PONTALBA'S MEM(IR. 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 in the ports of neutral or allied can, 4,000,000 lbs. sugar at $8 per 100 lb. powers. 4,000 barrels of molasses, at $15 each 100,000 lbs. indigo 200.000 lbs, tobacco Furs of divers kinds 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 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. up, "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 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. "By this sketch it appears, that the objects of expor tation 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 $696,000; 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 ought to be after the treaties subsequently entered into between Spain and other states." The stipulation relative to the Duke of Parma was, that as a compensation for that Duchy and its dependencies, which were ceded to France by that prince, who belonged to the Spanish branch of the house of Bourbon, and as a compensation also for the cession which the King of Spain made of Louisiana to the same power, the Duke of Parma should be put in possession of Tuscany, which was to be erected into a kingdom, under the name of Etruria, by the great king maker and king destroyer, Napoleon Bonaparte. As France was then at war with England, the treaty was carefully concealed from the knowledge of the public, because Louisiana might have been easily attacked and conquered by the English, who were masters of the sea. CHAPTER VIII. SALCEDO'S ADMINISTRATION. 1801 to 1803. DON JUAN MANUEL DE SALCEDO, a Brigadier-General in the armies of Spain, arrived in Louisiana about the 15th of June, 1801, to act as governor of the provinces of Louisiana and West Florida; and his predecessor, the Marquis de Casa Calvo, who, it will be remembered, had entered on the duties of his office in the fall of 1799, sailed immediately for Havana. The Americans, as neighbors, had always been considered as very unsafe for Louisiana, and one of Salcedo's first measures was directed to check what he thought to be the dangerous designs of some men belonging to that nation. Thus, in a despatch of the 13th of July, he informed his government that he had sent up to Natchitoches all that was necessary to arm and equip the militia of that district,*" with the view of counteracting the projects of the American bandit, Philip Nolan, who had introduced himself into the interior of the provinces of New Spain, with thirty-six armed men." Although it had been the policy of the head of the French government to conceal from the public his transactions with the court of Madrid in relation to Louisiana, Con el fin de contrarestar los designios del bandido Americano, Felipe Nolan, el cual se habia introducido en las provincias internas de Nueva España con treinte y seis hombres armados. |