colonies, we did, in the year 1683, give our orders to undertake a discovery of the countries and lands which are situated in the northern parts of America, between New France (Canada) and New Mexico. And the Sieur de La Salle, to whom we committed that enterprise, having had success enough to confirm the belief that a communication might be settled from New France to the Gulf of Mexico by means of large rivers; this obliged us, immediately after the peace of Ryewick (in 1697), to give orders for the establishment of a colony there (under Iberville in 1699), and maintaining a garrison, which has kept and preserved the possession we had taken in the year 1683, of the lands, coasts and islands which are situated in the Gulf of Mexico, between Carolina on the east, and old and New Mexico on the west. But a new war breaking out in Europe shortly after, there was no possibility till now of reaping from that new colony the advantages that might have been expected from thence; because the private men who are concerned in the sea trade were all under engagements with the other colonies, which they have been obliged to follow. And whereas, upon the information we have received concerning the disposition and situation of the said countries, known at present by the name of the province of Louisiana, we are of opinion that there may be established therein a considerable commerce, so much the more advantageous to our kingdom in that there has been hitherto a necessity of fetching from foreigners the greatest part of the commodities that may be brought from thence; and because in exchange thereof we need carry thither nothing but the commodities of the growth and manufacture of our own kingdom; we have resolved to grant the commerce of the country of Louisiana to the Sieur Anthony Crozat, our counsellor, secretary of the household, crown and revenue, to whom we intrust the execution of this project. We are the more readily inclined thereto because of his zeal and the singular knowledge he has acquired of maritime commerce, encourages us to hope for as good success as he has hitherto had in the divers and sundry enterprises he has gone upon, and which have procured to our kingdom great quantities of gold and silver in such conjectures as have rendered them very welcome to us. For these reasons, being desirous to show our favor to him, and to regulate the conditions upon which we mean to grant him the said commerce, after having deliberated the affair in our council, of our own certain knowledge, full power and royal authority, we by these presents, signed by our hand, have appointed and do appoint the said Sieur Crozat to carry on a trade in all the lands possessed by us, and bounded by New Mexico and by the English of Carolina, all the establishments, ports, havens, rivers, and particularly the port

LOUISIANA GRANTED TO CROZAT.

93

and haven of Isle Dauphin, heretofore called Massacre; the river St. Louis, heretofore called Mississippi, from the edge of the sea as far as the Illinois,* together with the river St. Philip, heretofore called Missouris, and St. Jerome, heretofore called the Quabache (the Wabash), with all the countries, territories, lakes within land, and the rivers which fall directly or indirectly into that part of the river St. Louis. Our pleasure is, that all the aforesaid lands, countries, streams, rivers and islands, be and remain comprised under the name of the GOVERNMENT OF LOUISIANA, which shall be dependent upon the general government of New France, to which it is subordinate."

Crozat was permitted to search and open mines, and to pay the king one-fifth part of all the gold and silver developed. Work in developing the mines was to be begun in three years, under penalty of forfeiture. Crozat was required to send at least two vessels annually from France to sustain the colonies already established, and for the maintenance of trade.

The next year, 1713, there were, within the limits of Crozat's vast grant, not more than four hundred persons of European descent.

Crozat himself did little to increase the colony, the time of his subordinates being spent in roaming over the country in search of the precious metals. He became wearied at the end of three years spent in profitless adventures, and, in 1717, surrendered his grant back to the crown. In August of the same year the French king turned Louisiana over to the "Western Company," or the "Mississippi Company," subsequently called "The Company of the Indies," at whose head stood the famous Scotch banker, John Law. The rights ceded to Law's company were as broad as the grant to Crozat. Law was an inflationist, believing that wealth could be created without limit by the mere issuing of paper money, and his wild schemes of finance were the most ruinous that ever deluded and bankrupted a confiding people. Louisiana, with its real and undeveloped wealth a hundred times mag

* The expression, "as far as the Illinois," did not refer to the river of that name, but to the country generally, on both sides of the Mississippi, above the mouth of the Ohio, which, under both the French and Spanish governments was denominated "the country of the Illinois," and this designation appeared in all their records and official letters. For example, letters, deeds, and other official documents bore date, respectively, at Kaskaskia, of the Illinois; St. Louis, of the Illinois; St. Charles, of the Illinois; not to identify the village where such instruments were executed merely, but to denote the country in which these villages were situated. Therefore, the monopoly of Crozat, by the terms of his patent, extended to the utmost limit of Louisiana, northward, which, by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713, was fixed at the 49th of latitude; vide Stoddard's "Sketches of Louisiana," Brackenridge's "Views of Louisiana." From the year 1700 until some time subsequent to the conquest of the country by the British, in 1763, a letter or document executed anywhere within the present limits of the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, or Missouri, would have borne the superscription of "Les Illinoix," or "the Illinois."

nified, became the basis of a fictitious value, on which an enormous volume of stock, convertible into paper money, was issued. The stock rose in the market like a balloon, and chamber maids, alike with wealthy ladies, barbers and bankers,-- indeed, the whole French people,-gazing at the ascending phenomenon, grew mad with the desire for speedy wealth. The French debt was paid off'; the depleted treasury filled; poor men and women were made rich in a few days by the constantly advancing value of the stocks of the " Company of the West." Confidence in the ultimate wealth of Louisiana was all that was required, and this was given to a degree that would not now be credited as true, were not the facts beyond dispute.

