, and Texas,

defines the respective bounds of the English, French, and Spanish

possessions.[141]

When Moll published his _New Survey of the Globe_, in 1729, he included

in it (no. 27) a map of New France and Louisiana, showing how they

hemmed in the English colonies.

Henry Popple’s _Map of the British Empire in America, with the French

and Spanish Settlements adjacent thereto_, was issued in London in

twenty sheets, under the patronage of the Lords of Trade, in 1732;

and reissued in 1733 and 1740.[142] A reproduction was published at

Amsterdam, about 1737, by Covens and Mortier. Popple’s map was for the

Mississippi valley, in large part based on Delisle’s map of 1718.

Jean Baptiste D’Anville was in the early prime of his activity when the

Delisles passed off the stage, having been born in 1697, and a long

life was before him, for he did not die till 1782, having gained the

name of being the first to raise geography to the dignity of an exact

science.[143] He had an instinct for physical geography, and gained

credit for his critical discrimination between conflicting reports,

which final surveys verified. His principal _Carte de la Louisiane_ was

issued as “Dressée en 1732; publiée en 1752.”[144] His map of _Amérique

Septentrionale_ usually bears date 1746-48; and a new draft of it, with

improvements, was published at Nuremberg in 1756.

A map made by Dumont de Montigny about 1740, _Carte de la province de

la Louisiane, autrefois le Mississipi_, preserved in the Dépôt de la

Marine at Paris, is said by Thomassy (p. 217) to be more valuable for

its historical legends than for its geography.

In 1744 the maps of Nicolas Bellin were attached to the _Nouvelle

France_ of Charlevoix, and they include, beside the map of North

America, a _Carte de la Louisiane, Cours du Mississipi, et pais

voisins_.[145] Bellin’s _Carte des embouchures du fleuve Saint-Louis_

(1744) is based on a draft by Buache (1732), following an original

manuscript (1731) preserved in the Archives Scientifiques de la Marine,

in Paris.

Bellin also dates in 1750 a _Carte de la Louisiane et des pays

voisins_, and in an atlas of his, _Amérique Septentrionale, Atlas

maritime_, published in 1764 by order of the Duc de Choiseul, Bellin

includes various other and even earlier maps of Louisiana.[146]

Thomassy[147] also refers to a MS. map in the Bibliothèque Nationale,

_Carte de la Coste et Province de la Louisiane_, dated at New Orleans,

October 5, 1746, which is not, however, of much value.

There is a “Carte de la Louisiane” in Dumont de Montigny’s _Mémoires

historiques de la Louisiane_, vol. i. (1753), a fac-simile of which is

given herewith. It perhaps follows the one referred to above.

[Illustration: LOUISIANA. (_Dumont._)]

There is on a later page a fac-simile of the map, showing the

carrying-place between the St. Lawrence and Mississippi valleys, which

appeared in the London (1747 and 1755) editions of Cadwallader Colden’s

_History of the Five Indian Nations of Canada_.

The controversy over the bounds of the French and English possessions,

which was so unproductive of results in 1755, caused a large number

of maps to be issued, representing the interests of either side.

The French claimed in the main the water-shed of the St. Lawrence

and the lakes, and that of the Mississippi and its tributaries. The

English conceded to them a southern limit following the St. Lawrence

and the Ottawa, thence across Huron and Michigan, to the Illinois,

descending that river to the Mississippi; and consequently denied them

the southern water-shed of the St. Lawrence and most of the eastern

water-shed of the Mississippi.

On the French side the following maps may be named:—

The great D’Anville map, _Canada, Louisiane, et les terres anglaises_,

which was followed in the next year (1756) by D’Anville’s _Mémoire_ on

the same map; Robert de Vaugondy’s _Partie de l’Amérique Septentrionale

qui comprend le Cours de l’Ohio, la N^{lle} Angleterre, la N^{lle}

York, New Jersey, Pensylvanie, Maryland, Virginie, Caroline; Carte

Nouvelle de l’Amérique Angloise contenant le Canada, la Nouvelle

Ecosse ou Acadie, les treize Provinces unies, avec la Floride, par

Matthieu Albert Lotter_, published at Augsburg, without date; _Carte

des possessions Angloises et Françoises du Continent de l’Amérique

Septentrionale_, published by Ottens at Amsterdam, 1755; _Carte de

l’Amérique Septentrionale, par M. Bellin_, 1755; in the same year the

_Partie Orientale, et partie Occidentale de la Nouvelle France ou du

Canada_, likewise by Bellin;[148] and the _Carte de la Louisiane par

le Sieur Bellin, 1750, sur de nouvelles Observations on a corrigé les

lacs, et leurs environs, 1755; Canada et Louisiane, par le Sieur le

Rouge, ingénieur géographe du Roi_, Paris, 1755, with a marginal map of

the Mississippi River.

