August 8th, in the year of its establishment, the rate of discount on
foreign bills was 6 per cent.; although this was the highest legal
interest, yet much higher rates had been previously demanded. The name of
William Paterson was not long upon the list of directors. The bank was
established in 1694, and for that year only was its founder among those
who managed its proceedings. The facts which led to his departure from the
honorable post of director are difficult to collect; but it is not at all
improbable that the character of Paterson was too speculative for those
with whom he was joined in companionship. Sir John Dalrymple remarks,
"The persons to whom he applied made use of his ideas, took the honor to
themselves, were civil to him awhile, and neglected him afterward." Another
writer says, "The friendless Scot was intrigued out of his post and out of
the honors he had earned." These assertions must be received with caution;
accusations against a great body are easily made; and it is rarely
consistent with the dignity of the latter to reply; they are received as
truths either because people are too idle to examine or because there is no
opportunity of investigating them.
%COLONIZATION OF LOUISIANA%
A.D. 1699
CHARLES E.T. GAYARRÉ
It was not only as the beginning of what was to become an important State
of the American Union, but also as a nucleus of occupation which led to
an immense acquisition of territory by the United States, that the first
settlement in Louisiana proved an event of great significance. Nothing in
American history is of greater moment than the adding of the Louisiana
Purchase (1803) to the United States domain. And the acquisition of that
vast region, extending from New Orléans to British America, and westward
from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains, had historic connection with
the French settlement of 1699.
As early as 1630 the territory afterward known as Louisiana was mostly
embraced in the Carolina grant by Charles I to Sir Robert Heath. It was
taken into possession for the French King by La Salle in 1682, and named
Louisiana in honor of Louis XIV. In 1698 Louis undertook to colonize the
region of the lower Mississippi, and sent out an expedition under Pierre le
Moyne, Sieur d'Iberville, a naval commander, who had served in the French
wars of Canada, and aided in establishing French colonies in North America.
With two hundred colonists Iberville sailed (September 24, 1698) for the
mouth of the Mississippi. Among his companions were his brothers, Sauvolle
and Jean Baptiste le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville. The latter was long
governor of Louisiana, and founded New Orleans. Of their arrival and
subsequent operations in the lower Mississippi region, Gayarré, the
Louisiana historian, gives a glowing and picturesque account.
On February 27, 1699, Iberville and Bienville reached the Mississippi. When
they approached its mouth they were struck with the gloomy magnificence of
the sight. As far as the eye could reach, nothing was to be seen but reeds
which rose five or six feet above the waters in which they bathed their
roots. They waved mournfully under the blast of the sharp wind of the
north, shivering in its icy grasp, as it tumbled, rolled, and gambolled on
the pliant surface. Multitudes of birds of strange appearance, with their
elongated shapes so lean that they looked like metamorphosed ghosts,
clothed in plumage, screamed in the air, as if they were scared of one
another. There was something agonizing in their shrieks that was in harmony
with the desolation of the place. On every side of the vessel, monsters of
the deep and huge alligators heaved themselves up heavily from their native
or favorite element, and, floating lazily on the turbid waters, seemed to
gaze at the intruders.
Down the river, and rumbling over its bed, there came a sort of low,
distant thunder. Was it the voice of the hoary Sire of Rivers, raised in
anger at the prospect of his gigantic volume of waters being suddenly
absorbed by one mightier than he? In their progress it was with great
difficulty that the travellers could keep their bark free from those
enormous rafts of trees which the Mississippi seemed to toss about in mad
frolic. A poet would have thought that the great river, when departing from
the altitude of its birthplace, and as it rushed down to the sea through
three thousand miles, had, in anticipation of a contest which threatened
the continuation of its existence, flung its broad arms right and left
across the continent, and, uprooting all its forests, had hoarded them
in its bed as missiles to hurl at the head of its mighty rival when they
should meet and struggle for supremacy.
