[82] He says, February, 1804. See address.
[83] Thierry.
[84] Notar. copy, Gravier to Bigarre.
[85] Lafon, in his map of New Orleans, says expressly that the Missisipi, at the city, is uniformly of the breadth of 300 toises only.—MS. Note.
[86] Rep. 19.
[87] Monile's affidavit, MS.
[88] These are French measures: add a fifteenth to make them ours.
[89] The following instances will give some idea of the steps by which the Roman gained on the Feudal laws. A law of Burgundy provided that 'Si quis post hoc barbarus vel testari voluerit, vel donare, aut Romanam consuetudinem, aut barbaricam, esse servandam, sciat.' 'If any barbarian subject hereafter shall desire to dispose by legacy or donation, let him know that either the Roman or barbarian law is to be observed.' And one of Lotharius II. of Germany, going still further, gives to every one an election of the system under which he chose to live. 'Volumus ut cunctus populus Romanus interrogatur quali lege vult vivere: ut tali lege, quali professi sunt vivere vivant: illisque denuntiatur, ut hoc unusquisque, tam judices, quam duces, vel reliquus populus sciat, quod si offensionem contra eandem legem fecerint, eidem legi, quâ profitentur vivere, subjaceant.' 'We will that all the Roman people shall be asked by what law they wish to live: that they may live under such law as they profess to live by: and that it be published, that every one, judges, as well as generals, or the rest of the people, may know that if they commit offence against the said law, they shall be subject to the same law by which they profess to live.' Encyc. Method. Jurisprudence, Coutume. 399. Presenting the uncommon spectacle of a jurisdiction attached to persons, instead of places. Thus favored, the Roman became an acknowledged supplement to the feudal or customary law: but still, not under any act of the legislature, but as 'raison écrite,' written reason: and the cases to which it is applicable, becoming much the most numerous, it constitutes in fact the mass of their law.
[90] Since this publication, Gen. Armstrong, our late Minister at Paris, has sent me a printed copy of Crozat's Charter in French, which he says he obtained directly, and in person from the depôt of laws in Paris, but which he had no means of comparing with the original. This printed copy, with Gen. Armstrong's letter, I have deposited in the office of the Secretary of State at Washington. MS. Note.
[91] The only copy of this Charter I have ever met with is in Joutel's Journal of La Salle's last voyage. An application was made by the government of the United States, through their minister at Paris, to the government of France, for permission to have the original of this charter sought for in their Archives, and an authentic copy obtained. The application was unsuccessful. We must resort, therefore, to this publication, made in 1714, two years after the date of the patent, under the rule of law which requires only the best evidence the nature of the case will admit. For although we may not appeal to books of history for documents of a nature merely private, yet we may for those of a public character, e. g. treaties, &c., and especially when those documents are not under our control, as when they are in foreign countries, or even in our own country, when they are not patent in their nature, nor demandable of common right.