In the English interests there were several leading maps: _A new and

accurate map of North America (wherein the errors of all preceding

British, French, and Dutch maps respecting the rights of Great Britain,

France, and Spain, and the limits of each of His Majesty’s Provinces

are corrected), by Huske_. This was engraved by Thomas Kitchin, and

published by Dodsley at London, 1755. It gives the names of the French

trading posts and stations. John Huske also printed _The Present

State of North America, Part I._, London, 1755, which appeared in

a 2d edition the same year with emendations, giving Huske’s map,

colored, leaving the encroachments of the French uncolored. It was also

reprinted in Boston, in the same year.[149]

Another is _A map of the British Colonies in North America, with the

roads, distances, limits, and extent of the settlements_. This is John

Mitchell’s map, in six sheets, engraved by Kitchin, published in London

by Jefferys and Faden, 1755. John Pownall, under date of February 13,

1755, certifies to the approval of the Lords of Trade.[150] It was

reëngraved, with improvements, a year or two later, at Amsterdam, by

Covens and Mortier, under the title _Map of the British and French

Dominions in North America_, on four sheets, with marginal plans of

Quebec, Halifax, Louisbourg, etc.[151]

Lewis Evans issued his _General Map of the Middle British Colonies

in America_ in 1755,[152] and it was forwarded to Braddock after he

had taken the field, for his assistance in entering upon the disputed

territory of the Ohio Valley,—indeed, its publication was hastened by

that event, the preface of the accompanying pamphlet being dated Aug.

9, 1755.

[Illustration: HUSKE’S MAP, 1755.

This is sketched from the colored folding map in John Huske’s _Present

State of North America, &c._, second edition, London, 1755. The

easterly of the two pricked (dots) lines marks the limits within which

the French claimed to confine the English seaboard colonies. Canada,

or the region north of the St. Lawrence, east of the Ottawa, and south

of the Hudson Bay Company and New Britain, together with the islands

in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the northerly coasts of Newfoundland

(to dry fish upon), constitute all that the British allowed to

France. The stars represent the forts which they had established in

the disputed territory; while the circle and dot show the frontier

fortified posts of the English, as Huske gives them. The English

claimed for the province of New York all the territory north of the

Virginia line, west of Pennsylvania, and west of the Ottawa, and south

of the Hudson Bay Company’s line. Virginia, the two Carolinas, and

Georgia extended indefinitely westward. The northern line of Virginia

was established by the charter of 1606; the southern bounds mark where

the Carolina charter of 1665 begins, and the bounds of Spanish Florida

denote that charter’s southern limit, the territory being divided

by the subsequent grant of Georgia. The space between the pricked

line, already mentioned, and the other pricked line, which follows

the Mississippi River to the north, is the land which is called in a

legend on the map the hereditary and conquered country of the Iroquois,

which had been ceded by them to the British crown by treaties and a

deed of sale (1701), and confirmed by the treaties of Utrecht and

Aix-la-Chapelle. Cf. _Description of the English and French territories

in North America, being an explanation of a new map, shewing the

encroachments of the French, with their Forts and Usurpations on the

English settlements; and the fortifications of the latter._ Dublin,

1755 (Carter-Brown, iii. 1056).]

Jefferys pirated Evans’ map, and published it in 1758, “with

improvements by I. Gibson,” and in this form it is included in

Jefferys’ _General Topography of North America and the West Indies_,

London, 1768. Pownall, who was accused of procuring the dedication of

the original issue by “a valuable consideration” (_Mass. Hist. Coll._,

vii. 136), called Jefferys’ reproduction badly done, and reissued

Evans’ work in 1776, under the following title: _A map of the Middle

British Colonies in North America, first published by Mr. Lewis Evans

of Philadelphia in 1755, and since corrected and improved, as also

extended ... from actual surveys now lying at the Board of Trade, by

T. Pownall, M. P., Printed and published for J. Almon, London, March

25, 1776_. In this form the original plate was used as “Engraved by

James Turner in Philadelphia,” embodying some corrections, while the

extensions consisted of an additional engraved sheet, carrying the New

England coasts from Buzzard’s to Passamaquoddy Bay.