When night began to cast a darker hue on a landscape on which the
imagination of Dante would have gloated there issued from that chaos of
reeds such uncouth and unnatural sounds as would have saddened the gayest
and appalled the most intrepid. Could this be the far-famed Mississippi,
or was it not rather old Avernus? It was hideous indeed--but hideousness
refined into sublimity, filling the soul with a sentiment of grandeur.
Nothing daunted, the adventurers kept steadily on their course. They
knew that through those dismal portals they were to arrive at the most
magnificent country in the world; they knew that awful screen concealed
loveliness itself. It was a coquettish freak of nature, when dealing with
European curiosity, as it came eagerly bounding to the Atlantic wave, to
herald it through an avenue so sombre as to cause the wonders of the
great valley of the Mississippi to burst with tenfold more force upon
the bewildered gaze of those who, by the endurance of so many perils and
fatigues, were to merit admittance into its Eden.
It was a relief for the adventurers when, after having toiled up the river
for ten days, they at last arrived at the village of the Bayagoulas. There
they found a letter of Tonty[1] to La Salle, dated in 1685. The letter, or
rather that "speaking bark" as the Indians called it, had been preserved
with great reverence. Tonty, having been informed that La Salle was
coming with a fleet from France to settle a colony on the banks of the
Mississippi, had not hesitated to set off from the northern lakes, with
twenty Canadians and thirty Indians, and to come down to the Balize to meet
his friend, who had failed to make out the mouth of the Mississippi, and
had been landed by Beaujeu on the shores of Texas. After having waited
for some time, and ignorant of what had happened, Tonty, with the same
indifference to fatigues and dangers of an appalling nature, retraced his
way back, leaving a letter to La Salle to inform him of his disappointment.
Is there not something extremely romantic in the characters of the men of
that epoch? Here is Tonty undertaking, with the most heroic unconcern, a
journey of nearly three thousand miles, through such difficulties as it is
easy for us to imagine, and leaving a letter to La Salle, as a proof of
his visit, in the same way that one would, in these degenerate days of
effeminacy, leave a card at a neighbor's house.
[Footnote 1: Henry de Tonty was an Italian explorer who accompanied La
Salle in his descent of the Mississippi (1681-1682).--ED.]
The French extended their explorations up to the mouth of the Red River. As
they proceeded through that virgin country, with what interest they must
have examined every object that met their eyes, and listened to the
traditions concerning De Soto,[2] and the more recent stories of the
Indians on La Salle and the iron-handed Tonty! A coat of mail which was
presented as having belonged to the Spaniards, and vestiges of their
encampment on the Red River, confirmed the French in the belief that there
was much of truth in the recitals of the Indians.
[Footnote 2: De Soto explored this region in 1541.--ED.]
On their return from the mouth of the Red River the two brothers separated
when they arrived at Bayou Manchac. Bienville was ordered to go down the
river to the French fleet, to give information of what they had seen and
heard. Iberville went through Bayou Manchac to those lakes which are known
under the names of Pontchartrain and Maurepas. Louisiana had been named
from a king: was it not in keeping that those lakes should be called after
ministers?
From the Bay of St. Louis, Iberville returned to his fleet, where, after
consultation, he determined to make a settlement at the Bay of Biloxi.
On the east side, at the mouth of the bay, as it were, there is a slight
swelling of the shore, about four acres square, sloping gently to the woods
in the background, and on the bay. Thus this position was fortified by
nature, and the French skilfully availed themselves of these advantages.
The weakest point, which was on the side of the forest, they strengthened
with more care than the rest, by connecting with a strong intrenchment the
two ravines, which ran to the bay in a parallel line to each other. The
fort was constructed with four bastions, and was armed with twelve pieces
of artillery. When standing on one of the bastions which faced the bay, the
spectator enjoyed a beautiful prospect. On the right, the bay could be
seen running into the land for miles, and on the left stood Deer Island,
concealing almost entirely the broad expanses of water which lay beyond. It
was visible only at the two extreme points of the island, which both, at
that distance, appeared to be within a close proximity of the mainland.
