igation of the river Mississippi shall be equally free, as well to the subjects of Great Britain as to those of France, in its whole breadth and length, from its source to the sea, and expressly that part which is between the said island of New Orleans and the right bank of that river, as well as the passage both in and out of its mouth. It is further stipulated; that the vessels belonging to the subjects of either nation shall not be stopped, visited or subjected to the payment of any duty whatever."

LOUISIANA A TROUBLESOME AND EXPENSIVE PROVINCE.

Louisiana had been a source of infinite trouble and expense to France. From the first effort at colonization, insubordination, discord and malfeasance among those in authority continued to exist, while the maintenance of troops and the expensive contributions of merchandise constantly made to the Indian tribes in proximity (who demanded such supplies as a condition of peace with the colonists and of their alliance in time of conflict against the English), were all very costly to the home government. The colony had proven in all things to be very unprofitable. Crozat, the rich and calculating merchant, found it to be a loss even as a present, and he gladly relinquished his grant. The India or Law Company lost twenty millions in expensive schemes to develop a commerce under its chartered privileges. It is conceded that the French government squandered over forty millions of livres in colonization efforts in Louisiana. It was such discouragements as made France willing and anxious to cede to Spain all her interest in such possessions, and to release herself from the further obligation of bearing an increasing financial burden. The transfer to Spain was delayed until after the portion east of the Mississippi had been surrendered to the English. It was this delay which led the French colonists west of the river to hope that they would continue to remain on French territory. The official notice of Louis XV, dated April 21, 1764, to the French governor, D'Abbadie, and received in October, 1764, to deliver possession to the Spaniards, dispelled all further hope of the colonists, and they submitted with indignation and humiliation. It was not, however, until March 5, 1766, that the Spanish governor, Antonio de Ulloa, with two companies of infantry, arrived at New Orleans. He had intended to defer taking complete possession until the arrival of the Spanish troops. He met, to his surprise, a sullen reception from the citizens, though he had achieved great renown before the world. He was an eminent scholar and writer, and a famous sailor, having attained the grade of lieutenant-general of the royal navies of Spain. Few men at the time of his death had contributed so much to the general knowledge and scientific advancement of a nation as De Ulloa. The knowledge of platina, of electricity, of artificial magnetism, of engraving and printing, was greatly advanced by the researches of this man. He was also a great promoter of astronomy. In Spain the credit is given him of having discovered the secret of manufacturing superfine cloth by a combination of the churla wool with the merino; and in

this connection he founded at Segovia, in Spain, a manufactory where cloths of remarkable fineness were produced. He was a benefactor of his race and of his time. Looking back upon that remote period in the history of Louisiana and upon its wild and undeveloped state, we may well marvel that one so famed among his countrymen should have consented to so exile himself as to become the first governor under Spanish rule of that distant and distracted colony. The inhabitants, however, could not forget that they were French, and they resented the act of cession which transferred them and their territory to another flag and , another nationality without their acquiescence and in defiance of their repeated protests. They could not become reconciled, however distinguished and excellent the Spanish governor who was to represent the changed sovereignty. The discontent manifested itself at first in assemblages of the people, who denounced the treaty of cession. This was followed by open revolution. De Ulloa was forced to seek safety in the Spanish ship which lay at anchor in the harbor. The limited military force was powerless to protect the governor, although Aubry, the French governor-general of the colony under the French authority, exerted every influence in his power loyally and fearlessly to execute the mandate of his sovereignthe French King-in making effective the cession to Spain. On the 1st of November, 1768, De Ulloa and his family repaired to a French vessel which he had chartered, and amid the derisive shouts of the people and their patriotic songs he sailed away from the town of New Orleans. The French governor was compelled to order back a force of the French colonists who persisted in following as far as the French fort at the Balize, there to oppose any Spanish aid entering the river.

Upon Aubry's threat to fire upon the insurgents following De Ulloa's ship, they desisted, and in his report to the French government detailing this circumstance, he says: "On that occasion I was obeyed for the first time."

The people attempted to vindicate their expulsion of De Ulloa with various pretexts detrimental to his administration, but the real motive is too plainly revealed in the concluding part of their attempted justification, where they say: "What harm have we done in shaking off a foreign yoke which was made still more heavy and crushing by the hand which imposed it? What offense have we committed in claiming back our laws, our country, our sovereign, and in consecrating to him our everlasting love?" They appealed to the King to annul the cession and to restore to them French sovereignty.

The weakness of France which prompted the cession to Spain still remained, however, to forbid a recession.

