[50] Forbonnais, Recherches et considérations sur les finances de France, ii. 604, says shares rose as high as eighteen to twenty thousand francs.
[51] The commanders of the post in the early days of the colony have been generally spoken of as governors. Gayarré (i. 162) says, “The government of Louisiana was for the second time definitely awarded to Bienville.” He was, as we have seen, lieutenant du roy. As such he was at the head of the colony for many years, and he still held this title when he was by letter ordered to assume command after La Mothe left and until L’Epinay should arrive (Margry, v. 591). In 1716 he was “commandant of the Mississippi River and its tributaries” (Journal historique, etc., pp. 123, 141). His power as commandant-général was apparently for a time shared with his brother Sérigny. In a despatch dated Oct. 20, 1719, quoted by Gayarré, he says, “Mon frère Sérigny, chargé comme moi du commandement de cette colonie.” M. de Vallette Laudun, in the Journal d’un voyage (Paris, 1768), on the 1st of July, 1720, says, M. de Bienville “commands in chief all the country since the departure of his brother, Monsieur de Sérigny.” In 1722 Bienville applied for the “general government” (Margry, v. 634).
[52] Margry, v. 589; Shea’s Charlevoix, vi. 37.
[53] Vergennes, p. 161. “The inhabitants trembled at the sight of this licentious soldiery.”
[54] The Penicaut narrative apparently assigns the year 1717 as the date of the original foundation of New Orleans. Margry (v. 549) calls attention in a note to the fact that the Journal historique, which he attributes to Beaurain, gives 1718 as the date. Gravier, in his Introduction to the Relation du voyage des dames religieuses Ursulines, says that New Orleans was founded in 1717. He cites in a note certain letters of Bienville which are in the Archives at Paris; but as he does not quote from them, we cannot tell to what point of the narrative they are cited as authority.
[55] [From Le Page du Pratz, Histoire de la Louisiane, ii. 262.—Ed.]
[56] [Cf. Vol. II. index.—Ed.]
[57] [There is a “Plan de la Baye de Pansacola,” by N. B., in Charlevoix, iii. 480. Jefferys’s “Plan of the Harbor and Settlement of Pensacola,” and the view of Pensacola as drawn by Dom Serres, are contained in Roberts’s Account of the First Discovery and Natural History of Florida (London, 1763), and in the General Topography of North America and the West Indies (London, 1768), no. 67. The map shows Pensacola as destroyed in 1719, and the new town on Santa Rosa Island.—Ed.]
[58] For the points involved in the discussion of the Louisiana boundary question, see Waite’s American State Papers (Boston, 1819), vol. xii.
[59] Vergennes, p. 153; Champigny, p. 16.