Chapter 48: Progress of Louisiana. That Louisiana extended to the head-spring of the Alleghany, and included the Laurel Ridge, the Great Meadows, and every brook that flowed to the Ohio, was, on the eve of the treaty of Utrecht, expressly asserted in the royal grant of the commerce of the province. Weary of fruitless efforts, in September, 1712, Louis XIV. had assigned the exclusive trade of the unbounded territory to Anthony Crozat, a French merchant, who had prospered in opulence to the astonishment of all the world. La Motte Cadillac, now the royal governor of Louisiana, became his partner; and the merchant proprietary and the founder of Detroit sought fortune by discovering the mines and encroaching on the colonial monopolies of Spain. The latter attempt met with no success whatever. Hardly had the officers of the new administration, in May, 1713, landed at Dauphine Island, when they found that every Spanish harbor in the Gulf of Mexico was closed against the vessels of Crozat. Nor could commercial relation be instituted by land. Even liberty of commerce across the wilderness was sternly refused. From the mines of Louisiana it was still hoped to obtain great quantities of gold and silver. Two pieces of silver ore, left at Kaskaskia by a traveller from Mexico, were exhibited to Cadillac as the produce of a mine in Illinois; and he hurried up the river, to be, in his turn, disappointed, -- finding in Missouri abundance of the purest ore of lead, but neither silver nor gold. History of the Colonization of the United States, 1841
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 05:53:38 +0000
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