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Relations with Spain.

connexion with that on the Mississippi, had always been understood, as of right it ought, to extend to the Rio Bravo.

3. That the boundary, thus founded upon possession, was described as forming the limits of Louisiana, in the grant by Louis XIV. to Crozat, in 1712.

4. That it was supported by the testimony of the historical writers, Du Pratz and Champigny; by an historical and political memoir on Louisiana, written by the Count de Vergennes, the Minister of Louis XVI.; by a chart of Louisiana, published in 1762, by Don Thomas Lopez, geographer to the King of Spain; and by a map of De Lisle, of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, revised and republished there in 1782.

To these principles, thus clear, equitable, and explicit; to these facts, thus precise, authentic, and unsophisticated, what was opposed by Don Pedro Cevallos at that time, and what is now alleged by you?

Mr. Cevallos began by admitting that the western limits of Louisiana had never been exactly fixed; and alleged that, in the year 1690, five or six years after the possession taken, and the settlement formed by La Salle, Captain Alonzo de Leon, under a commission from the Viceroy of Mexico, examined the Bay of Espiritu Santo, (St. Bernard,) took possession of the territory, and founded the mission of St. Francisco de Texas. Mr. Cevallos asserted that it would be very easy to make it appear that France never had claimed this extent for Louisiana, but he did not make it appear. He also said that, if France had claimed it, Spain had never recognised, and was not bound to acknowledge the claim.

Mr. Cevallos said that the limits between Louisiana and the Texas had always been known, even when the French possessed Louisiana, but he had just before acknowledged that they had never been fixed. He spoke of missions founded near the beginning of the last century by the venerable Margel, of the order of St. Francisco; he alluded to plans, and documents, and historical relations which were not to be found in his department, but many of which, he added, were in the department of the interior, besides those which were in the Viceroyalty of Mexico. But he never pretended a possession, by Spain, of the territories in question, of an earlier date than 1690.

hunt out the French of La Salle's settlement? Is it to that royal order that you appeal for proof of the prior title of Spain? It is even so. But as the voyages of Ponce de Leon in 1511, of Francisco de Garay in 1518, and of Hernando de Soto in 1538, have no more bearing upon this question than the voyages of Christopher Columbus and Sebastian Cabot, so you must be sensible that the royal exterminating order of Philip II., if it proved anything, would prove fatal to the whole province or colony of Louisiana. If that order could have been carried into execution, no such colony as that of Louisiana could ever have been established by France. That order, and any proceeding of the Viceroy of Mexico under it, can no more affect the right of the United States to the limits marked by the settlement of La Salle, than in can impair their title to the island of New Orleans. Far more honorable would it be, sir, to the character of your nation and the credit of your Government, to bury in the profoundest oblivion the memory of that atrocious order, than at this day to produce it for the purpose of bolstering up a title for which you have in vain ransacked the records of the Spanish monarchy to discover a better support.

To the efficacy, however, of this royal order, your whole argument, in behalf of the pretensions of your Government, perpetually recurs; for, although in some passages of your note you appear disposed to allow to the colony of Louisiana at least the eastern banks of the Mississippi, yet you are as frequently shrinking even from this concession, and representing the whole colony as an encroachment upon the dominion of Spain; at one time representing it as a profound stratagem of Louis XIV., seizing with rapacious avidity the unsuspecting moment of confidence of his grandson Philip V., while placing him upon the Throne of Spain; and, at another, holding it up as the act of a disordered imagination of the same Louis XIV., manifested in the grant of 1712 to Crozat. This grant you pronounce to be absurd and completely despicable; but for what reason it is not easy to conjecture. It certainly does not favor the pretensions of your Government, and it has none of the exterminating features of the royal order of Philip II.; but we consider it, as it has always been considered by the world, as a document not only indicative of sound judgment and discretion, but as marking the limits of Louisiana, as always claimed by France, and transferred, as relates to the western limits, with her title to that province, to the United

