roduce neither grain nor
vegetables.

D'Artaguette, no longer fancying himself in Eden, draws a dismal picture
of the state of the colony. There are, he writes, only ten or twelve
families who cultivate the soil. The inhabitants, naturally lazy, are
ruined by the extravagance of their wives. "It is necessary to send out
girls and laboring-men. I am convinced that we shall easily discover
mines when persons are sent us who understand that business."[303]

The colonists felt no confidence in the future of Louisiana. The King
was its sole support, and if, as was likely enough, he should tire of
it, their case would be deplorable. When Bienville ruled over them, they
had used him as their scapegoat; but that which made the colony languish
was not he, but the vicious system it was his business to enforce. The
royal edicts and arbitrary commands that took the place of law proceeded
from masters thousands of miles away, who knew nothing of the country,
could not understand its needs, and scarcely tried to do so.

In 1711, though the mischievous phantom of gold and silver mines still
haunted the colony, we find it reported that the people were beginning
to work, and were planting tobacco. The King, however, was losing
patience with a dependency that cost him endless expense and trouble,
and brought little or nothing in return,--and this at a time when he had
a costly and disastrous war on his hands, and was in no mood to bear
supernumerary burdens. The plan of giving over a colony to a merchant,
or a company of merchants, was not new. It had been tried in other
French colonies with disastrous effect. Yet it was now tried again.
Louisiana was farmed out for fifteen years to Antoine Crozat, a wealthy
man of business. The countries made over to him extended from the
British colonies on the east to New Mexico on the west, and the Rio del
Norte on the south, including the entire region watered by the
Mississippi, the Missouri, the Ohio, and their tributaries, as far north
as the Illinois. In comparison with this immense domain, which was all
included under the name of Louisiana, the present State so called is but
a small patch on the American map.

To Crozat was granted a monopoly of the trade, wholesale and retail,
domestic and foreign, of all these countries, besides the product of all
mines, after deducting one-fourth reserved for the King. He was
empowered to send one vessel a year to Guinea for a cargo of slaves. The
King w