No better description can be given than to say that the bay looked like a
funnel to which the island was the lid, not fitting closely, however, but
leaving apertures for egress and ingress. The snugness of the locality had
tempted the French, and had induced them to choose it as the most favorable
spot, at the time, for colonization. Sauvolle was put in command of the
fort, and Bienville, the youngest of the three brothers, was appointed his
lieutenant.
A few huts having been erected round the fort, the settlers began to clear
the land, in order to bring it into cultivation. Iberville having furnished
them with all the necessary provisions, utensils, and other supplies,
prepared to sail for France. How deeply affecting must have been the
parting scene! How many casualties might prevent those who remained in this
unknown region from ever seeing again those who, through the perils of such
a long voyage, had to return to their home! What crowding emotions must
have filled up the breast of Sauvolle, Bienville, and their handful of
companions, when they beheld the sails of Iberville's fleet fading in the
distance, like transient clouds! Well may it be supposed that it seemed to
them as if their very souls had been carried away, and that they felt a
momentary sinking of the heart when they found themselves abandoned, and
necessarily left to their own resources, scanty as they were, on a patch
of land between the ocean on one side and on the other a wilderness, which
fancy peopled with every sort of terrors. The sense of their loneliness
fell upon them like the gloom of night, darkening their hopes and filling
their hearts with dismal apprehensions.
But as the country had been ordered to be explored, Sauvolle availed
himself of that circumstance to refresh the minds of his men by the
excitement of an expedition into the interior of the continent. He
therefore hastened to despatch most of them with Bienville, who, with a
chief of the Bayagoulas for his guide, went to visit the Colapissas. They
inhabited the northern shore of Lake Pontchartrain, and their domains
embraced the sites now occupied by Lewisburg, Mandeville, and
Fontainebleau. That tribe numbered three hundred warriors, who, in their
distant hunting-excursions, had been engaged in frequent skirmishes with
some of the British colonists in South Carolina. When the French landed,
they were informed that, two days previous, the village of the Colapissas
had been attacked by a party of two hundred Chickasaws, headed by two
Englishmen. These were the first tidings which the French had of their old
rivals, and which proved to be the harbinger of the incessant struggle
which was to continue for more than a century between the two races, and to
terminate by the permanent occupation of Louisiana by the Anglo-Saxon.
Bienville returned to the fort to convey this important information to
Sauvolle. After having rested there for several days, he went to the Bay of
Pascagoulas, and ascended the river which bears that name, and the banks
of which were tenanted by a branch of the Biloxis, and by the Moelobites.
Encouraged by the friendly reception which he met everywhere, he ventured
farther, and paid a visit to the Mobilians, who entertained him with great
hospitality. Bienville found them much reduced from what they had been, and
listened with eagerness to the many tales of their former power, which had
been rapidly declining since the crushing blow they had received from De
Soto.
When Iberville ascended the Mississippi the first time, he had remarked
Bayou Plaquemines and Bayou Chetimachas. The one he called after the fruit
of certain trees which appeared to have exclusive possession of its banks,
and the other after the name of the Indians who dwelt in the vicinity. He
had ordered them to be explored, and the indefatigable Bienville, on his
return from Mobile, obeyed the instructions left to his brother, and made
an accurate survey of these two bayous. When he was coming down the river,
at the distance of about eighteen miles below the site where New Orleans
now stands, he met an English vessel of sixteen guns, under the command of
Captain Bar. The English captain informed the French that he was examining
the banks of the river, with the intention of selecting a spot for the
foundation of a colony. Bienville told him that Louisiana was a dependency
of Canada; that the French had already made several establishments on the
Mississippi; and he appealed, in confirmation of his assertions, to their
own presence in the river, in such small boats, which evidently proved
the existence of some settlement close at hand. The Englishman believed
Bienville, and sailed back. Where this occurrence took place the river
makes a considerable bend, and it was from the circumstance which I have
related that the spot received the appellation of the "English Turn"--a
name which it has retained to the present day. It was not far from that
place, the atmosphere of which appears to be fraught with some malignant
spell hostile to the sons of Albion, that the English, who were outwitted
by Bienville in 1699, met with a signal defeat in battle from the Americans
in 1815. The diplomacy of Bienville and the military genius of Jackson
proved to them equally fatal when they aimed at the possession of
Louisiana.