And what are these plans, and documents, and historical relations, which, after the lapse of thirteen years, you have drawn forth from all the archives of Spain, and all the historical disquisi-States. tions upon the discovery and conquest of the new world? Is it to that catalogue, biographical, and geographical, of Spanish adventurers, and of the numberless regions explored by them in the 16th century, which swells your note of the 5th of January, that we are to look for the limits of Louisiana and Texas? Or is it to that "royal order issued by Philip II., enjoining the extermination of all foreigners who would dare to penetrate into the Gulf of Mexico," by virtue of which the Viceroy fitted out the expedition to scour the country and

It is remarkable that, in imitation of Mr. Cevallos, you also, after repeatedly insisting that the boundaries of Louisiana were well known, and always acknowledged by France, finally conclude by admitting that they never were fixed or agreed upon. You repeat, time after time, that the French never disputed the right of Spain to all the territory westward of the Mississippi, while you cannot deny the settlement of La Salle at the bay of St. Bernard, in 1684; nor that the French settlements of Natchez and Natchitoches

Relations with Spain.

were made and maintained in spite of all the 7. A geographical work, published in 1717 at military expeditions, rigorous executions, and London, entitled "Atlas Geographicus, or a Comexterminating orders which the Viceroys of Mex-plete System of Geography, Ancient and Modern," ico could send against them. in which the map of Louisiana marks its extent from the Rio Bravo to the Perdido. In both these maps the fort built by La Salle is laid down on the spot now called Matagorda.

We may admit that, so long as the Spanish Viceroys could exterminate every foreigner who dared to penetrate into the Gulf of Mexico, they had the royal order of Philip II. for so doing. The bull of Pope Alexander VI. is a document of still earlier date, and at least of less disgusting import, upon which Spain once rested her claims to yet more extensive dominion in this western world. With equal show of reason, and with less outrage upon the rights of humanity, might you have alleged that bull as the incontrovertible proof of the Spanish claims, as to bring forth at this day, for its only substitute, that royal order of Philip II.

You know, sir, and your own notes furnish, themselves, the most decisive proofs that France, while she held the colony of Louisiana, never did acknowledge the Mississippi as the western boundary of that province. The claim of France always did extend westward to the Rio Bravo; and the only boundaries ever acknowledged by her, before the cession to Spain of November 3, 1762, were those marked out in the grant from Louis XIV. to Crozat. She always claimed the territory which you call Texas as being within the limits and forming part of Louisiana, which in that grant, is declared to be bounded westward by New Mexico, eastward by Carolina, and extending inward to the Illinois and to the sources of the Mississippi and of its principal branches.

Mr. Cevallos says that these claims of France were never admitted nor recognised by Spain. Be it so. Neither were the claims of Spain ever acknowledged or admitted by France; the boundary was disputed and never settled; it still remains to be settled; and here is a simple statement of the grounds alleged by each of the parties in support of their claims:

On the part of the United States. 1. The discovery of the Mississippi, from near its source to the ocean, by the French from Canada,

in 1683.

2. The possession taken, and establishment made, by La Salle, at the bay of St. Bernard, west of the rivers Trinity and Colorado, by authority from Louis XIV., in 1685.

3. The charter of Louis XIV. to Crozat, in 1712. 4. The historical authority of Du Pratz and of the Count de Vergennes.

5. The geographical authority of De Lisle's map, and especially that of the map of Don Thomas Lopez, Geographer to the King of Spain, published in 1762.

These documents were all referred to in the letter from Messrs. Pinckney and Monroe to Mr Cevallos, of 20th of April, 1805. Since which time, and in further confirmation of the same claims, the Government of the United States are enabled to refer you to the following:

8. An official British map, published in 1755, by Bowen, intended to point out the boundaries of the British, Spanish, and French colonies in North America.

9. The narratives published at Paris, of Hennepin, in 1683; of Tonti, in 1697; and of Joutel, in 1713.

10. The letter from Colonel La Harpe to Don Martin D'Alarconne, of 8th July, 1719. (A. No. 1. B. No. 2.)

11. The order from the French Governor of Louisiana, Bienville, to La Harpe, of August 10, 1721. (C. No. 3.)

12. The geographical work of Don Antonio de Alcedo, a Spanish geographer of the highest eminence. This work and the map of Lopez, having been published after the cession of Louisiana to Spain, in 1762, afford decisive evidence of what Spain herself considered as the western boundary of Louisiana, when she had no interest in contesting it against another State. (D. No. 4.)