A French copy, with amendments, was published in 1777.[153]

The map was also reëngraved in London, “carefully copied from the

original published at Philadelphia by Mr. Lewis Evans.” It omits

the dedication to Pownall, and is inscribed “Printed for Carrington

Bowles, London; published, Jan. 1, 1771.” It has various legends not

on Evans’ map, and omits some details, notwithstanding its professed

correspondence. Evans had used the Greek character [Greek: ch] to

express the _gh_ of the Indian names, which is rendered in the Bowles

map _ch_.

Another plate of Evans’ map was engraved in London, and published there

by Sayer and Bennett, Oct. 15, 1776, to show the “seat of war.” It

covers the same field as the map of 1755, and uses the same main title;

but it is claimed to have been “improved from several surveys made

after the late war, and corrected from Governor Pownall’s late map,

1776.” The side map is extended so as to include Lake Superior, and

is called “A sketch of the upper parts of Canada.” Smith (1756) says:

“Evans’ map and first pamphlet were published in the summer, 1755, and

that part in favor of the French claim to Frontenac was attacked by

two papers in the _N. Y. Mercury_, Jan. 5, 1756. This occasioned the

publication of a second pamphlet the next spring, in which he endeavors

to support his map.”[154]

Evans’ pamphlet is called _Geographical, historical, political,

philosophical, and mechanical essays. The first, containing an analysis

of a general map of the middle British colonies in America; and of the

country of the confederate Indians_ [etc.]. Philadelphia, 1755. iv. 32

pp. 4º. A second edition, with the title unchanged, appeared the same

year, while “Part ii.” was published in the following year.[155]

By Gen. Shirley’s order N. Alexander made a map of the frontier posts

from New York to Virginia, which is noted in the _Catal. of the King’s

maps_ (British Museum), ii. 24. This may be a duplicate of a MS. map

said by Parkman (i. p. 422) to be in the Public Record office, _America

and West Indies_, lxxxii., showing the position of thirty-five posts

from the James River to Esopus on the Hudson.

Le Page du Pratz gave a “Carte de la Louisiane, par l’Auteur, 1757,” in

his _Histoire de la Louisiane_ (vol. i. p. 138), a part of which map is

reproduced herewith. See also _ante_, p. 66.

In the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, 1757, p. 74, is “A map of that part of

America which was the principal seat of war in 1756,” defining the

Ottawa River as the bounds under the treaty of Utrecht.

Janvier’s _L’Amérique_, in 1760, carried the bounds of Louisiana to the

Pacific.

Pouchot, in a letter dated at Montreal, April 14, 1758, describes a

map, which he gives in his _Mémoires_, vol. iii., where it is called

“Carte des frontières Françoises et Angloises dans le Canada depuis

Montreal jusques au Fort Du Quesne.” It is reproduced in Dr. Hough’s

translation of Pouchot, in the _Pennsylvania Archives_, second series,

vi. p. 409, and in _N. Y. Col. Hist._, vol. x.

In 1760 Thomas Jefferys included a map of Canada and the north part

of Louisiana in _The Natural and Civil History of the French Dominion

in North and South America_, purporting to be “from the French of Mr.

D’Anville, improved with the back settlements of Virginia and course of

the Ohio, illustrated with geographical and historical remarks,” with

marginal tables of “French Incroachments,” and “English titles to their

settlements on the Continent.” This map ran the northern bounds of the

English possessions along the St. Lawrence, up the Ottawa, across the

lakes, and down the Illinois and the Mississippi. The northern bounds

of Canada follow the height of land defining the southern limits of the

Hudson Bay Company.

After the peace of 1763, Jefferys inserted copies of this map (dated

1762) in the _Topography of North America and the West Indies_ (London,

1768), adding to it, “the boundaries of the Provinces since the

Conquest laid down as settled by the King in Council.” The map of 1762

is reproduced in Mills’ _Boundaries of Ontario_.[156]

Jefferys also gave in the same book (1768) a map of the mouths of the

Mississippi and the neighboring coasts, which, he says, was taken from

several Spanish and French drafts, compared with D’Anville’s of 1752

and with P. Laval’s _Voyage à Louisiane_.

[Illustration: LOUISIANA. (_Le Page du Pratz._)]