1803. SPANISH RULERS OF NEW ORLEANS. 19 of Africa; to see a new play at the theatre, attend a masked ball, or go out by the bayou road for a dance at the famous Tivoli Garden and hurry back before the gates were shut and the Alcalde and the Alguazil began their rounds, were the favorite amusements of the day. The Alcalde formed part of a municipal government as strange to an American as the city and its people. Over New Orleans and its dependencies in Spanish days presided a Cabildo, or City Council of six hereditary Regidors; two Alcaldes, a Procureur-General, a Secretary, and the Governor of the Province. Five of the Regidors held offices of great weight. One was known as Alferez Royal, and bore the royal banner; another was Alcalde Mayor Provincial; another, Alguazil Mayor; a fourth, Depository-General; a fifth, Receiver of penas de cámara, or fines for the use of the royal treasury. The Governor presided over the Cabildo, and met it in the City Hall on Friday of each week and on the first day of each new year. At the weekly meetings such business was done as concerned the city and the province. At the newyear meeting the Cabildo chose two Judges or Alcaldes Ordinary, the Procureur-General, and a Mayordome de propres, or manager of rents and city taxes. The Alcaldes were judges of civil and criminal law; never appeared in public without their wands of office; visited the prisons each Friday, examined the prisoners, and set free such debtors as seemed fit subjects of mercy. Each night one of the Alcaldes, with the Alguazil Mayor and the Scrivener, walked the streets of the city to see that the laws were obeyed and that peace and quiet prevailed. Three times each year, on the eves of Christmas, of Easter, and of Pentecost, the Governor went the rounds of the prisons with the Alcaldes, and never failed to set some petty criminals free. The authority of the Alcaldes spread over the city and five leagues around it. At this limit the rule of the Alcalde Mayor Provincial began. Before him came every offender who had done his deed out of the bounds of New Orleans, or the villages; or, having done it in the city or the villages, fled for refuge to the country. And woe to the criminal who, friendless and rankless, came before this Alcalde! For him justice was speedy and sure. If he had reviled the Saviour or the Blessed Virgin, his property was confiscated and his tongue cut out. If he had vilified the King or the Queen, or any member of the Royal Family, half his property was taken and he was well flogged. If he had stolen the sacred vessels from a holy place, or had robbed a traveller on the King's highway, or had murdered a fellow-creature, or assaulted a woman, he was given over to the Alguazil to be put to death with every mark of shame. The property of the ravisher was given to the victim. The murderer was dragged to execution at the tail of a horse. False witnesses were exposed to public shame and banished. Adulterers were given over to the injured husband to do with as he would. But if he put the man to death he must the woman also. Not one of these laws was printed, save in the form of a digest, prepared and proclaimed by the first Spanish Governor, "Cruel O'Reilly." They did not exist even in writing. The Abogado, whose business it was to give legal advice to the Governor, and whom the judges consulted on points of law; the Assessor, who performed a like duty to the Intendant; the judges and the three attorneys knew the laws, but none others. In general, then, the decisions of the courts were such as the judges thought proper, not such as the law prescribed. Of courts, Louisiana may be said to have had five. There was the Governor's court, with civil and military jurisdiction over all the province. There was the Intendant's court, where cases in admiralty and revenue suits were tried. There was the court of the two alcaldes of New Orleans, the tribunal of Alcalde Provincial, and the ecclesiastical tribunal, with jurisdiction over all matters concerning the church. But there were besides these a host of petty magistrates and officers endowed with judicial functions; Alcaldes de barios for the city; syndics and commandants for the country. The Alcaldes de barios were four in number, presided over the four quarters of New Orleans, and tried any case of less than ten dollars' value. The commandants of the posts and districts heard suits involving sums of less than one hundred dollars. The syndics were the busiest of all. They policed the roads, they guarded the levees, and kept a careful watch over coasters, travellers, and negroes. 1803. SPANISH RULERS OF LOUISIANA. 21 No sooner would a ship draw up to the river bank than a syndic, note-book in hand, would be on board. He would demand the captain's passport. He would examine the ship's papers, call off the list of the crew, peep into the hold at the cargo, and note down whence the ship came, how long the captain wanted to stay, and what sort of a cargo he was going to buy. To travellers by land the syndics were intolerable nuisances. Stationed along the roads three leagues apart, they were bidden to stop and question every stranger who passed by. They would read his passport, examine the brand of his horses, see that he had no more and no less than the passport called for, ask his business, and require him to tell them the latest news. If he told them anything which in their opinion the public ought not to know, they made a careful note, and forbade him to mention the subject to a living soul. They were, indeed, the censors of public opinion. They affirmed or denied rumors, explained the acts of government officials, told the people whatever it was proper