On the part of Spain.

1. The voyages of Ponce de Leon, Vasquez de Ayllon, Panfilo de Narvaez, Hernando de Soto, Luis Moscoso, and other Spanish travellers in the sixteenth century, who never made any settlement upon any of the territories in question, but who travelled, as you observed, into countries too tedious to enumerate.

2. The establishment of the new kingdoms of Leon and Santander in 1595, and the Province of Cohaquila in 1600.

3. The Province of Texas, founded in 1690.

Here, you will please to observe, begins the conflict with the claims of France to the western boundary of Louisiana, transferred by the cession of the province to the United States. The presidios, or settlements of Las Texas, were, by your own statement, adverse settlements to that of La Salle, who, six years before, had taken formal possession of the country in the name of and by authority of a charter from Louis XIV. They were preceded by an expedition from Mexico the year before, (that is, 1689,) to hunt out the French remaining of the settlement of La Salle. Now, what right had the Viceroy of Mexico to hunt out the French who had formed a settlement under the sanction of their Sovereign's authority? You will tell me that, from the time when Santa Fe, the capital of New Mexico, was built, Spain considered all the territory east and north of that province, as far as the Mississippi and the Missouri, as her property; that the whole circumference of the Gulf of Mexico was hers; and that Philip II. had issued a royal order to exterminate every foreigner who should dare to pen

6. A map published by Homann, at Nurem-etrate to it; so that the whole question of right burg, in 1712.

between the United States and Spain, with re

Relations with Spain.

gard to this boundary, centres in this: the naked pretension of Spain to the whole circumference of the Gulf of Mexico, with the exterminating order of Philip II. on one side, and the actual occupancy of France, by a solemn charter from Louis XIV. on the other. Well might Messrs. Pinckney and Monroe write to Mr. Cevallos, in 1805, that the claim of the United States to the boundary of the Rio Bravo was as clear as their right to the island of New Orleans..

my companions, and myself, have just made to the southwest of New France, if it had not been undertaken by your orders." "We have given the name of Louisiana to this great discovery, being persuaded that your Majesty would not disapprove that a part of the earth, watered by a river of more than eight hundred leagues, and much greater than Europe, which may be called the delight of America, and which is capable of forming a great empire, should henceforth be known by the august name of Louis, that it may thereby have a sort of right to your protection, and hope for the advantage of belonging to you."

Now, sir, permit me to request you to compare this authentic statement with that perversion of all historical evidence by which you have styled and have attempted to make the story of Father Hennepin's discovery of Louisiana ridicu lous. Here is a book published at Paris, dedicated to Louis XIV., at the most glorious period of his reign, declaring to the world the discovery of Louisiana; declaring that it was made by his orders, and called by his name, for the express purpose of entitling it to become his property. Is this contemptible? Is this a secret thought, or a mere mental act? Is this a transient adventure or incursion? And, after calling this information too vague and uncertain upon which to found a title, can you talk of the rights of pos session derived_to Spain from the travels of Ponce de Leon, Francisco de Garay, and Vasquez de Ayllon?

In the letter of Messrs. Pinckney and Monroe to Mr. Cevallos of the twentieth of April, 1805, referring to the historical documents relative to the discovery and naming of Louisiana, they state that the Mississippi was discovered, with "its waters and dependent country as low down the river as the Arkansas, by the Sieurs Joliet and Marquette, from Canada, as early as the year 1673, and to its mouth by the Father Hennepin, in 1680; and by De la Salle and Tonti, who descended the river with sixty men to the ocean, and called the country Louisiana, in 1682; and, in respect to the bay of St. Bernard, in 1685;" that this was done at these periods, in the name and under the authority of France, by acts which proclaimed her sovereignty over the whole country to other Powers, in a manner the most public and solemn, such as making settlements and building forts within it." To this Mr. Cevallos made no reply in 1805. But you, after giving an account of the murder by Spaniards of Réné de Laudonnière, observe, that "the story related of a Recollet friar, called Father Hennepin, is still more ridiculous, who Your view of the expeditions and adventures is said to have been made a prisoner by the In- of La Salle is equally remote from the real and dians at the time they were at war with the well-authenticated facts. "Let us see," you say, French of Canada, and taken to the Illinois," what importance can be attached to what is whence he was occupied in exploring the country said of Bernard [Robert] de la Salle, who, in as far as the banks of the river St Louis, or Mis- 1679, descended from Canada to the Mississippi, sissippi, of which he took possession in the name and there built Fort Crèvecœur, according to M. of Louis XIV., and gave it the name of Louis-Du Pratz, or Fort Prud'homme, according to iana, (doubtless in his secret thoughts, and by a others. What is certain amounts to this: that mere mental act.") You add that these accounts, he only made a rapid incursion from Canada to and, others of the like nature, are "contemptible the Mississippi, as any other adventurer might do, in themselves, even although the facts they re-crossing the territories of another nation, that he late were authentic; since nothing can be inferred from them that can favor the idea started by those who speak of those transient adventures and incursions."