After awhile the balloon exploded; people began to doubt; they realized that mere confidence was not solid value; stocks declined; they awoke to a sorrowful contemplation of their delusion and ruin. Law, from the summit of his glory as a financier, fell into ignominy, and to escape bodily harm fled the country; and Louisiana, from being the source of untold wealth, sunk into utter ruin and contempt.

It should be said to the credit of "the company" that they made some efforts toward the cultivation of the soil. The growth of tobacco, sugar, rice and indigo was encouraged. Negroes were imported to till. the soil. New Orleans was laid out in 1718, and the seat of government of lower Louisiana subsequently established there. A settlement was made about Natchez. A large number of German emigrants were located on the Mississippi, from whom a portion of the Mississippi has ever since been known as the "German coast." The French settlements at Kaskaskia and Cahokia, begun, as appears from most authentic accounts, about the year 1700,- certainly not later, were largely increased by emigration from Canada and France. In the year 1718 the "Company of the West" erected a fortification near Kaskaskia, and named it Fort Chartes, having a charter from the crown so to do. It is situated in the northwest corner of Randolph county, Illinois, on the American bottom. It was garrisoned with a small number of soldiers, and was made the seat of government of "the Illinois." Under the mild government of the "Company," the Illinois marked a steady prosperity, and Fort Chartes became the center of business, fashion and gaiety of all "the Illinois country." In 1756 the fort was reconstructed, this time with solid stone. Its shape was an irregular quadrangle, the exterior sides of the polygon being four hundred and ninety feet, and the walls were two feet two inches thick, pierced with port-holes for cannon. The walls of the fort were eighteen feet high, and contained within, guard houses, government house, barracks, powder house, bake house, prison and store room. A very minute description

of

is given of the whole structure within and without in the minutes of its surrender, October 10, 1765, by Louis St. Ange de Belrive, captain of infantry and commandant, and Joseph Le Febvre, the king's storekeeper and acting commissary of the fort, to Mr. Sterling, deputed by Mr. De Gage (Gage), governor of New York and commander of His Majesty's troops in America, to receive possession of the fort and country from the French, according to the seventeenth article of the treaty peace, concluded on the 10th of February, 1763, between the kings of France and Great Britain.* Fort Chartes was the strongest and most elaborately constructed of any of the French works of defense in America. Here the intendants and several commandants in charge, whose will was law, governed "the Illinois," administered justice to its inhabitants, and settled up estates of deceased persons, for nearly half a century. From this place the English commandants governed "the Illinois," some of them with great injustice and severity, from the time of its surrender, in 1765, to 1772, when a great flood inundated the American Bottom, and the Mississippi cut a new channel so near the fort that the wall and two bastions on the west side were undermined and fell into the river. The British garrison then abandoned it, and their headquarters were afterward at Kaskaskia.

Dr. Beck, while collecting material for his "Gazetteer of Illinois. and Missouri," in 1820, visited the ruins of old Fort Chartes. At that time enough remained to show the size and strength of this remarkable fortification. Trees over two feet in diameter were growing within its walls. The ruin is in a dense forest, hidden in a tangle of undergrowth, furnishing a sad memento of the efforts and blasted hopes of La Belle France to colonize "Les Illinoix."

*The articles of surrender are given at length in the Faris Documents, vol. 10, pp. 1161 to 1166.

CHAPTER XII.

SURRENDER OF LOUISIANA BY THE INDIES COMPANY-EARLY ROUTES.

IN 1731 the company of the Indies surrendered to France, Louisiana, with its forts, colonies and plantations, and from this period forward to the time of the conquest by Great Britain and the Anglo-American. colonies, Louisiana was governed through officers appointed by the

crown.

We have shown how, when and where colonies were permanently established by the French in Canada, about Kaskaskia, and in Lower Louisiana. It is not within the scope of our inquiries to follow these settlements of the French in their subsequent development, but rather now to show how the establishments of the French along the lakes and near the gulf communicated with each other, and the routes of travel by which they were connected.

The convenient way between Quebec and the several villages in the vicinity of Kaskaskia was around the lakes and down the Illinois River, either by way of the St. Joseph River and the Kankakee portage or through Chicago Creek and the Des Plaines. The long winters. and severe climate on the St. Lawrence made it desirable for many people to abandon Canada for the more genial latitudes of southern Illinois, and the still warmer regions of Louisiana, where snows were unknown and flowers grew the year round. It only required the protection of a fort or other military safeguards to induce the Canadians to change their homes from Canada to more favorable localities southward.

The most feasible route between Canada and the Lower Mississippi settlements was by the Ohio River. This communication, however, was effectually barred against the French. The Iroquois Indians, from the time of Champlain, were allies, first of the Dutch and then of the English, and the implacable enemies of the French. The upper waters of the Ohio were within the acknowledged territory of the Iroquois, whose possessions extended westward of New York and Pennsylvania well toward the Scioto. The Ohio below Pittsburgh was, also, in the debatable ground of the Miamis northward, and Chickasaws southward. These nations were warring upon each other continually, and