"The other prisoners declined also the jurisdiction of the tribunal before which they were arraigned: their plea was overruled. They now denied the facts with which they were charged, contended that if they did take place, they did so while the flag of France was still waving over the province, and the laws of that kingdom retained their empire in it, and thus the facts did not constitute an offence against the laws of Spain; that the people of Louisiana could not bear the yokes of two sovereigns; that O'Reilly could not command the obedience, nor even the respect of the colonists, until he made known to them his character and powers; and that the Catholic king could not count on their allegiance, till he extended to them his protection.
"It had been determined at first, to proceed with the utmost rigour of the law against six of the prisoners; but, on the death of Villere, it was judged sufficient to do so against five only. The jurisprudence of Spain authorizing the infliction of a less severe punishment than that denounced by the statute, when the charge is not proved by two witnesses to the same act, but by one with corroborating circumstances.—Accordingly two witnesses were produced against De Noyant, La Freniere, Marquis, Joseph Milhet, and Caresse. They were convicted; and O'Reilly, by the advice of his assessor, condemned them to be hanged, and pronounced the confiscation of their estates.
"The most earnest and pathetic entreaties were employed by persons in every rank of society, to prevail on O'Reilly to remit or suspend the execution of his sentence till the royal clemency could be implored. He was inexorable; and the only indulgence that could be obtained, was, that death should be inflicted by shooting, instead of hanging. With this modification, the sentence was carried into execution on the twenty-eighth of September.
"On the morning of that day, the guards, at every gate and post of the city, were doubled, and orders were given not to allow any body to enter it. All the troops were under arms, and paraded the streets or were placed in battle array along the levee and on the public square. Most of the inhabitants fled into the country. At three o'clock of the afternoon, the victims were led, under a strong guard, to the small square in front of the barracks, tied to stakes, and an explosion of musketry soon announced to the few inhabitants who remained in the city, that their friends were no more.
"Posterity, the judge of men in power, will doom this act to public execration. No necessity demanded, no policy justified it. Ulloa's conduct had provoked the measures to which the inhabitants had resorted. During nearly two years, he had haunted the province as a phantom of dubious authority. The efforts of the colonists, to prevent the transfer of their natal soil to a foreign prince, originated in their attachment to their own, and the Catholic king ought to have beheld in their conduct a pledge of their future devotion to himself. They had but lately seen their country severed, and a part of it added to the dominion of Great Britain; they had bewailed their separation from their friends and kindred; and were afterwards to be alienated, without their consent, and subjected to a foreign yoke. If the indiscretion of a few of them needed an apology, the common misfortune afforded it.
"A few weeks afterwards, the proceedings against the six remaining prisoners were brought to a close. One witness only deposing against any of them, and circumstances corroborating the testimony, Boisblanc was condemned to imprisonment for life; Doucet, Mazent, John Milhet, Petit, and Poupet, were condemned to imprisonment for various terms of years. All were transported to Havana, and cast into the dungeons of the Moro Castle."
O'Reilly was not satisfied with this bloody vengeance on the individuals who had incurred his resentment and offended his pride. The "Superior council" in a body must be prostrated by his power.
"A proclamation of O'Reilly, on the twenty-first of November, announced to them that the evidence received during the late trials, having furnished full proof of the part the superior council had in the revolt during the two preceding years, and of the influence it had exerted in encouraging the leaders, instead of using its best endeavours to keep the people in the fidelity and subordination they owed to the sovereign, it had become necessary to abolish that tribunal, and to establish, in Louisiana, that form of government and mode of administering justice prescribed by the laws of Spain, which had long maintained the Catholic king's American colonies in perfect tranquillity, content, and subordination."
A year after these deeds of military heroism, O'Reilly took passage for Europe. But what said his royal master, the King of Spain, for such outrages upon the lives and liberty of his newly acquired subjects? We are told in one short paragraph—"Charles III. disapproved of O'Reilly's conduct, and he received on his landing at Cadiz, an order prohibiting his appearance at court." Well, it is something that his conduct was disapproved of, and not rewarded with new honours and powers. Some sovereigns might have done this.
We pass from these distressing and disgraceful scenes, and find nothing of peculiar interest in our History, until we come to the period of our revolution. Although in 1778, the people of Louisiana could have had no prophetic vision to warn them that they would become a member of the American Republic, they felt and manifested a friendly disposition toward us, and rendered us efficient aid in the struggle then carrying on for our independence.