His operations had created a hubbub among his fellow prisoners below; clods and old bones flew about his legs, but he could hear no stir outside. So, sliding down to the eaves of the calaboose at the back—for he thought there was a sentry at the gate—he swung off, dropped to the ground, and decamped forthwith.
He ran out toward the levee. A sereno, with his lantern, was walking to and fro; but Moses easily kept away from him, and stealing along the encumbered levee up-stream, came to the palisadoes by the fort, as Lewis had done earlier in the night.
The row of skiffs here attracted his attention, and deeming his own need great, he was not slow in appropriating one. The river current was so strong, however, that he was fully two hours paddling the skiff against it, up to the ark. Day was breaking as he reached it. Thus ended the two boys’ first visit to the Crescent City in 1803. The skiffs were returned to their places that afternoon.
The weather was hot; fevers prevailed, and Marion Royce had not recovered enough to dispose of his cargo. A great number of arks, flatboats and other up-river craft, came down to the city. The water-front of the “American quarter” for a mile was crowded with boats, and the town was so thronged with frontiersmen that the Spaniards had difficulty in maintaining even the semblance of law and order.
It must be confessed that Señor Morales’ reluctance to have American craft make New Orleans their market was not wholly unreasonable. The little city was in turmoil night and day. Roisterers were no sooner arrested and put in the little calabozo than a mob of their fellows collected and set them free. At last, to save themselves further trouble, the boatmen pulled the little calaboose down. They were so numerous and aggressive that the Spanish dared not interfere with them in earnest, lest they should take full possession of the town.
The wide-awake French population had grown very restless. These people had little fondness for the Spaniards, and ardently longed for the appearance of the French fleet. Equally they disliked the frontiersmen. “Napoleon will make you hop very soon,” they said to the Americans in the Creole “gombo,” or patois. “General Victor is already at sea. When he arrives you will all toe the mark.”
Doctor Lecassigne and Doctor Buchat remained Marion Royce’s warm friends, however. The ark had not moved from its berth in the canal near the plantation house of the former. Here, too, they often saw Señor Morales, and once met the aged Governor Salcedo.
News had already come that Spain had ceded West Florida and Louisiana to France. The Spaniards were merely awaiting the arrival of French officials and a garrison. The Creoles had grand anticipations of what New Orleans would be as the capital of the new French empire.
In point of fact there had been another and more extraordinary change. President Jefferson had commissioned Livingstone and Monroe to buy New Orleans and a small strip of land at the mouth of the Mississippi. But, while the negotiations were under way in Paris, Napoleon changed his mind. Suddenly, through Talleyrand, he offered the whole of Louisiana to the Americans, and the offer was finally accepted. The sale had already been made—April 30th, 1803.
Even after the news of the sale arrived, the people would not credit it. “Napoleon never gives up anything,” they said. “His fleet will come at Christmas.”