Since the exploring expedition of La Salle down the Mississippi, Canadian
hunters, whose habits and intrepidity Fenimore Cooper has so graphically
described in the character of Leather-Stocking, used to extend their roving
excursions to the banks of that river; and those holy missionaries of the
Church, who, as the pioneers of religion, have filled the New World with
their sufferings, and whose incredible deeds in the service of God afford
so many materials for the most interesting of books, had come in advance
of the pickaxe of the settler, and had domiciliated themselves among the
tribes who lived near the waters of the Mississippi. One of them, Father
Montigny, was residing with the Tensas, within the territory of the present
parish of Tensas, in the State of Louisiana, and another, Father Davion,
was the pastor of the Yazoos, in the present State of Mississippi.
Such were the two visitors who in 1699 appeared before Sauvolle, at the
fort of Biloxi, to relieve the monotony of his cheerless existence, and to
encourage him in his colonizing enterprise. Their visit, however, was not
of long duration, and they soon returned to discharge the duties of their
sacred mission.
Iberville had been gone for several months, and the year was drawing to
a close without any tidings of him. A deeper gloom had settled over the
little colony at Biloxi, when, on December 7th, some signal-guns were heard
at sea, and the grateful sound came booming over the waters, spreading joy
in every breast. There was not one who was not almost oppressed with the
intensity of his feelings. At last, friends were coming, bringing relief to
the body and to the soul! Every colonist hastily abandoned his occupation
of the moment and ran to the shore. The soldier himself, in the eagerness
of expectation, left his post of duty, and rushed to the parapet which
overlooked the bay. Presently several vessels hove in sight, bearing the
white flag of France, and, approaching as near as the shallowness of the
beach permitted, folded their pinions, like water-fowl seeking repose on
the crest of the billows.
It was Iberville returning with the news that, on his representations,
Sauvolle had been appointed by the King governor of Louisiana; Bienville,
lieutenant-governor; and Boisbriant, commander of the fort at Biloxi, with
the grade of major. Iberville, having been informed by Bienville of
the attempt of the English to make a settlement on the banks of the
Mississippi, and of the manner in which it had been foiled, resolved to
take precautionary measures against the repetition of any similar attempt.
Without loss of time he departed with Bienville, on January 16, 1700, and
running up the river, he constructed a small fort, on the first solid
ground which he met, and which is said to have been at a distance of
fifty-four miles from its mouth.
When so engaged, the two brothers one day saw a canoe rapidly sweeping down
the river and approaching the spot where they stood. It was occupied by
eight men, six of whom were rowers, the seventh was the steersman, and the
eighth, from his appearance, was evidently of a superior order to that of
his companions, and the commander of the party. Well may it be imagined
what greeting the stranger received, when leaping on shore he made himself
known as the Chevalier de Tonty, who had again heard of the establishment
of a colony in Louisiana, and who, for the second time, had come to see
if there was any truth in the report. With what emotion did Iberville and
Bienville fold in their arms the faithful companion and friend of La Salle,
of whom they had heard so many wonderful tales from the Indians, to whom he
was so well known under the name of "Iron Hand"! With what admiration they
looked at his person, and with what increasing interest they listened to
his long recitals of what he had done and had seen on that broad continent,
the threshold of which they had hardly passed!
After having rested three days at the fort, the indefatigable Tonty
reascended the Mississippi, with Iberville and Bienville, and finally
parted with them at Natchez. Iberville was so much pleased with that part
of the bank of the river where now exists the city of Natchez that he
marked it down as a most eligible spot for a town, of which he drew the
plan, and which he called Rosalie, after the maiden name of the Countess
Pontchartrain, the wife of the chancellor. He then returned to the new
fort he was erecting on the Mississippi, and Bienville went to explore the
country of the Yatasses, of the Natchitoches, and of the Ouachitas.
