The French had at this period apparently gained firm possession of a powerful extent of American territory. In 1713, they erected on the banks of Lake Champlain, the whole basin of which they claimed, the Fort at Crown Point, and soon after the fortress of Niagara. Anthony Crozat, a wealthy French merchant, took over in 1712 a second colony to Detroit, which was now a flourishing settlement. He also held a patent from Louis XIV. for the exclusive trade of Louisiana, in which De la Motte Cadillac, the governor, became his partner.
Now in possession of the most important western routes to the Mississippi, the French had the satisfaction of seeing their various settlements at Chicago, Vincennes and Kaskasia, all in a flourishing condition. It was the boast of the royal geographer of France, that the American territory of New France “extended to the remotest waters which flowed west to the Mississippi, south to the Mobile, and north to the St. Lawrence;” and in order to defend as well as to connect this vast territory, a line of military forts was designed and in part erected. The English were not unmoved spectators of these ambitious designs, and eagerly awaited the time when they might defeat them. As yet, however, the two rival powers were separated by extensive tracts of country occupied by the most formidable savage tribes of America, but who were destined ere long to be involved in the great struggle between these two civilised nations.
But to return to Anthony Crozat, the merchant whose opulence was said to be “the astonishment of the world.” The most extravagant ideas had been circulated through France regarding the gold and silver mines of Louisiana, and Crozat anticipated that their treasures, and a trade which he intended to establish with Mexico, would augment his wealth still more. But of gold and silver there were none, and every Spanish harbour on the Gulf of Mexico was closed against his ships. Disappointed in his hopes, after five years of vain perseverance, he threw up his patent, only to be succeeded by other adventurers of a much more dangerous character. The exclusive commerce of Louisiana for twenty-five years, with a monopoly of the Canadian fur trade, was conferred upon the “Mississippi Company,” or “the Company of the Indies,” which soon became notorious for the ruin which it brought on thousands. At the time when the colony was transferred to this dangerous company it contained about 700 people.
The Mississippi Company was connected with John Law’s Bank, one of the most gigantic financial speculations of any age. Law, a native of Edinburgh, and controller-general of France, conceived a plan of paying off the national debt of that country by means of the profits arising in part from this Mississippi Company. The French ministry fell into the scheme, and Law opened a bank under the auspices of the Duke of Orleans, then regent of France, and most of the people of property in that country, deluded by the prospect of the immense gains which were promised them, became shareholders either in the bank or in one of Law’s companies, for he had an East India as well as a Mississippi Company. Law’s Bank was declared a royal bank in 1718, and the shares rose to such a value that they were soon worth eighty times the amount of all the current specie of France. The very next year the great bubble burst—only one year before the bursting of the South Sea bubble in England,—and so great was the ruin which it involved, that the French government was almost overthrown, and tens of thousands of families reduced to beggary and despair.
Meantime, the Mississippi Company had undertaken to introduce 6,000 white settlers and half that number of blacks into the colony; and the enormous sums which were soon realised by the sale of land-shares enabled both this company and private speculators to send over great numbers. Of the grants of land which were made, it may suffice to say that Law himself received twelve square miles on the Arkansas, which he undertook to settle with 1,500 Germans.
Bienville, now re-appointed governor, selected, in June 1718, a site on the banks of the Mississippi for the capital of the new empire; it was in the middle of a swamp, which he set a party of convicts to clear,—but no matter, a grand empire was to be founded, and in honour of the regent the city was called New Orleans. On the 25th of August, 1719, 800 emigrants from France chanted Te Deum as they cast anchor near Dauphin’s Island. Here full of rejoicing hopes they landed, and with that the joy and the hope was at an end. Disappointment was the condition of all, despair and death that of many. Almost the only colonists who were successful in Louisiana were emigrants from Canada, resolute and hardy men, “who came,” says Bancroft, “with little beyond a staff and the clothes that covered them.”
In 1722, Charlevoix reports of this infant metropolis, which Bienville had made the seat of government, that it consisted of a large wooden warehouse, a shed for a church, two or three ordinary houses, and a quantity of huts crowded together, the whole being a savage and desert place, as yet almost entirely covered with canes and trees.
The failure of Law’s bank put a period to emigration to Louisiana, nevertheless great numbers of new settlers were already there, many of whom were of a more resolute character than those of New Orleans; and it was to this very desert of cane-brake that Law’s German settlers on the Arkansas removed, and here, receiving allotments of land on each side of the river, they soon began to prosper; the rich tract of land known to this day as the “German coast” testifying to the success of their early labours.
Louisiana was at length established; the upper and more remote parts were placed under the care of the Jesuits, the lower under that of the Capuchins. Eight hundred and fifty French and Swiss troops were maintained in the country, and the administration committed to a commandant-general, two king’s lieutenants, a senior councillor, three other councillors, an attorney-general, and a clerk. These, with any director of the company who might be in the province, formed the Superior Council, which was also the supreme tribunal in civil and criminal matters.
“Rice was the principal crop, the main resource for feeding the population; to this were added tobacco and indigo. The bayberry, a natural production of that remote region, was cultivated for its wax. The fig had been introduced from Province, and the orange from St. Domingo. As the settlements in the Illinois country were increased by immigration from Canada, supplies of flour began to be received from that region.”[[32]]