returned to Quebec, without any further result than that of an imperfect exploration of the country; and that he embarked at Quebec for France, from whence he returned in 1684, with an expedition composed of four vessels, commanded by Captain Beaujeau, to explore the mouth of the Mississippi," &c. In this passage you represent

1. The facts attending the expedition of La Salle as uncertain.

I have in my possession, sir, (and it shall, when you please, be subject to your inspection,) a volume, published at Paris in the year 1683, the title of which is, "Description de la Louisiane, nouvellement decouverte, au Sudouest de la Nouvelle France, par ordre du Roy, dediée à Sa Majesté; par le R. P. Louis Hennepin, Miss- 2. That he only made a rapid incursion, as a ionnaire Recollet et Notaire Apostolique." (De- private adventurer, and, so far as related to his scription of Louisiana, recently discovered, to exploring expedition, with an imperfect result. the southwest of New France, by order of the 3. That he only went from Canada to the MisKing; dedicated to His Majesty by the Rev.sissippi, and thence returned to Quebec, whence Father Louis Hennepin, a Recollet missionary he embarked for France. and apostolic notary.) In the preface to the King, the author says: "Sire, I should never have dared to take the liberty of offering to your Majesty the narrative of a new discovery, which the Sieur de la Salle, governor of Fort Frontenac,

4. That he only crossed the territories of another nation, (meaning Spain.)

I examine this part of your note with a minuteness which will be tedious to you, because it is precisely upon the character of La Salle's ex

Relations with Spain.

peditions that the grant of Louisiana to Crozat by Louis XIV. is, in express terms, founded; because you have represented these expeditions in the colors thus marked with the avowed purpose of weakening the original title of Louisiana; and because you know that the characters, diametrically opposite. which I shall now prove to have belonged to them, must lead to the result of an incontestable title in France, and, consequently, at this time, in the United States. I answer the above insinuations in the order in which they have been stated.

There are three narratives of the expeditions of La Salle, all published at Paris, by persons who accompanied him in them.

The first in 1683, by Father Louis Hennepin; the same volume from which I have already presented you an extract.

The second by the Chevalier Tonti, Governor of Fort St. Louis, at the Illinois, published in 1697.

The third by Joutel, who was with him in his last expedition, and almost by his side when he fell by the hands of an assassin.

and, after some time, was released by them, found his way back to Quebec, and thence returned to France, and published the book of which I have spoken. In this book, published in 1683, at Paris, and marked as having been finished printing the 5th of January of that year, three months before La Salle had reached the mouth of the Mississippi, there is a map of the river as far down as Hennepin descended it, after he parted from La Salle, and upwards to the falls of St. Anthony, and the river St. Francis above them; at some distance above which, within a few leagues of its source, is the oak tree upon which the arms of France were carved by the detachment from La Salle's expedition, authenticating, with the most minute precision, the discovery of the Mississippi, to within a small distance of its source, as well as its course to the Gulf of Mexico. On the same map are also marked the fort at the Miamies, and that of Crèvecœur, on the Illinois river, constructed by La Salle's orders.