The Spanish ministry took up the sedition in Louisiana. But one minister advised the King in favor of receding the province to France. The council, with this exception, while admitting the antipathy of the colonists to Spanish rule, and the vast expense of maintaining local government with no corresponding revenue to follow, held that for State policies it were best to retain the cession. The Mississippi River formed a line of demarcation between the Spanish and the

English possessions. Between Louisiana and Mexico there intervened a vast space within which another power might encroach by extending its frontier, and thus produce incessant controversy with Spain, while with France in control of Louisiana, that power might in time extend itself toward Mexico and open up an illicit trade with that country, as was previously done; and further, in the event the English should prevail over the French, it might be to the interest of France, in the settlement of terms, to offer Louisiana to the English nation, which would be unfortunate for Spain as respects her Spanish possessions adjacent. It was therefore determined to retain the cession, and while reorganizing the local government upon a Spanish foundation it was proposed to visit punishment upon the leaders of the late insurrection. The King himself expressed a firm resolution to recover possession and to repress all designs against his authority in the province.

The determination of the government was made painfully manifest to the colonists when, on July 24, 1769, there appeared before New Orleans a formidable Spanish fleet of 24 sail and a force of 2,600 men, under the command of General O'Reilly, a famous commander, who had been selected to receive formal possession of Louisiana and defend the Spanish possession. The first act after the formal cession was the arrest and trial of the leaders of the late revolution. They were found guilty and some cruelly condemned to death, some were sentenced to perpetual imprisonment and others to lesser punishment, while as to all confiscation of property was adjudged.

SPAIN CEDES FLORIDA TO GREAT BRITAIN.

By another section of the treaty of 1763, Havana and the whole of Cuba, which then belonged to Great Britain, were restored to Spain, and in return therefor Spain ceded to Great Britain "Florida, with Fort St. Augustin and the bay of Pensacola, as well as all that Spain possesses on the continent of North America to the east or to the southeast of the river Mississippi."

If it were true that the cession to Spain of "the country known under the name of Louisiana," contained West Florida, or any portion east of the Mississippi which might be said to conflict with the later grant from France to Great Britain, this was corrected in the cession by Spain to Great Britain of "all that Spain possesses on the continent of North America to the east of or to the southeast of the river Mississippi."

To this point we find England claiming possession of all that France possessed to the east or southeast of the Mississippi and, also, all that Spain possessed and claimed eastward of that river. Spain retained possession of her recent cession from France of the territory situated west of the Mississippi, with the city and island of New Orleans. Great Britain now became possessed of the Florida territory, whatever that was, of the French territory on the river and port of Mobile and all that remained of the original Louisiana of La Salle's claim east of the Mississippi. This rounded out England's posesssions. The Atlantic was the

eastern boundary, the Mississippi the western, and the Gulf the southern, with her Canadian possessions on the north. It will be noticed how possession followed according to the law of discovery. The Spaniards claimed Florida through the Tampa, Pensacola and St. Augustine settlements and discoveries; and France claimed the country drained by the river and bay of Mobile, and the greater country drained by the Mississippi, on like grounds.

Much confusion exists in the popular mind as to the treaties between the Great Powers in 1762 and 1763. First in order was the single and complete cession of "the whole country known by the name of Louisiana," by and on the part of the King of France to the King of Spain. This was November 3, 1762, and is known in history as the "Family Compact," and so known because of the agreement between the two monarchs that they would defend each other in their dominions throughout the world, and would regard as a common enemy any nation which should antagonize either. Second in order was the treaty-about three months later-between the Kings of Great Britain, Portugal, Spain and France, which was concluded February 10, 1763, known as the Treaty of Paris and in which the King of France cedes "everything of which he possesses on the left side of the river Mississippi" to Great Britain. Since, in all the claims of France previously made, the country of Louisiana was understood to embrace territory on the left side of the Mississippi, as well as on the right side, as shown in the grant to Antoine de Crozat, September 14, 1712, by Louis XIV, which was "bounded by the English Carolinas" and designated as a part of "the country of Louisiana,” and so described on the early French maps and by French explorers and French writers, it naturally excites surprise that in the face of the cession to Spain of the "whole country known as Louisiana," there should also be ceded a part of that same Louisiana to Great Britain a few months later. It may be said that the treaty of November 3, 1762, was well named the "Secret Treaty." The surprise is the greater when it is known that the preliminaries of this second treaty were actually signed on the same day as that ceding "all of Louisiana to Spain."

TALLEYRAND'S EXPLANATION.

