During the progress of these events Louisiana had become the scene of active emigration, ludicrously small when compared with its great domain, but active beyond any preceding movement of population on the part of the French. On the 9th of February, 1718, three vessels despatched by the Company arrived at Dauphin Island, bearing troops and colonists, and also conveying to Bienville[51] the welcome news that he was appointed commandant-général. In September, 1717,[52] Illinois had been detached from New France and incorporated with Louisiana. Boisbriant, who was appointed to the command of that province, did not assume the government until the fall of 1718. The Company set to work honestly to develop the resources of the country. Engineers were sent over to superintend the construction of public works. The pass at the mouth of the river was to be mapped, and two little towers were ordered to be erected “at the entrance to the river, sufficiently high to be seen from afar during the day, and upon which fire can be made at night.” The coast was to be surveyed, and orders were given to effect a landing at St. Joseph’s Bay,—a step which was taken only to be followed by its prompt abandonment. Concessions were made to many distinguished men in France, with conditions attached to each that a certain number of colonists should be imported. Unfortunately for the influence of these grants upon the future of the colony, it was not required that the grantees themselves should live upon their concessions. The grant to Law, twelve miles square, was situated on the Arkansas River. By agreement, he undertook to introduce fifteen hundred settlers. Vessels began now to arrive with frequency, bringing involuntary as well as voluntary emigrants. The power of the courts in France was invoked, apparently with success, to secure numbers for Louisiana, without regard to character. Vagrants and convicts, considered dangerous for French society, were thought suitable for colonists. These steps were soon followed by complaints from the colony of the worthlessness of such settlers and of the little reliance that could be placed upon them in military service.[53] Raynal, in his vigorous way, characterizes them as “the scum of Europe, which France had, as it were, vomited forth into the New World at the time of Law’s system.”
The new commanding general sent a force of mechanics and convicts in February, 1718, to clear the territory now occupied by the city of New Orleans, and to lay the foundations of a new settlement.[54] The channel at Dauphin Island having been blocked by a storm, the headquarters of the colony were removed, first to Old Biloxi, and afterward by order of the Company in 1719, to New Biloxi. During the fall of 1718 MM. Benard de la Harpe and Le Page du Pratz, whose names are associated with the annals of Louisiana, both arrived in the colony. The pages of the chroniclers of colonial events are now sprinkled with the names of ships which arrived with troops and emigrants, including young women from the hospitals and prisons of Paris. On the 6th of June, 1719, two vessels arrived direct from the coast of Guinea with “five hundred head of negroes.” The Company had entered with fervor upon the performance of the stipulation imposed by the charter.
The news of the war between France and Spain reached the colony in the spring of 1719. The inconvenience of the roadsteads occupied by the French had made them anxious to possess Pensacola. Iberville had urged upon the Government the necessity of procuring its cession from Spain if possible. So forcible were his arguments that negotiations to that end had been opened by Pontchartrain.
Although the settlement had been neglected by the Spanish Government, yet the proposition to cede it to France was rejected with pompous arguments, in which the title of Spain was asserted as dating back to the famous Bull of Alexander VI., dividing the newly discovered portions of the world between Spain and Portugal.[56] Upon receipt of the news of hostility between the two nations, Bienville promptly availed himself of the opportunity to capture the place.
[This is the “Plan de la Nouvelle Orléans” (1718-1720) in Dumont’s Mémoires historiques de la Louisiane, ii. 50, made by Le Blond de la Tour and Pauger. A plan signed by N. B[ellin] in 1744, “Sur les manuscrits du dépôt des chartes de la marine,” was included in Charlevoix’s Nouvelle France, ii. 433, and reproduced in Shea’s translation, vi. 40. In November, 1759, Jefferys published a “Plan of New Orleans, with the disposition of its quarters and canals as they have been traced by M. de la Tour in the year 1720.” He inserted this map (which included also a map of the lower Mississippi) in the History of the French Dominion in America (London, 1760), and in the General Topography of North America and West Indies (London, 1768).—Ed.]