In the meanwhile La Salle was obliged to leave the other part of his company, under the command of Tonti, and go back to Fort Frontenac Of all the heroic enterprises which, in the six-for the supplies and reinforcements which had teenth and seventeenth centuries, signalized the discoveries of Europeans upon this continent, there is not one of which the evidence is more certain, authentic, and particular, than those of La Salle.

La Salle, after having resided many years in Canada, as Governor of Fort Frontenat, formed the project of exploring the country from thence to the Gulf of Mexico, and of taking possession of it in the name of his Sovereign. He went to France for the purpose of obtaining the sanction to his enterprise. "His Majesty, (says Tonti,) not content with merely approving his design, caused orders to be given to him, granting him permission to go and put it in execution; and, to assist him to carry so vast a project into effect, shortly after the necessary succors were furnished him, with entire liberty to dispose of all the countries which he might discover."

He sailed from La Rochelle the 14th of July, 1678, and arrived at Quebec the 15th of September.

On the 18th of November of the same year he left Fort Frontenac, to proceed upon his expedition, with thirty men, Tonti and Father Hennepin being of the company. After spending more than a year in traversing the four lakes, now known by the names of Ontario, Erie, Huron, and Michigan, and erecting forts at suitable places, where he landed, from them he embarked upon the Illinois river, and, having descended it for some distance, was obliged to stop, from the disappointment of losing a boat from which he expected supplies. Here, upon the Illinois river, he built Fort Crèvecœur, divided his company into two separate parties-one for ascending the Mississippi to its source, and the other for proceeding down that river. Father Hennepin was of the former of these parties, and in their progress upwards, which they accomplished higher than the falls of St. Anthony, was taken prisoner by the Indians, 15th CoN. 2d SESS.-56

failed him by the loss of his boat. He returned and joined them again in November, 1682, proceeded down to the Mississippi, and to the mouth of the Wabash, where they built the Fort Prud'homme, (which you have confounded with that of Crèvecœur,) after which they continued descending and successively meeting the Cappa, Arkansas, Tensas, Abenake, Tacucas, and Natchez Indians, and, on the 7th of April, 1683, reached the mouth of the Mississippi, where, after the religious solemnity of a Te Deum, they took formal possession of the country, erected a cross, fastened the arms of France upon a tree, and built several huts, which they surrounded with suitable intrenchments. La Salle, having thus accomplished the object of his expedition, returned by the same way, ascending the river to his fort of Prud'homme, which he reached on the 12th of May, and where he was some time detained by sickness. "On his arrival at Quebec, (again says Tonti,) he informed the whole city of his great discoveries, and of the voluntary submission of so many different Indian nations to the power of the King. A Te Deum was celebrated as a thanksgiving for this happy accession to the glory of the Crown. The eagerness of M. de la Salle to go and make known to the King and his Ministers the success of his travels obliged him to hasten his departure. He left Canada in the beginning of October, 1683." On his return to France, he was received with many marks of distinction by the King and his Ministers, and a new expedition was fitted out of four vessels and nearly three hundred persons, for the purpose of forming a colony at the mouth of the Mississippi. One of these ships was a frigate of the King, of forty guns, commanded by M. de Beaujeau, in which La Salle himself, his brother Cavelier, and the principal persons belonging to the expedition embarked; another was a smaller armed vessel, which the King had given to La Salle; the third, a flute of

Relations with Spain.

three hundred tons, laden with all the articles necessary for the settlement of the country; and the fourth, a small sloop of thirty tons, freighted for St. Domingo, where the expedition stopped on its way, but before their arrival at which this last vessel was taken by Spanish cruisers. This expedition sailed from La Rochelle on the 24th of July, 1684.

Viceroy would have to send an army and destroy the city of New Orleans. It was a part of Louisiana, discovered by La Salle, under formal and express authority from the King of France; and the royal exterminating order of Philip II., was but one of the multitude of sanguinary acts which signalized the reign and name of that monarch, while the name of La Salle is entitled to stand high in the glorious roll of the benefactors of mankind. After this statement, founded upon the most authentic documents, the foundation of the presidio of Texas, in 1693, was, by your own showing, an unlawful encroachment upon the territories of France, which, by the first of the three principles laid down by Messrs. Pinckney and Monroe at Aranjuez, and above referred to, extended on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, half-way to the nearest Spanish settlement of Panuco, namely, to the Rio Bravo.

