CHAPTER II. UNZAGA'S ADMINISTRATION. 1770 to 1776. THE departure of O'Reilly for Spain was soon followed by that of the royal comptroller, Don Estevan Gayarre. This officer had applied to the court for leave to return to Spain, and to be put on the list of retired pensioners, on account of his many years of service and of his impaired vision. On the 22d of September, 1770, the Marquis of Grimaldi wrote to the royal comptroller a letter in which he informed him that the favor for which he had petitioned (his return to Spain) was granted, and requested him, on his arrival in the Peninsula, to give information of it and of the state of his health to the government, in order that his majesty might determine on calling him to some other employment or allow him to retire, with the pension to which he was entitled. In consequence of this communication, Estevan Gayarre left the colony in the beginning of 1771, carrying away with him more than one document,* showing conclusively the good understanding which had always existed between Aubry and the Spanish authorities, during all the phases of the revolution of 1768, and a certificate in which the French governor testified, in warm terms of acknowledg ment and eulogy, to the important services rendered by the comptroller both to the kings of France and Spain. He was succeeded in office by Antonio Joseph de Aguïar; * See the Appendix. UNZAGA'S ADMINISTRATION. 43 his son, Don Juan Antonio Gayarre, who had, under him, acted as chief officer in the comptroller's office (100 official de contadoria), and who on the 23d of September, 1768, notwithstanding he was then only sixteen years of age, had been, on the eve of the insurrection, appointed commissary of war by the intendant Joseph de Loyola, in which office he was subsequently confirmed by O'Reilly on the 5th of January, 1770, remained in the colony to serve under Aguïar. The old contador and companion of Ulloa died in Spain at the close of the century. To complete the sketch which I gave of his life and character, when depicting that of the other actors who appeared on the stage at that eventful period of the history of Louisiana, and also to illustrate the manners and feelings of another age, it may not be inappropriate to give here a short extract from a letter which, in 1796, he wrote from Coruna in Gallicia, to one of his grandsons in Louisiana : the "My son, I may say that I have already one foot in grave. I have little of earthly goods to bequeathe, or to dispose of, contenting myself with leaving, at my death, what will be necessary to bury me in seven feet of ground, with the little but honorable exhibition of military pomp, within which have shrunk all my vain hopes in this miserable world. Yea, such is this world! Its flitting glories fade away—and there remains nothing but the alternate lassitude and self-torment of thought. Therefore a pure and sound mind ought ever to have its eyes fixed on heaven."* * Hijo mio, yo estoy yá con el pie en la sepultura y tengo no efectos de consideracion de que testar ni disponer, contentandome yó con que, á mi fallecimiento se halle lo necesario para enterrarme en siete quartas de tierra con la corta y honrada pompa militar con que solo he fundado la esperanza vana de este miserable mundo. Lo que es el mundo! Cesen glorias pasadas-Del pensamiento unas veces fatiga y otras tormento; el spiritu bueno siempre há de estar mirando al cielo. Don Luis de Unzaga, whom O'Reilly had designated as his successor, was colonel of the regiment of Havana, and was subsequently confirmed as governor of Louisiana, by a royal schedule of the 17th of August, 1772, with a salary of $6000. When he entered upon the duties of his office, he found that the commerce of Louisiana had greatly decreased under the ill-advised policy of Spanish restrictions; for, it will be recollected that, by the royal ordinance which Ulloa had caused Aubry to publish in 1766, the trade of the colony had been confined to Seville, Alicant, Carthagena, Malaga, Barcelona, and Coruna, and that no vessels were to engage in this trade, restricted as it was, but those that were Spanish built and commanded by Spaniards. Even these vessels, when sailing to or from Louisiana, were prohibited from entering any Spanish port in America, except in case of distress, and then they had to be submitted to a strict examination and to heavy charges. It is true that, in 1768, an exemption from duty had been granted by the king to the commerce of Louisiana on foreign and Spanish goods, either when exported from the six ports already mentioned, or when imported into New Orleans; but the exportation of specie or produce from Louisiana was burdened with a duty of four per cent. The colonists had lately obtained a very slight and insufficient mitigation of the evils of which they complained, and it consisted in a permission granted for the admission of two vessels from France annually. This oppressive system was exceedingly foolish, as it could benefit neither the colony nor the mother country. Which of the goods they most wanted for their consumption could the colonists have procured to advantage, in Seville, Alicant, Carthagena, Malaga, Barcelona and Coruna, the only ports they could trade to? And if procured, how could they have paid for them? COMMERCE OF THE COLONY. 45 Importations are paid with exportations; and what could they have successfully exported to those ports, that would have defrayed the costs of transportation? Was it their indigo? But it could not have encountered the competition of the indigo of Guatimala, Caraccas and other Spanish possessions, to which it was greatly inferior in quality. Was it their furs and peltries? But these objects were little cared for in the warm climate of Spain. Was it their rice and corn? But this they raised in too small a quantity, and wanted altogether for their own home consumption. Was it their timber and lumber, which was their most important branch of revenue? But what cargo of the kind would have sold sufficiently high in Spain, to cover the bare expenses of transportation across the Atlantic? Moreover, setting all these considerations aside, how could the merchants of New Orleans compete with the English, who had engrossed the contraband trade of the colony, through the facilities afforded them by the privilege of navigating the Mississippi? Their vessels were constantly ploughing the river up and down; and, under the pretence of going to their possessions of Manchac, Baton Rouge and Natchez, the English contrived clandestinely to supply the inhabitants of New Orleans and the planters above and below that town with goods and slaves. They took in exchange whatever their customers had to spare,* and extended to them a most liberal credit, which the good faith of the purchasers amply justified. Besides, they had very large warehouses at Manchac, Baton Rouge and Natchez, and a number of vessels constantly moored a short distance above New Orleans, opposite to the spot now known as the city of Lafayette. To these places the inhabitants of Louisiana used to resort, and to * Martin's History of Louisiana, p. 26, vol. 2. carry on their contraband dealings, which were hardly, if in any way, checked by the Spanish authorities. Encouraged by this tacit connivance, the English had gone farther, and had contrived to convert into floating warehouses two vessels, the cabins of which they fitted up as stores, with shelves and counters. These ingeniously devised shops were kept moving up and down the river, stopping, like our present line of coast steamboats, at every man's door, and tempting him and his family with the display of their goods and trinkets. Thus, in this indirect way, the English having monopolized the trade of Louisiana, this colony had, in a commercial point of view, become for its owner an entirely worthless possession. Without this infraction of the unwise provisions of the commercial and revenue laws of Spain, it is difficult to imagine how the colony could have subsisted, and, therefore, Unzaga acted judiciously for the province and for Spain, when he disregarded the Chinese-like regulations which he was commanded to enforce, and when he winked at their violation. The poor merchants of New Orleans, whose occupation, like Othello's, was gone, were permitted to indulge in im potent clamors, and in slyly whispered insinuations that the Spanish governor had some reason of his own, besides the alleged one of supplying the wants of the colony, for the indulgence which he extended to British traders. But their complaints were as unnoticed as the idle wind, and things went on as usual, without even any show of attempted interruption. This year (1771) the Marquis of Grimaldi informed Unzaga, that his majesty had consented to what, he, Unzaga, had applied for, that is, that eleven capuchins from the province of Champagne in France be permitted to come to Louisiana, and had granted the prayer of the |