PONTALBA'S MEMOIR. 441 amount to four hundred and thirty-seven thousand dollars, over and above the revenue derived through its custom-house. From that sum there may be deducted one hundred thousand dollars, which are uselessly spent at Pensacola. There remains a deficit of three hundred and thirty-seven thousand dollars, which the success alone of sugar-making in the colony justifies the government in the hope of being able to cover in a few years, as soon as a general peace shall permit the slave trade to be resumed, and as soon as the government shall take it in hand to people Louisiana. "These are about all the articles of exportation which are supplied by Louisiana, in return for the objects of importation which she receives from France in time of peace. There may be added to the above statement about one hundred thousand dollars, in return for the commodities which are smuggled from Louisiana into the harbors of the Gulf of Mexico; and, in time of peace, it is the commerce of France and St. Domingo which gets hold of all this specie, in exchange for wines, oils, soaps, eatables and other articles of French manufacture. "The planter does not hoard up, however considerable may be the result of his agricultural labors. After having consumed so much of it as is necessary to supply his wants, he employs the rest in improving his estate. Ambition and activity are his characteristics; all that he requires is encouragement. "The only taxes known in Louisiana are a duty of six per cent. on the exports, valued according to a very moderate estimation. The same duty is paid on all foreign imports. "Spain has, so far, retained possession of this colony for political reasons. It is onerous to her, as it was onerous to France during all the time that the latter power possessed it, since the custom-house duty, which 442 PONTALBA'S MEMOIR. is here the only source of revenue, does not produce annually one hundred thousand dollars, and since the ordinary expenditure required by the colony rises up every year to five hundred and thirty-seven thousand dollars, without including the extraordinary expenses. "The inhabitants of Louisiana, as subjects of the King of Spain, have the right to carry to all the ports of the Gulf of Mexico the products of their soil, and when they resort to Havana, Cuba, Vera Cruz and Campeachy, only for the apparent purpose of selling their boxes, timber and tobacco, they smuggle in a considerable quantity of merchandise of French manufacture, such as silk stuffs, ribbons, muslins, lawns, lace and jewels, and the vessels engaged in that trade always bring back to Louisiana four times more dollars than the apparent value of their outward cargoes. Those harbors in the Gulf of Mexico furnish nothing for return cargoes beyond dollars and Campeachy wood. This last article will only serve as ballast for the ships returning to France. "If, in consequence of the cession of Louisiana to France, Spain closed to that province all her harbors in the Gulf of Mexico, this measure would deprive the colony of the principal resources which constitute its present prosperity, and the exports not being commensurate with the imports which it requires, its commerce would decay, and the colony itself would receive a blow which would keep it palsied, until it should become sufficiently peopled to enable it to produce more than she imports. "Louisiana wants working hands. Give her population, and she will become an inexhaustible source of wealth for France. Give her population, whatever be the means employed, but give her population. "Here is an estimate of what that province gives PONTALBA'S MEMOIR. 443 annually in return for the commodities she receives from France and St. Domingo in time of peace, but which, in time of war, she has permission to procure, wherever she can, in the ports of neutral or allied powers. 4,000,000 lbs. sugar at $8 per 100 lb. 4,000 barrels of molasses, at $15 each 100,000 lbs. indigo 200.000 lbs, tobacco Furs of divers kinds 1 Timber, &c., furnished to St. Domingo in time of peace Dollars, imported by the Government to meet the annual ex- (The extraordinary expenses of the Government absorb the The returns for the contraband commodities introduced by the Total in dollars $320,000 60,000 100,000 16,000 100,000 50,000 225,000 50,000 537,000 500,000 $1,958,000 "In time of peace, it is the commerce of Bordeaux, Marseilles and Nantes which absorbs all this capital, and the whole trade is even engrossed by vessels from these ports. As soon as they have deposited their cargoes at New Orleans, they avail themselves of the time required for the sale of those cargoes and the collecting of the debts due to them, to make a voyage to Havana, or Vera Cruz. They carry thither a cargo of sugar-boxes, and never fail to dispose at the same time of the objects of luxury which they bring from France for that purpose, and, on their return to New Orleans, they find their cargoes for Europe ready prepared. "It is only since the war with Great Britain does not prevent any intercourse with France, that the King of Spain has allowed the province of Louisiana to trade with neutral nations, because the Court of Madrid could 444 PONTALBA'S MEMOIR. not but be aware that the colony could not do without that foreign trade. Whereupon, it has so turned out that the United States now monopolize the commerce of Louisiana, which, by this means, has hardly suffered at all during the long period of the European wars. "It would be much to the interest of France and Louisiana to prohibit the introduction of timber from the United States into the French colonies. Then the price of the Louisiana timber, which is better, would be kept up, and the merchants of the province, instead of exporting thither twenty cargoes of timber annually, would send two hundred, and, instead of taking for their return cargoes melons and dollars, as do the Americans, would bring back French dry goods and French liquids, which they would pay for in specie, because the sale of their timber cargoes would not be of sufficient amount to supply them with return cargoes. Besides, wages will diminish in Louisiana in proportion to the increase of population, and consequently its timber will become cheaper. 66 By this sketch it appears, that the objects of exportation from Louisiana amount at present to $1,958,000; but, from the moment that France shall be in possession of it, if that province is not permitted to continue its commerce of sugar-boxes in the Gulf of Mexico, the importation will be limited to the agricultural products of its soil, the value of which amounts now to about $695,000; but then the deficit will be $1,260,000, which it now receives from its trade in boxes and its appendages, and also from the disbursements of Spain to meet the necessary expenses of the colonial administration. "I must not omit to say, that every sort of paper money, by causing the ruin of this province, would in the end become onerous to the government, and profit TREATY OF ST. ILDEPHONSO. 445 able only to some stockholders, who are always interested in proposing its issue. The government will easily procure funds in Louisiana, by resorting to bills of exchange on the national treasury at home. It is useless to say, that this resource would fail from the very moment they should not meet with ready payment on their becoming due. "The good intelligence which exists between France and Spain would also afford to the former the resource of drawing to advantage, for the expenses of the colony, dollars from Vera Cruz, on making reimbursements for them in Europe. Spain would find it to her interest to receive her capital without other costs and risks than those of transportation from Vera Cruz to New Orleans. "This is all the information which I have been able to gather during a residence of eighteen years in Louisiana, where I was employed by the government in a superior office," &c., &c. This able document gives so very faithful a delineation of Louisiana, at the time, by one whose authority is inferior to none, that I felt justified in transcribing it at length. It holds up also to France golden visions of maritime power which would have given her a wonderful preponderance in America, but which she was not destined to realize. Pontalba's memoir was presented on the 15th of September, 1800, and, on the 1st of October, a treaty was concluded at St. Ildephonso, the third article of which is in these terms: "His Catholic Majesty promises and engages to retrocede to the French Republic, six months after the full and entire execution of the above conditions and stipulations relative to his Royal Highness, the Duke of Parma, the colony or province of Louisiana, with the same extent that it now has in the hands of Spain, and that it had when France possessed it, and such as it |