Your "thorough investigation" of the history of the original French settlements at the Illinois and the Arkansas is as unfortunate and as wide from the facts as all the rest of your dissertation upon the history of Louisiana. The following translated extracts from the work entitled "Dernières Decouvertes dans l'Amérique Septentrionale de M. de la Salle, mises au jour par M. le Chevalier de Tonti, gouverneur du Fort St. Louis, aux Illinois." (Last discoveries in North America of Mr. de la Salle, published by the Chevalier Tonti, governor of Fort St. Louis at the Illinois: Paris, 1697.) will furnish you more correct ideas upon the subject.

They failed in finding the mouth of the Mississippi, their destination-an accident similar to that which had happened to the first settlers of New England; and, after many disasters, landed and built a fort in February, 1685, at the head of the bay of St. Bernard, or, as they call it, of St. Louis, and westward of the river Colorado. Beaujeau returned with the frigate to France; the two other vessels were lost in the bay; and La Salle, after several unsuccessful attempts to find the Mississippi, on the 12th of January, 1687, left at his fort twenty persons, including seven women, under the command of Le Barbier, and took his departure with sixteen others, to go by land to the Illinois, and thence through Canada to France, to seek further reinforcement and supplies. On this journey he was basely assassinated on the 19th of March, 1687, by two of his own men, and left a name among the illustrious discoverers of the new world second only to that of Columbus, with whose history and adventures his own bear in many particulars a striking resemblance. His brother Cavelier, however, with Joutel, Father Anastase, and several others of the party with whom he had commenced the journey, successfully accomplished it, arrived at the French fort at the Illinois, where they found Tonti still in command, after having again been down to the mouth of the Mississippi, conformably to his orders from Sa Salle, to meet the expedition from Europe, and, after waiting some time there, returning to his post. From the fort at the Illinois, Cavelier, Joutel, and Father An-eral others, watered by a beautiful river, he astase proceeded to Quebec, and thence returned to France, where they arrived in October, 1688, and where Joutel published the narrative of the expedition to which I have referred.

From this work of Joutel it likewise appears that the fort and colony left by La Salle at the westward of the Colorado was destroyed, not as you state by the Indians, but by the Spaniards from Mexico, who, until that time, had never had any settlement of any kind nearer than Panuco, and who, by your own account, had no other right or authority for this act than the royal order of Philip II. to exterminate all foreigners penetrating into the Gulf of Mexico.

The settlements of La Salle, therefore, at the head of the bay of St. Bernard, westward of the river which he called Rivière aux Boeufs, but which you call Colorado of Texas, was not, as you have represented it, the unauthorized incursion of a private adventurer into the territories of Spain, but an establishment having every character that could sanction the formation of any European colony upon this continent; and the Viceroy of Mexico had no more right to destroy it by a military force than the present

When La Salle left his fort, Crèvecœur, on the 8th of November, 1680, to go back to Canada for supplies, "on the third day (says Tonti) he arrived at the great village of the Illinois, where, after having observed the situation of the country, in the midst of several nations of the Miamies, Kickapoos, Ainoos, Mesconiaws, and sev

thought he ought to build a fort upon a height commanding the whole country, as well to make himself master of all these different tribes as to serve as a retreat and a rampart for our French people." (p. 94.) M. de la Salle, after learning that his boat was "lost, was not in the least discomposed, but wrote to me immediately, sent me with his letter the plan of the fort that he had designed; and ordered me to come and set to work upon it without delay. Tonti accordingly went, and began the building of the fort, which, from various untoward events, he was soon obliged to abandon. La Salle afterwards, before rejoining Tonti to proceed down the river, went to the new fort, and left several workmen to con tinue, and some soldiers to guard it. But it was upon his return from the mouth of the Missis sippi, on leaving Michilimackinae, to go to France, that he gave orders to Tonti to finish the fort.

"He charged me with the duty to go and finish Fort St. Louis, of which he gave me the government, with a full power to dispose of the lands in the neighborhood, and left all his people under my command, with the exception of six French

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