to know, and kept themselves informed by carefully reading the "Moniteur de la Louisiane." The rulers of the Province of Louisiana were a Governor, a Lieutenant-Governor, who ruled Upper Louisiana; an Intendant, charged with the management of trade and commerce, ships and customs; and in each one of the innumerable districts a Commandant. Under the Intendant were the Contador, who did the work of a modern controller; the Treasurer, who was a mere cashier; the Interventor, who bought all public supplies; the Surveyor-General, the Harbor-master, the Store-keeper, and the Assessor, who gave the Intendant legal advice. The Commandant was a man of military training, and joined half a dozen offices in one. He was a police magistrate, kept the peace of his district, examined travellers, and suffered none to stop in the country without his leave. He was an officer of the customs, and saw to it that no smuggling went on. He was a land commissioner, and certified that every acre petititioned for by the people was vacant before it was granted. He was notary public, and registered the sale of land and slaves. He was a sheriff, and levied executions on property and attended to the sale. When he commanded a garrison of twenty men, he was Deputy-Intendant, and all that concerned trade and commerce came under his control. It was from trade and commerce that the revenue of Louisiana was chiefly derived. Every ship, great or small, paid a pilotage of twenty Spanish milled dollars, of which seven went into the public treasury. All goods imported or exported paid a duty of six per cent. There were taxes on the value of all shipping sold,* taxes on legacies, taxes on salaries paid by the Government, taxes for offices bought, and taxes on licenses to sell liquor.# Many as were the sources of revenue, it was a prosperous year whenever one hundred and twenty thousand dollars came to the treasury coffers. As the expenses of Government were six hundred and fifty thousand dollars, there was each year a heavy deficit. This was made good in part by money sent from La Vera Cruz, and in part by the issue of certificates, which the officers in the department of finance bought up at thirty per centum discount and the King redeemed at par. Such was the province and such the city which, in December, 1803, became the property of the United States. As yet Louisiana had merely been taken possession of. Not an act of Congress, not a revenue law, not a custom-house regulation had been spread over it. There were no courts for the meting out of justice according to the statutes of the United States. There was no officer from whom American sea-letters, registers, and licenses could be had for ships. The need for such laws and papers was pressing and was felt first by the merchant class. Indeed, the new year was hardly in when a petition from the merchants was on its way to Congress. They complained that while owing allegiance to the United States, they were still subject to the laws of Spain; that while nominally enjoying the rights of American citizens, they were paying import and export duties according to the Spanish tariff, * Duty of six per cent. + Legacies given to heirs paid two per cent duty; legacies given to strangers paid four per cent. If greater than three hundred dollars per year. #Forty dollars per year in Lower Louisiana; thirty dollars in Upper Louisiana. 1804. TERRITORY OF ORLEANS. 23 and, for want of sea-letters and coasting registers, were forced to tie their ships to the levee and see them go to ruin and decay. The petition was most timely, for the very day it reached the House of Representatives a bill came down from the Senate giving to Louisiana a government and laws. So much of the purchase as lay south of the Mississippi Territory and south of the thirty-third parallel from the Mississippi river to the western boundary of Louisiana was by the bill cut off and named the Territory of Orleans. On the rest was bestowed the name District of Louisiana. The selection of laws, the execution of laws, the administration of justice in the District of Louisiana, were given in charge to the Governor and judges of the Indiana Territory; but to Orleans was given a territorial government of its own, and over it were spread twenty-two specified acts of Congress. The government, the bill provided, should consist of a Governor, to be appointed by the President for three years; of a Secretary to hold office during four years; of a Legislative Council of thirteen; and of one Superior Court and of such inferior courts and justices as the Council should see fit to create. In the stormy days of the Alien Act nobody had been louder in declaring trial by jury to be the bulwark of civil liberty than Breckenridge, who moved a committee to bring in the Louisiana Bill, and Jefferson and Madison, who are believed to have framed it. Yet these men were now not ashamed to restrict trial by jury to criminal prosecutions and to civil suits in which the sum involved was at least one hundred dollars. With the plan as a whole the House had little fault to find; but those particular sections which restricted trial by jury and defined the powers and manner of choosing the Council aroused a fierce and stubborn opposition. The thirteen councillors were to be appointed by the President, and by the President alone. The Senate was to have no voice in the approval; the people of the Territory were to have no voice in the selection. As the people were to have nothing to say concerning who should sit in the Council, so the Council were to have nothing to say concerning what it should do. It could not fix the time of meeting nor the time of adjournment; there were |