What romance can be more agreeable to the imagination than to accompany
Iberville and Bienville in their wild explorations, and to compare the
state of the country in their time with what it is in our days?
When the French were at Natchez they were struck with horror at an
occurrence, too clearly demonstrating the fierceness of disposition of that
tribe which was destined in after years to become celebrated in the history
of Louisiana. One of their temples having been set on fire by lightning, a
hideous spectacle presented itself to the Europeans. The tumultuous rush of
the Indians; the infernal howlings and lamentations of the men, women,
and children; the unearthly vociferations of the priests, their fantastic
dances and ceremonies around the burning edifice; the demoniac fury with
which mothers rushed to the fatal spot, and, with the piercing cries and
gesticulations of maniacs, flung their new-born babes into the flames
to pacify their irritated deity--the increasing anger of the
heavens--blackening with the impending storm, the lurid flashes of
lightning darting as it were in mutual enmity from the clashing clouds--the
low, distant growling of the coming tempest--the long column of smoke and
fire shooting upward from the funeral pyre, and looking like one of the
gigantic torches of Pandemonium--the war of the elements combined with
the worst effects of frenzied superstition of man--the suddenness and
strangeness of the awful scene--all the circumstances produced such an
impression upon the French as to deprive them for a moment of the powers
of volition and action. Rooted to the ground, they stood aghast with
astonishment and indignation at the appalling scene. Was it a dream--a wild
delirium of the mind? But no--the monstrous reality of the vision was but
too apparent; and they threw themselves among the Indians, supplicating
them to cease their horrible sacrifice to their gods, and joining threats
to their supplications. Owing to this intervention, and perhaps because a
sufficient number of victims had been offered, the priests gave the signal
of retreat, and the Indians slowly withdrew from the accursed spot. Such
was the aspect under which the Natchez showed themselves, for the first
time, to their visitors: it was ominous presage for the future.
After these explorations Iberville departed again for France, to solicit
additional assistance from the government, and left Bienville in command
of the new fort on the Mississippi. It was very hard for the two brothers,
Sauvolle and Bienville, to be thus separated, when they stood so much in
need of each other's countenance, to breast the difficulties that sprung
up around them with a luxuriance which they seemed to borrow from the
vegetation of the country. The distance between the Mississippi and Biloxi
was not so easily overcome in those days as in ours, and the means which
the two brothers had of communing together were very scanty and uncertain.
Sauvolle died August 22,1701, and Louisiana remained under the sole
charge of Bienville, who, though very young, was fully equal to meet that
emergency, by the maturity of his mind and by his other qualifications. He
had hardly consigned his brother to the tomb when Iberville returned with
two ships of the line and a brig laden with troops and provisions.
According to Iberville's orders, and in conformity with the King's
instructions, Bienville left Boisbriant, his cousin, with twenty men, at
the old fort of Biloxi, and transported the principal seat of the colony
to the western side of the river Mobile, not far from the spot where now
stands the city of Mobile. Near the mouth of that river there is an island,
which the French had called Massacre Island from the great quantity of
human bones which they found bleaching on its shores. It was evident that
there some awful tragedy had been acted; but Tradition, when interrogated,
laid her choppy finger upon her skinny lips, and answered not.
This uncertainty, giving a free scope to the imagination, shrouded the
place with a higher degree of horror and with a deeper hue of fantastical
gloom. It looked like the favorite ballroom of the witches of hell. The
wind sighed so mournfully through the shrivelled-up pines, those vampire
heads seemed incessantly to bow to some invisible and grisly visitors: the
footsteps of the stranger emitted such an awful and supernatural sound,
when trampling on the skulls which strewed his path, that it was impossible
for the coldest imagination not to labor under some crude and ill-defined
apprehension. Verily, the weird sisters could not have chosen a fitter
abode. Nevertheless, the French, supported by their mercurial temperament,
were not deterred from forming an establishment on that sepulchral island,
which, they thought, afforded some facilities for their transatlantic
communications.