That we may also have before us the justification of France and Spain for such evident inconsistency, if not deception, it may be of interest to read the letter from Talleyrand to General Armstrong after the cession, and thus we have both sides of the controversy fairly presented, and for this purpose the letter follows:

[American State Papers (foreign relations), vol. 2, p. 635. Letter from M. Talleyrand to General Armstrong.] PARIS, December 21, 1804.

SIR: I had the honor, in Brumaire last, to inform Mr. Livingston that I would submit to the inspection of His Imperial Majesty the letters he addressed to me relative to the motives of Mr. Monroe's journey to Spain, and some discussions between the Court of Madrid and the United States.

Among the observations made on this subject by Messrs. Livingston and Monroe, His Imperial Majesty has been obliged to give particular attention to those bearing on the discussions, of which the

object is peculiarly interesting to the French Government. He has perceived that he could not have been a stranger to the examination of these discussions, since they grew out of the treaty by which France had ceded Louisiana to the United States; and His Majesty has thought that an explanation, made with that fidelity which characterizes him, on the eastern boundaries of the ceded territory, would put an end to the differences to which this cession has given rise.

France in giving up Louisiana to the United States, transferred to them all the rights over that colony which she had acquired from Spain; she could not, nor did she wish to, cede any other; and, that no room might be left for doubt in this respect, she repeated, in her treaty of 30th April, 1803, the literal expressions of the treaty of St. Ildefonso, by which she had acquired that colony two years before. Now it was stipulated, in her treaty of the year 1801, that the acquisition of Louisiana by France was a retrocession; that is to say, that Spain restored to France what she has received from her in 1762. At that period she had received the territory bounded on east by the Mississippi, the river Iberville and the lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain; the same day France ceded to England, by the preliminaries of peace, all the territory to the eastward. Of this Spain had received no part, and could, therefore give back none to France.

All the territory lying to the eastward of the Mississippi and the river Iberville, and south of the 32d degree of north latitude, bears the name of Florida. It has been constantly designated in that way during the time that Spain held it; it bears the same name in the treaties of limits between Spain and the United States; and, in different notes of Mr. Livingston of a later date than the treaty of retrocession, in which the name of Louisiana is given to the territory on the west side of the Mississippi; of Florida to that on the east of it.

According to this designation, thus consecrated by time, and even prior to the period when Spain began to possess the whole territory between the 31st degree, the Mississippi, and the sea, this country ought, in good faith and justice, to be distinguished from Louisiana.

Your excellency knows that before the preliminaries of 1762, confirmed by the treaty of 1763, the French possessions, situated near the Mississippi, extended as far from the east of this river, towards the Ohio and the Illinois, as in the quarters of Mobile; and you must think it as unnatural, after all the changes of sovereignty which that part of America has undergone, to give the name of Louisiana to the district of Mobile, as to the territory more to the north, on the same bank of the river, which formerly belonged to France.

These observations, sir, will be sufficient to dispel every kind of doubt, with regard to the extent of the retrocession made by Spain to France, in the month of Vendemiaire, year 9. It was under this impression that the French and Spanish plenipotentiaries negotiated, and it was under this impression that I have since had occasion to give the necessary explanations when a project was formed to take possession of it. I have laid before His Imperial Majesty the negotiations of Madrid which preceded the treaty of 1801, and His Majesty is convinced that, during the whole course of these negotiations, the Spanish Government has constantly refused to cede any part of the Floridas, even from the Mississippi to Mobile.

His Imperial Majesty has, moreover, authorized me to declare to you, that, at the beginning of the year 11, General Bournonville was charged to open a new negotiation with Spain for the acquisition of the Floridas. This project, which has not been followed by any treaty, is an evident proof that France had not acquired, by the treaty retroceding Louisiana, the country east of the Mississippi.

The candor of these observations proves to you, sir, how much value His Majesty attaches to the maintenance of a good understanding between two Powers, to whom France is united by connexions so intimate and so numerous. His Majesty called upon to give explanations on a question which interested France directly, persuades himself that they will leave no ground of misunderstanding between the United States and Spain; and that these two Powers, animated, as they ought to be, by sentiments of friendship which their vicinity and their position render so necessary, will be able to agree with the same facility on the other subjects of their discussion.

This result His Imperial Majesty will learn with real interest. He saw with pain the United States commence their differences with Spain in an unusual manner, and conduct themselves towards the Floridas by acts of violence which not being founded in right, could have no other effect but to injure its lawful owners.

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[This letter not quoted in full.]